Review: Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean

Artwork by: Héctor Pineda

Style: Post-metal, black metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals, uhhh, talking?)
Recommended for fans of: Behemoth, Solstafir, Enslaved, Cult of Luna, Tool
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 25 October 2024

Hailing from Switzerland, Schammasch has been one of the most consistently unique black metal acts of the past decade or so. Their debut album was primarily Behemoth worship, but ever since their sophomore, Contradiction in 2014, they’ve become notorious for their intense, hypnotic approach in which they combine a base black/death-ish metal sound with tom-heavy tribal drumming and varying quantities of post-metal, progressive metal, ambient, and a host of other influences. Their new album The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean is a continuation of their 2017 EP The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite, a thirty minute track split into seven parts in which Schammasch explored dark ambient, post-metal, and tribal drumming to create an otherworldly occult experience. Hermaphrodite is my favorite work of theirs, so the question is can Old Ocean live up to its forebear?.

Hypnotizing charm has certainly not left Schammasch—their intense ritualistic playing style remains as engrossing as ever. B.A.W’s percussion is especially crucial for this: his trademark tom-heavy style is played and mixed both superbly and spaciously: you can feel him move around the kit, each drum, tom, and cymbal possessing  their own coordinates in the mix (reminiscent of Baard Kolstad’s performance and sound on Leprous’ The Congregation). The man utilizes the entire kit, so when he lets loose the effect is akin to a brain massage. He also knows restraint, though, showing both a capacity for ambience with cymbal washes and sparse tom rhythms, as he shows the tact to keep the rhythms simple when the song calls for it. Often I find myself so captivated by his playing I forget the rest of the music—if we did awards for instrumental performances, B.A.W would certainly get my vote for drummer of the year.

But enough about drums, let’s talk songwriting. Like on the previous installment, Old Ocean is primarily a post-metal record, embracing Cult of Luna-esque crescendo structures and including more gentle parts, melodies, and clean singing, while most black metal aspects of Schammasch’ sound have been relegated to textural roles, only really coming to the forefront during the climactic parts, while their death metal leanings only shine through in the darker riff that underpins the crescendo of “Your Waters Are Bitter” and in C.S.R’s harsh vocal style. This approach pays enormous dividends because Schammasch are experts at keeping the listener engaged throughout their elongated buildups, consistently developing the atmosphere in interesting ways before any one idea can grow stale, avoiding the most common pitfall of the genre. In this sense, it helps that Schammasch is not a pure post-metal band and has other sources to pull from.

Take “They Have Found Their Master” and its quiet opening two minutes: under the guidance of a fingerpicked melody the atmosphere is developed first with tribal drums and breathy percussive vocals; after a minor crescendo, they up the anticipation with ethereal blackgaze strumming before the track explodes into their intense trademark style. Similarly, opener “Crystal Waves” manages to enthrall the listener for an even longer stretch with its occult atmosphere before any metal comes in, and the gentle interludes “A Somber Mystery” and “Image of the Infinite” are magical, too. Of course, the heavier moments also demonstrate tremendous craftsmanship. Besides B.A.W’s godly drumming, Schammasch uses a triple guitar attack so that each guitarist can cycle through riff, lead, and atmospheric duties depending on what the song needs, creating a densely layered soundscape at all times in which distinct genres can exist simultaneously—the almost power metal lead melody that drives “I Hail You, Old Ocean” particularly standing out amidst the song’s otherwise extreme metal character. With these elements, Schammasch crafts tremendous crescendos in basically every song, and makes the journey towards them compelling as well.

However, there is one minor criticism I have of Old Ocean, which is about C.S.R’s clean singing. He’s decent at it, but it lags behind the quality of his harsh vocals. Furthermore, some of the melody writing is a bit odd. One of the curious things about Old Ocean is that its lyrics really just read like a philosophical essay with little care for vocal melody or fitting the song’s rhythm. To accommodate this, C.S.R spends a lot of time literally just talking into the mic, sometimes in a normal voice, other times growling his speech. The man’s really good at this whole talking shtick, and it fits seamlessly into the band’s occult atmosphere. However in the sung parts, this odd approach to lyric writing can make the melodies sound a bit clunky. “Crystal Waves” does have good vocal melodies, but on “Image of the Infinite” and during the mid-section of  “They Have Found Their Masters” the melodies sit awkwardly in between singing and talking. On the former track C.S.R’s relatively lacking singing abilities are also especially apparent when Kathrine Shepard (Sylvaine) comes in as a guest singer and completely outperforms him. Fortunately, he doesn’t sing a lot on the record, so it’s only a minor blight.

At the end of the day though, my critiques subtract very little from Old Ocean. Schammasch have once again shown why they are one of the most exciting projects in black metal around, as have they proven to be at the forefront of post-metal innovation, delivering a dark, hypnotic, intense, occult, ritualistic experience that is very easy to get lost in. I do slightly prefer Hermaphrodite still for its consistency, but Old Ocean is a very worthy addition to The Maldoror Chants series, and easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

Recommended tracks: Crystal Waves; I Hail You, Old Ocean
You may also like: Sermon, Antipope, Dark Fortress, Ultha
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Schammasch is:
– C.S.R (vocals, guitars, bass)
– B.A.W (drums)
– M.A (guitars)
– J.B (guitars)
– P.D (bass)