Mala In Se - Mala In Se (2011)

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These past few days I completely melted my brain with various black metal bands and found myself in need of some new stuff completely out of the norm. Plus, I haven't written a release review in quite a long time, so this seemed like a good excuse to get back on track.

"Mala In Se" is a trio hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, presumably formed in 2010. I say presumably, since on some places the year 2010 is found as a release year of this album, while on others you will find the year 2011. In the email I received from "Phratry Records" the spring of this year is mentioned as the official release date, so we'll go along with that. In any case, "mala in se" is a phrase in Latin which means "evil in itself" or "offenses against conscience". Once you take a listen to this album you realize how much the name actually suits the band, since the name implies the existence of multiple layers of something (in this case evil if you take it literally, but we will get to that as well). Namely, the band whips out a completely weird mutation of noise, mathrock /core, psychedelic and quite a few other tidbits as well. The instrumental section and overall style of song composition is absolutely hard to define, since there are a ton of genres, tempos and layers of sound flying around. For example, the intro song named "Time lapse photography of decomposing animals" starts off with spasmic, pounding and rushing drums which are accompanied by extremely distorted and chaotic strings. After a few seconds of smashing into your brain, the aggressiveness calms down, followed with some howling of the strings, only for everything to explode again in the next instance, but this time with a bit of a sludge-like tone. Things shift between this and the rushing drums from the beginning, yet somewhere at the middle of the song we are greeted with a section that reminded me of something that could most likely crawl from a "Meshuggah" song. One other great example is the song "Devil Dung". The intro is an eerie sound made by the guitar, but it is soon broken by some overtly technical playing, later transformed into a fast metal-like beast. Tempo drops drastically moments after and it lasts for a while until everything acquires a post metal/sludge tone. Yet, once all the behemoth smashing is over, the ending is executed in an extremely minimalistic fashion and just trails off. As you can see, there are really multiple layers per song, but everything is tied together with a sort of unifying undertone that keeps it all tight and orderly. Be it a certain instrument, a repetitive vocal performance or something else, there is always one element keeping a specific track from being lost in utter chaos. Tempo and melody changes are almost omnipresent, yet you always feel as though everything is in order and there are no stray tones.
Speaking of vocal performance, they definitely deserve some special credits as well. Both string players contribute with their voices and the cool thing is that even here some contrasts and different layers are present. On one side you have a screaming/yelling vocal, while on the other there is a sort of half whine, half shrieking one. This not only provides the above mentioned contrast, but also the combination is unique and quite interesting, not to mention how chilling it is especially when the vocals are followed by some gruesome riffs. The vocals justify the name of the band as well, since they speak of animal cruelty, environmentalism and similar subjects, the evil I mentioned in the beginning. However, it is here where I have a complaint, though it is not a real complaint per se, and that is the band not posting their lyrics on their bandcamp page (which is found here, by the way). What little notion I managed to grab from their words was kinda tough and seeing as though the lyrics are in theme of the rest of the band, posting them online would definitely make things much more enjoyable. So yeah, not really a flaw, just a minor suggestion, if anyone from the band reads this.
All in all, I am really impressed by "Mala In Se". Not every band can manage to throw at you such a bomb filled with chaos and succeed in taming it. This trio has a specific talent with that and I am honestly looking forward to hearing some future work from them. Until then, definitely check out their self titled release, you won't regret it! Download link is provided by "Phratry Records". Enjoy!