Locrian and Mamiffer – Bless Them That Curse You (Profound Lore / Sige / Utech, 2012)

Locrian and Mamiffer – Bless Them That Curse You
Profound Lore/Sige/Utech 2012

First track, In Fulminic Blaze, begins with some nice deep vocal drones underneath a bed of electronic wash. Then enters some nice acoustic guitar work and some kind of hammered dulcimer? Already off to a very epic and dramatic vibe. Low drum toms enter adding a nice back beat to the strumming guitar, dulcimer, and faint drones in the distance. Everything stops for a bit and then enters some distorted electric guitar drones and drums, focused on the toms but now getting a bit more excited and energetic. The second track, Bless Them That Curse You, opens with some haunting drone, indecipherable whether or not it is electric or acoustic. It gets progressively louder and thicker. Some light but persistent pulses in the drone and some repetitive melody in the distance. Also some distant vocal chants coming in and out. Pretty nice drone piece because there isn’t too much aggression. The third song, Corpus Luteum, begins with some solo piano work doing some epic, haunting repetitive melody joined by that dulcimer (serving mainly as a backing instrument) and maybe some kind of bass. The piano then becomes more sparse, now with an added drone of strings in the background and some lushly struck chords from the dulcimer. The drone gets a bit thicker and slightly distorted, entering the foreground. Fourth track, Second Burial, starts off slow, arhythmic, a bit noisey. Some industrial (not in the sense of the genre, but in the sense of like coming from a warehouse) percussion in the distance and static-y and distorted electronics chaotically enter, but not in an aggressive fashion. Wide palette of sounds entering and leaving in a gradual way, giving a sort of drunken feel for the momentum of the piece. Fifth track, Lechatelierite, begins with some slow piano work, making you feel each note and chord. Very dramatic and serious style. There is also some repetitive sound in the background, but it is muddled and quite indecipherable. The last song, Metis/Amaranthine/The Emperor, begins it’s 19 minutes with some slow piano chords in the same epic fashion as the rest of the record. But this time the piano is accompanied by some lovely female vocals (with lyrics). Very nice languid feeling. Lyrics and piano finish and some electric guitar distortion/noise/feedback enters, being executed quite artfully actually. Sometimes it jumps up to some high pitches and other times it is low and rumbling. The drums return in free form supporting some doom metal male lyrics/vocals over some electronic synth, static drone.



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