Style: avant-garde metal, black metal (mixed vocals, German lyrics)
Review by: Sam
Country: Germany
Release date: October 16th, 2020
Ah, here’s a band from my early Subway days. Before we got a website this blog was a solo endeavor of mine. I was just writing notes on interesting bands I found on metal-archives and posted them to Reddit. For my second post, I came across this band. At the time I didn’t take enough time to let each album sink in properly, and seeing how I ‘reviewed’ 8 albums in 2 weeks, that’s not unnatural. Maladie’s 2018 album Of Harm and Salvation was a very dense experience. Back then I described it as Ne Obliviscaris, but more avant-garde and even more pretentious (the song titles are in Latin ffs). The songwriting felt rather unfocused and bloated, but the sheer scope of the music made up for it. Two years later I still revisit the album (and its predecessor, Still, which is phenomenal) regularly. I even would say that low-key they’ve become one of my favorite bands. So when I saw they had a new one lined up for October, I just had to get out of my reviewing slump.
Unfortunately for me, this album sucks. I really hate to say it. I really wish it was otherwise. But after listening to this album a bunch of times over the past few weeks, I can’t come to any other conclusion than that it just, quite frankly, sucks. In short, this album traded the prog for the avant. They have moved away from the style on their previous albums of meandering, but generally epic and sporadically melodic songwriting (rather like Opeth in a sense). On The Grand Aversion the songs are relatively short, abrasive, and experimental. They have almost completely forsaken the aforementioned epic and melodic sides of their writing. Instead of ethereal black metal harmonies, what we’re treated with is directionless wails of desperation over spasmic blackened tech death riffs and an uncomfortable saxophone that does absolutely nothing to alleviate the ear. And when the music is not at breakneck tempo, they slam you with industrial stylings with mid-tempo riffs and vocals that again do nothing to sound even remotely pleasant.
If you haven’t noticed, I have serious beef with these vocals. Not with their performance mind you, that is excellent as always, with growls sounding properly tortured and desperate and the cleans having a nice distinct tenor. I do have a problem with the vocal lines. These were always rather free-form with this band, but it was never a problem as the songwriting was like that as well. On this album they tried to make their songs more compact, but the vocal lines remained all over the place. It causes this weird disconnect between a band trying to sound focused, and utterly chaotic; and it frustrated me immensely as a listener. I suspect it’s intentional, but that doesn’t mean I should enjoy it.
I’ve been all negative, but there are certainly parts of this record that I enjoy. In particular “Lex et Umbra” is a magnificent track. It starts with a heavy metal-type riff, but it eventually explodes into this beautiful blast beat/piano interplay and ends in this wonderful symphonic finish. Closer “Anastasis” is excellent too, starting with an almost reggae-type off-beat riff with a lounge saxophone in the background that works way better than it should. The finish is also very strong and more reminiscent of their previous two albums. Speaking more generally about the album, the mixing is stunningly good. How they manage each time to juggle so many different instruments and make each of them sound clear as day in such a professional manner is beyond me. Their technical performance is killer as well of course, but that’s to be expected by now given the genre.
Overall, my feelings on this album are mixed. I want to like this more than I do, and perhaps half a year down the line I will hit myself on the head over missing its creative brilliance. But for now, The Grand Aversion feels more like an artistic endeavor to test the band’s creative boundaries than an attempt to write enjoyable music. It’s utterly self-indulgent experimentation as far as I’m concerned. I do recommend you check out the album for its sheer uniqueness and performance, but unless you’re a die-hard avant-garde fan, you’re probably better off investing in their previous two albums instead.
Recommended tracks: Detractatio, Lux et Umbra, Anastasis
Recommended for fans of: Solefald, Igorrr, Between the Buried and Me
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Apostasy Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Maladie is:
– Alexander Wenz (vocals)
– Déhà (keyboards, piano, cello, vocals)
– Hauke Peters (saxophone)
– Mark Walther (guitars)
– Björn Köppler (guitars, percussion, keyboards, piano, cello)
– Kevin Olasz (guitars)
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