Muertrier – Messe de Fer (Cemeterial Heavy Metal)
Initially, there was something about Canada’s Meurtrier, or at least their debut full-length, Messe de Fer, that wasn’t sitting right with me. But this seeming lack of somethingrather was actually just that I wasn’t in the mood for it. Not because I shouldn’t have been, but rather because of what I had been listening to as of late. After a slaughtering from some sick death metal, among other things, in the week prior, I simply wasn’t yet mentally prepared for spooky sounds I associate with darker times of the year. So if you’re looking to conjure ancestor spirits at the end of fall or summon the restless dead for the coming winter solstice with some heavy metal, well, give in to the blade, just like the girl on the cover.
Once I got out of that bloodthirstry mode and settled into the spectral, medieval cemetery lore that Muertrier was inscribing upon moldy tomes I realized fully what they’re doing. To be fair, the heavy metal approach here is rather 1980s and classic, yet there’s a particular modern eeriness to the band’s mien that evokes all the finer details of the supernatural; vacant, cobwebbed vaults, candlelit virginal sacrifices, hooded zealots kept alive through arcane means, yeah that’s the shit! Meurtrier also have an impressive sense of how to develop melodies beyond mere refrain-to-chorus transitions. Even after more than six minutes of laying it out in one track, for example, they’ll still surprise, and this is just one detail of Messe de Fer that deserves your heed.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Meurtrier – Messe de Fer
Jawbreaker Records
Cover Art: Unknown
4.3 / 5
