Medico Peste : "the Black Bile"

All too often we talk about orthodox black metal. As if the ritual of it is going to wildly spin the wheel of  status quo. We need to think about unorthodox black metal. Wild wolves not afraid to break the rules like this band. When you hear what this Polish band is churning out here the first though is .. This different. There is a great deal of space to the opening track, though they do not compromise much in terms of aggression. I think this helps them sound different than every other blackened death metal band. "All Too Human" stars off more straight forward metal chug, before spacing out into very sinister and dark atmosphere. Sometimes the more declarative vocal sounds more black metal along with the tremolo picked guitar. In truth they are like a darker less mainstream version of Behemoth. "Numinous Catastroph " is chaos. It is ruled by icy dissonance.

Things really go down a deeper chasm of oddity on " Were Saviors Believers? ". The angular staccato groove gives the song a new found sense of dynamics as the vocals take on a more demonically tortured croak. Midway into the album I am not sure if they are black metal or not. I prefer that over the same old blast beats again. "Skin" throws them somewhere between Deathspell Omega and Ulcerate. The drummer is more influenced by jazz than early Darkthrone.  The song itself gets a little murky despite the excellent drumming. They get more melodic on "Holy Opium" but in the creepiest way possible. The vocals  come close to singing in the same way the vocals to Entombed do at times.

The album closes with the title track. Things stay in the same black depths they have for the entirety of the album. The drums and guitar lock into a more hypnotic pattern, though it churns down a path that stays within the dynamic realms of similar waters. There are few explosive bursts, that are more jarring. The build is both melancholy as well as sonically heavier. They excel at keeping tasteful balances in what is otherwise a very abstract approach to songwriting. I will give this album a 9, it outs them solidly on the map for me, if you are into black metal that takes chances give this album a shot.

Black Metal History Month -Medico Peste : "Herzogian Darkness"

Yesss... this is what I am fucking talking about, black metal so dark and dissonant that you can taste the motherfucking evil dripping off of it, yet it has balls and power to it. This band from Poland doesn't over do it with the blast beats, but their drummer is a god damn animalistic machine capable of putting a beating on your when they feel like it. I think the key here is they know how to maintain a healthy balance with all of these varied elements we have come to know as being components of black metal over the past decade. Not to say that this is not from the Mayhem school of thought. It is. There are also other influences at play, while the Bauhaus cover is going to come until the end, there is still a little but of darker punk behind the wheel of "Hallucinating Warmth and Bliss". The title alone sounds like something I experienced back in my drug days. If you thought you recognized a snarl back on the first song, you might have since it was Mark of the Devil from Cultes Des Ghoules lending his voice , which gives you idea of the company they are keeping which puts them in a bizarre zip code of their own, so even when the blast beats do come they are touched by surreal weirdness. There is less form and more chaos to the beginning of the the slower paced "Le Delire De Negation". The drummer do a pitter patter march around the slink of the guitar as the vocals descend into madness. It creates a great mood, but compared to the first two songs isn't as strong of a composition. They tackle "Stigmata Martyr" by Bauhaus. It has more attack.And to some it might seem like blasphemy to say perhaps to much as it obscures the main theme of the song. So overall the first half of this ep is stronger, with the first song really grabbing my attention and raising the bar, look forward to hearing a full length from these guys I'll give this a 9.