By:
Ernesto Aguilar
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 2/05/2017
Label: Saka Čost| GPS Prod|
Troffea
Records Third-I-Rex |
Grains
of Sand Records
While
firmly a doom metal group, Mudbath is not afraid to introduce different
elements. With a shrieking vocal approach reminiscent of black metal and
flourishes you might otherwise associate with drone, Mudbath manages to make it
work.
“Brine Pool” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1.
Burn Brighter
2.
End Up Cold
3.
Seventh Circle
4.
Zone Theory
5.
Rejuvenate
6.
Fire
The Review:
France’s Mudbath is, likely for most listeners, going to be on the
positive end.
Now on their
third release, the foursome debuted in 2012 with an EP, followed by a 2015
full-length recording and now "Brine
Pool," their 2017 presentation. While firmly a doom metal group, Mudbath is not afraid to introduce different elements. With
a shrieking vocal approach reminiscent of black metal and flourishes you might
otherwise associate with drone, Mudbath manages to make
it work.
"Brine
Pool"
packs the most punch on songs like "Seventh
Circle," a reference to Dante’s
“Inferno”. There, Dante and Virgil
discover the place in Hell intended to punish the violent, from the war-makers
to the suicides to the blasphemers and the sodomites. Literary scholars have
for decades plumbed the Inferno’s imagery, including its host of gruesome
penalties in the Seventh Circle of Hell. It is fitting that this cut is at
right about the release’s middle, because it feels like a climax of the despair
and foreboding you hear from start to finish. You can almost feel as if the
vocals came straight from pools of boiling blood Dante once imagined, or from
Pholus, among the Seventh Circle’s patrolling centaurs, himself.
Whereas
"Red Desert Orgy," their
first release, had at many moments a slower, more raw build, and their "Corrado Zeller" sophomore had
implications of dirge, Mudbath’s latest
recording finds an intriguing merger of its past and present. The blues
influences you might have heard from the band before remain strong on songs
like "Fire" and elsewhere.
The opening cut "End Up Cold"
also launches with that bluesy seethe. Its crescendo, though, suggests a new
maturity. The vocals by Mika, Flo and Luke jump out at you methodically. The bass and electronic touches
added by Marco enhance the feeling
of dread.
Although the
songs still contain the rawness of old, there is an evolution afoot for Mudbath. Maybe the group, which had lineup changes in 2013,
is just more comfortable in its own skin (insert death metal joke here). Or
maybe it’s simply the camaraderie that suddenly blossoms in a new way after
many live shows and studio time together. Whatever it is, "Brine Pool" marks an invigorating
chapter for the French quartet. One has to be fascinated to see what comes
next.
