Que la mort vous emporte

Bedroom black metal is at its best when it's really unapologetic and lacking timidity, which is why 'Que La Mort Vous Emporte' is one of the best examples of properly executed bedroom black metal in recent memory. Okay, two thirds of it is; two of the tracks ('Défiance' and 'Quand Le Meurtre Devient Nécessaire') are retarded with overly raw production, sounding much more like the later material from Malveillance than the rest of the stuff on this CD, so they're not only woefully out of place but just poorly written. It would have been better with just the four excellent tracks; fortunately that's what skip buttons are for and the quality of the good ones actually manages to overwhelm those dual stains. All the musical description in the following text is about those; just pretend the other two tracks don't exist.

It's all about the guitars on this album, which have that really oversaturated post-Burzum tone that everyone's familiar with from years of suicidal black metal. It works well with the vaguely depressive, textured riffing style that Malveillance cultivates. Most bedroom black metal bands sound more like each other than the bands they're supposed to be worshiping, which makes it refreshing that Malveillance seems to stick somewhat closely to the Darkthrone/Burzum sound with just a touch of modern suicidal flair. The riffs are a measure more deep than your usual black metal riffing, and they remind me a lot of 'Transilvanian Hunger' in structure; melodies aren't created through totally binary tremolo picking but through changing chord shapes and giving the sound some texture and variation. It reminds me a bit of Nargaroth in parts because of that, and some of the more epic moments actually bring Bathory to mind as well. You could comment on the drums, but they're really just there; not sure if they're a machine or not. Same with the vocals: capably executed but generally unremarkable, just there to add a bit more personality.

It's not deep music but I like it a lot. Your enjoyment is generally going to be based on how much you'll like listening to F explore every corner of these painstakingly crafted riffs through a lot of repetition. It kind of reminds me of Godflesh in that way; there's only a handful of musical elements on each song, but they're very carefully made for a reason and you're supposed to sort of mentally dissect them and appreciate the slight changes of every repetition due to it being a human playing them. That makes it sound more difficult than it is, though, since it's not black metal that takes effort to like. It's actually weirdly accessible since the emphasis is all on these simple and openly melodic riffs which seem pretty rooted in traditional heavy or folk-driven styles, so it's not like this is really esoteric stuff. It just happens to have a real rough production job and a song about loving Hitler. It's pretty cool and while I wouldn't say to track it down at all costs, it's good for your general black metal fan.