Review: Melencolia Estatica – Hel
Review: Melencolia Estatica – Hel
Dec 20Melencolia Estatica – Hel
Hel is the third effort put forth by Melencolia Estatica, the dark and brooding spawn of mastermind Climaxia, one of the foremost women in black metal today. On the album, she handles the duties of guitar, bass, and vocal direction, steering the path for a grand yet sombre album steeped in both bleakness and viciousness. The album is a concept piece, based off of Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 expressionist film Metropolis, and given the surrealist moodscapes of either work, you could easily join them for a single experience. After all, the movie was a silent picture, so adding some atmospheric black metal to the background as orchestration works quite well.
Being a concept piece, the album as a whole flows more like a long single construct, rather than focus on conventional single tracks. This said, the affair is broken up into six parts (Hel I-VI), each haunting their own little corner of the album. The overall sound is a mix of bleak yet melodic atmospheric wonderings with soft ghost-like clean vocals, and fierce passages of blistering black metal infused heaviness. The blend is engaging, and really gives the album a nice flow if you were giving it the full listen. The sedated moments are creepy and alluring, and the evenly spread mix of lulling guitars, haunting vocals, and soft choral keys make for well textured pieces of mood music. When you come upon the harsh parts, they are fiery and vicious, topped with some fairly impressive growls and screams that sound downright baleful. The production sounds clean and modern when it needs to be but also lets the songs sound gritty when it’s called for, and for both the sake of the album’s mood and for a more traditional black metal sound, the mix is coated with a lush, airy reverb to good effect.
Because of the album’s nature, you won’t find much for single tracks that really pop out as stand alone songs. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing piece that needs the sit down listen, and while that may endear it a little more to this reviewer, just know that it may not necessarily be the sort of thing you throw on your iPod for your shuffle mix. Also, while the songs, or ‘parts’ all sound good and feature the full range of the album’s soundscape, there’s not a great deal that makes them very unique from one another, and at some points the smooth sense of flow gained from the arrangements comes dangerously close to turning into a blur of ethereal haunts and black metal bites. However, in the end it remains engaging enough to be worth the time investment. The one thing that the effort does to best effect is the deeply dour mood it covers the listener with. It really is an eerie record with many moments that are just as creepy as they are dismal and dreary.
With a contrasting yet cerebrally complementing mix of musical toolsets, both of which efficiently paint a bleak portrait of cold hollowness, and a good overall sound this album is an easy recommendation. And while no single part really stands out on its own, it all rounds out to a worthwhile experience in the end. If you’ve got the mood, and the time, sit down with a drink, preferably something dark and strong, put the album on and enjoy the journey.
7/10
Being a concept piece, the album as a whole flows more like a long single construct, rather than focus on conventional single tracks. This said, the affair is broken up into six parts (Hel I-VI), each haunting their own little corner of the album. The overall sound is a mix of bleak yet melodic atmospheric wonderings with soft ghost-like clean vocals, and fierce passages of blistering black metal infused heaviness. The blend is engaging, and really gives the album a nice flow if you were giving it the full listen. The sedated moments are creepy and alluring, and the evenly spread mix of lulling guitars, haunting vocals, and soft choral keys make for well textured pieces of mood music. When you come upon the harsh parts, they are fiery and vicious, topped with some fairly impressive growls and screams that sound downright baleful. The production sounds clean and modern when it needs to be but also lets the songs sound gritty when it’s called for, and for both the sake of the album’s mood and for a more traditional black metal sound, the mix is coated with a lush, airy reverb to good effect.
Because of the album’s nature, you won’t find much for single tracks that really pop out as stand alone songs. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing piece that needs the sit down listen, and while that may endear it a little more to this reviewer, just know that it may not necessarily be the sort of thing you throw on your iPod for your shuffle mix. Also, while the songs, or ‘parts’ all sound good and feature the full range of the album’s soundscape, there’s not a great deal that makes them very unique from one another, and at some points the smooth sense of flow gained from the arrangements comes dangerously close to turning into a blur of ethereal haunts and black metal bites. However, in the end it remains engaging enough to be worth the time investment. The one thing that the effort does to best effect is the deeply dour mood it covers the listener with. It really is an eerie record with many moments that are just as creepy as they are dismal and dreary.
With a contrasting yet cerebrally complementing mix of musical toolsets, both of which efficiently paint a bleak portrait of cold hollowness, and a good overall sound this album is an easy recommendation. And while no single part really stands out on its own, it all rounds out to a worthwhile experience in the end. If you’ve got the mood, and the time, sit down with a drink, preferably something dark and strong, put the album on and enjoy the journey.
7/10
