|
Most
bands hailing from exotic countries with a vast history claim to
be influenced by their land’s past, but truth be told in most
instances that does not amount to much beyond a squalid argument
and music that does not back such unsubstained claims. So right
off the bat I was a bit suspicious, after all I heard a great
deal about Melechesh and about how the fact that they hail from
Israel had had so much influence in their death metal. ‘Death
metal is death metal’ I reasoned. I may be a man of little
faith but checking as much music as I check makes you a skeptic
and sometimes even a cynic. So yeah, I wasn’t expecting their
ethnicity to have seeped in as much as it has. Now, just to be
frank, I am not all that familiar with traditional Israeli
music, so I am not all that sure as to how their vibes might
have influenced this combo; I mean does the influence comes in
the melodies? Or is the power of their past audible in any other
way?
Well,
judging by Emissaries all that mumbo jumbo about their
exotic vibes is clearly present in the music itself, and by that
I mean mainly on the guitars which fastly draw exotic circles in
the sand. Let’s get clear with this; we are talking Mesopotamian
mysticism, a cosmic connection and Summerian spells. Yes,
sounds cool as fuck. Not only in writing (I just stole that last
line from the promo) but in sound, Melechesh bases the
responsibility of the music in the guitars; which brilliantly
transfix prophecies of doom, chapters of disaster, books of
revelations, tragic encounters and nights of crazy backgammon.
Or something like that. Elsewhere vocalist Ashmedi does his
best with a grandfatherly approach that is anything but lazy or
tired. Was I a believer of anything I’d wonder how’d someone
this old managed to spew such raging lines. The rest of the
band doesn’t so much lag behind; the tunes are usually long
usually extending over the five-minute mark and their
performance sounds not only like a test of skills but one of
endurance.
Melechesh
was formed in Jerusalem in 1993. After a few releases and
several line-up changes (at a point Melechesh featured Absu’s
drummer Proscriptor) they seem to have finally reached their
goals. Emissaries is one of those rare death metal
albums that not only stands out because of its peculiar sound,
but because of how solid this material is. The word ‘pretty’
isn’t usually thrown around when writing about death metal, but
it came up to me several times throughout the listening of this
record.
Official Site
|
|
