Melechesh - The Epigenesis (2010)^{Release ID: 3904}

This has been my first time listening to a full length by Melechesh, with the band having only ever managed to previously float on the periphery of my black metal listening taste. You see, I have never really been possessed by the urge to explore Melechesh in depth and off the basis of this record I doubt that this will change very much moving forwards. Despite some early promise on The Epigenesis it falls some way short for me in being a complete experience. Which seems like an odd statement given just how much is going on during the hour and eleven-minutes duration of the record. Somehow though, it just doesn’t all fit together for me.

I am not surprised to hear the musical influences on the record. The band bill themselves as Sumerian/Mesopotamian themed extreme metal and this certainly shows on this album. Those black metal roots are obvious underneath all the middle eastern sounds and the potency of technical death metal and the swarming sounds of progressive metal each get turns to take the steering wheel at times during the album also. For the first five tracks of the album, I don’t really have much of a problem. Tracks like ‘Grand Gathas of Baal Sin’ are absolute romps, full of pace and energy. Regrettably though, this is an album of two halves, and the second half is a very lost sounding and directionless affair to my ears.

The middle eastern influences just seem to take over after the instrumental track, ‘When Halos of Candles Collide’ and the tracks seem to lose a large portion of their metal credentials along the way and my attention starts to fade, badly. Whereas the non-metal instruments seem to blend relatively well with the more standard fare for the first part of the record, they seem to almost take over the longer the record goes on for. Add to this there is a definite accessible edge to tracks such as ‘Sacred Geometry’ which has a really irritating chorus section, which is not how I like my black metal I am afraid. Fair play to them for trying and I can see this works for other members, based on comments on the site already. However, this is a bit of a bugger’s muddle to me overall.

Melechesh is a Hebrew/Aramaic word meaning King of Fire and the band began in Jerusalem in 1993 as a solo project of Ashmedi before expanding to a three-piece in 1994. The band's black metal is based on Assyrian occult themes and caused them much grief with the authorities in Israel where they were accused of "dark cult activities", ultimately leading to them relocating to Europe in 1998.

The Epigenesis is the band's fifth full-length album and was originally released in 2010. Its eleven tracks weigh in at a whopping 71 minutes, but I never really noticed the album's length (always a good sign) due to the high quality of the music on offer. I would hesitate to call this folk metal as only a couple of tracks feature traditional instruments heavily, but the black metal on offer here most definitely has rhythms and patterns more commonly associated with traditional Middle Eastern music. The majority of the album comprises medium-paced, melodic black metal, incorporating influences from progressive and technical death metal with those traditional rhythms helping to evoke an effective and vivid atmosphere - you can almost smell the hookah smoke as you approach one of the regions dusty and ancient monuments to people and deities long forgotten, invoking images similar to those of Max von Sydow in Iraq at the beginning of The Exorcist. There is an epicness on display here that speaks of the esoteric history of the lands of the band's beginnings and the long-forgotten occult origins that have since been replaced by more modern monotheistic religions.

The album kicks off with a killer one-two punch, the memorable black metal riffing of Ghouls of Nineveh then the thrashiness of Grand Gathas of Baal Sin with it's war-chant ending make for a top-notch start. Sacred Geometry takes up the torch and runs with it, pulling in influences from tech-death to add to the arabic rhythms of the track's black metal root. The Magickan and the Drones is one of the most savage-sounding tracks on the album, it's riff has an edge that could dismember the listener if they are caught unaware and Mystics of the Pillar is an epic monster with a slower pacing and a heavier arabic-folk influence, particularly in it's middle section. At this point the first of a couple of traditional-sounding arabic folk tracks is encountered, serving as a respite from the unrelenting heaviness of the album's first half an hour or so, this gives the listener chance to breathe and take in the atmosphere. Defeating the Giants is the album's shortest track and with a thrashing chug added to it's black metal savagery it buzzes round your head like a swarm of locusts. Now where most black metal album's would be thinking of calling it a day at this point The Epigenesis ups it's game and the final four tracks are possibly the album's best. Two guts and blood crackers in Illumination: The Face of Shamash and Negative Theology are followed by the second arabic folk track, A Greater Chain of Being, that perfectly sets up the epic, twelve-minute eponymous closer.

It must be said, the production on this is fantastic, every track and instrument is crystal clear so that the production process doesn't get in the way of the music's impact. Interestingly, the album was recorded in Istanbul and Ashmedi admits to recording the vocal tracks naked at night because "I wanted to feel as primal as possible to fairly represent the vocals."

Melechesh are most definitely one of my favourite melodic black metal bands, their songwriting and mucisianship are superb and they certainly refuse to tread the same old furrows as some of their contemporaries. I love all the band's albums, but this is definitely my favourite, it's incorporation of other musical elements and an overall more technical and progressive feel are a departure from their earlier sound and feel like a band growing and stretching themselves whilst losing none of their bite. To produce an album that is at once savage, primal, complex and atmospheric is one hell of an achievement and I for one can't get enough.