I have been waiting a long time for this release since Amenra signed for Neurot Recordings in July 2011 and finally I am able to listen to the first result of this new partnership. Neurot are best known as the label that releases Neurosis and Ufomammut and Amenra fits perfectly in this great company of doom/sludge metal bands.
‘Mass V’ is Amenra’s best-produced album to date. Last November guitarists Mathieu Vandekerckhove and Lennart Bossu, bassist Levy Seynaeve, drummer Bjorn Lebon and vocalist Colin H. van Eeckhout searched for the perfect place to record their latest album and they found this perfect place in the village of Wissant in the North of France. Surrounded by the old battlegrounds of World War II the band found the inspiration it needed to create ‘Mass V’, which was recorded in the expansive La Chapelle Studio, assisted by engineer Billy Anderson (known from working with Eyehategod, Neurosis, Melvins, Sleep, and Swans, amongst others). And they created a true masterpiece.
The first track ‘Dearborn And Buried’ is a blast of an opener, with a slow starting guitar intro for around a minute, before Van Eeckhout’s characteristic ear-penetrating screaming vocals kick in accompanied by heavy guitars and slow drums, which instantly draw you into this track and won’t let you go again for the next 8 minutes. Midway through the track it feels like it wants to speed up a bit, with some more dreamy vocals, but it quickly throws you back into heavy screaming doom, before it leaves you with a long outro slowing things even more down, ending in lone feedbacking guitar sounds.
The next track ‘Boden’ is another track of nearly 10 minutes, opening with a 2,5 minutes long atmospheric intro using some sublime and almost mesmerizing spooky repetitive sound effects while the guitars build up very, very slowly, even introducing a tiny bit of melody along the way. This is followed by another bombastic climax where everything opens up full volume, blowing you completely away again. Van Eeckhout screams and gnarls as if his life is about to end, yet at around the 5 minutes mark the song takes an unexpected turn-around where everything drops eerily quiet and the vocals take a more spoken-word approach. It adds so much emotion and darkness to the deep heavy Amenra sound, and this is followed by another amazing climax towards the end of the track.
Third track ‘A Mon Ame’ is truly mind-blowing and probably my favorite track of the album. This song is the longest track on ‘Mass V’, but it is beautifully slow and perfectly arranged. Another long intro of around 4 minutes is this time not followed by an extreme climatic opening of the track, but instead continues to follow on a slightly bigger build up with again some dreamy vocals and rhythmic drumming, to then a couple of minutes later completely explode with those high pitched screaming vocals, which create so much emotion. Some very heavy riffing and drumming filled with the use of some heavy cymbals help this track to fully come alive at this point. At the start of the second half of ‘A Mon Ame’ everything then all of a sudden slows completely down, with whispering quiet vocals and the occasional drum beat and slow playing bass and guitar. Amenra demonstrates nicely why they are the masters of doom and climatic build-ups as we’re treated to yet another explosion of emotions and heaviness combined with as much melody as I can imagine in a doom band.
Final track ‘Nowena I 9.10’ starts with near acoustic guitar and the clearest vocals I’ve yet heard by Van Eeckhout. It’s absolutely beautiful and it gives a real touch of sensitivity and emotion over the next 2 minutes. The song takes a few seconds of complete silence to then burst open with some of the biggest sludge riffs on the album. This track feels very angry, exemplified by the second set of screaming vocals from non other than Scott Kelly of Neurosis himself coming in mid-way through the song throwing even more emotion in the mix, giving this track a big Neurosis-like feeling. The song ends on a slow repetitive sludging riff with some nicely touching guitar elements highlighting this part of the song for me and making it a very fitting ending of the album.
As far as debut releases on big labels go Amenra managed to fulfill all expectations by creating one of the darkest and most atmospheric doom metal albums ever written, and I congratulate Amenra with this achievement. ‘Mass V’ will no doubt introduce more people throughout the world to this great band and will create many more fans of the Church of Ra.
Release: 26 November 2012 on Neurot Recordings.
Posted by Sander van den Driesche.
