“Rageful, passionate, and crushingly somber, it sways along with halting grace, like broken branches in the breeze.”

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Release Date: September 30, 2017

Lineup: Lykos- guitar, bass, vocals; Katsantonis- drums; Satanist- vocals and lyrics on No Sense in Self Worth; Bloodfuck- lyrics on Conqueror; Profanator- lyrics on Woods of Isolation; Architeuthis- guitar on Proud Flesh.

Label: Suicide Commander Productions

Similar to: Panopticon, early Agalloch, Hellhammer.

New England is where I was born and raised. There is a certain vibe that runs through the air there. Maybe it’s the smell of the mountain foliage in the fall, or the rime frost coming off of the ocean along the coast, or the minty bite of the chill air on a clear Winter’s night. Perhaps it’s the history of the region and the weight of the ages upon the land. Whatever it is, it makes fertile ground for some of the most intense music to be found anywhere on the planet.

Malacath is a mostly one-man project, and a prolific one at that with six releases since 2013. The mind behind Malacath, Lykos, has been around in a few other New England black metal bands like Angel Morgue and Sassu Wunnu, but Malacath seems to be where his comfort zone lies. Although, if you listen to Malacath, ‘comfort zone’ is not the best choice of words. On No Sense in Self Worth, as with the previous five releases, the music is profoundly uncomfortable. The acoustic passages, often set against falling, steady rain, evoke a quiet and ponderous mood. When the music gets loud, it sounds like something that could have been beautiful once. There are melodies and even some harmonies but they’re smothered under walls of reverb-soaked guitars and tortured screaming.

While there are your requisite amount of blast beats, there’s also a lot of d-beat which gives it a very crust punk meets Hellhammer flair. The rhythm is primal and raw and you can’t help but to feel it. Even when the beat is slow and the music is crushingly somber, it sways along with halting grace, like broken branches in a breeze.

I’ll be the first to say that black metal is not a genre I am intimately familiar with so I really don’t know the best way to say, hey, check this out. I can only say that despite my unfamiliarity, this really spoke to me. It made me feel so much. You can’t ask more from music than that. I highly recommend this.

8.5 out of 10 avocados, definitely give this a listen. To support Malacath, go to their Bandcamp page, and follow them on Facebook and  find more of their music on YouTube.

Tracklist:

1. At the Ending of the Clock
2. No Sense in SelfWorth
3. Conqueror
4. Woods of Isolation
5. Yearning
6. Proud Flesh