I started using medical marijuana to help enhance my battle with anxiety, and for the most part, it’s been a rousing success. The only exception is my sleep which has gotten deeper and more restful but also robbed me of remembering a lot of my dreams. I still have them and retain when I just emerge from unconsciousness. It lasts fleeting seconds and fades.
Swiss power Rorcal, who I hilariously learned about years ago due to a shipping accident, return with “Mahre,” their seventh album overall and a concept piece surrounding dreams. Only the dreams are not your typical type of story your brain tells you at night. It’s a virus that can spread among others and threatens our sense of reality. The band—vocalist Yonni Chapatte, guitarist Diogo Almeida, guitarist/samplist Jean-Philippe Schopfer, bassist Jeremy Spagnolo, drummer/samplist Ron Lahyani—pours black metal and doom soot into a punishing, smothering collection that’s awash in psychological torment and your mind.
“Movement 1” starts with an extended strange feed that gives off industrial exhaust, pounding and drubbing, eating at your psyche. Sounds scorch as the first roars land about 7:40 into the track, lighting things on fire. The playing is driving and beastly, brutalizing as it crushes slowly, blistering and repeating, continuing to drill into psyches as smoke billows. “Movement 2” echoes as the howls retch, reverberating as guitars dizzy and sounds storm. Pressure builds and crushes, the guitar melodies feel dark and mournful, and screams belt, savagery slicing and pummeling, sounds ringing out.
“Movement 3” disorients before the track comes unglued, the screams ripping, leads warping, the fury bristling, drums leaving welts. The playing smashes, the pace jars, and weighty power levels you, destroying and staggering into flames. Steam rises as minds are baked, screams jab, and the fire begins to consume “Movement 4” explodes, the leads scorch, and howls scathe, penetrating your mind, maniacal rage torching. Sounds hang as sludgy brutality flows, monstrous vocals bruise, and jaws lock, blurring into closer “Movement 5.” The cut brings mechanized fury, the screams corrode, and a monstrous push takes you down. Keys glimmer as growls retch, the moodiness thickens, and the drama pierces, sootiness and atmosphere merging, a doomy sprawl ending in a buzz.
“Mahre” continues metal’s exploration into dreams and a drive to interpret our nighttime messages and what it would mean if they could impact others. Rorcal’s use of repetition, heavy shadows, and infernal sounds puts a little bit of fear into the equation and forces you to face those possibilities. This is another inventive and explosive record from this band that finds new ways to add to their heaviness and inventiveness.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.rorcal.com/
To buy the album, go here: https://hummus-records.myshopify.com/
For more on the label, go here: https://humus-records.com/
