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Black metal, in spite of its relatively dark and foreboding sound, doesn’t really explore horror and supernatural subjects within its lyrics. With the exception of stand out acts such as KING DIAMOND, CARACH ANGREN and last year’s outstanding The Knocking by DOLDRUM, very few bands even embrace horror in their music, and even fewer utilise it effectively when they do, so finding a band that incorporates these themes, and does it well, is quite hard. BAD MANOR are one of those rare exceptions, with their debut album The Haunting, which initially came out on Halloween last year and is now being released on vinyl via Labyrinth Tower, being a stunningly engrossing and powerful blend of black metal and horror that showcases this mysterious US quintet as brilliant storytellers as well as great musicians.
The Room With Six Hundred And Sixty-Six Eyes starts proceedings on a suitably dramatic note, with huge, gothic keyboards setting a grandiose tone for what’s to come. It soon lurches into a raw and opaque piece of black metal that manages to capture some of the off-kilter melodic touches that are present within the keyboards. The bulk of the track is decidedly more chaotic, with a feral, tortured shriek of a vocal lending a sense of urgency that is matched perfectly by the frenetic patter of the drums and gnawing guitar lines, interspersed with ghoulish, domineering pomp and bombast that helps to inject some character into the mix and significantly elevates the track as a whole in the process.
The Study, Filled With Books leans more prominently into the band’s more cacophonous elements, with jarring hooks, energetic rhythmic bursts from the drums and demented vocals all contributing to the fiercer and more discordant feel. The disjointed keyboards again loom large in the overall sound, but are more reserved than before, allowing the monstrous undercurrent of the rest of the music come to the fore. Through The Garden, To The Graves applies far leaner and more angular guitars to the rabid whirlwind of intensity that defines this song, with only the excellent visceral vocals and cavernous, cinematic keyboards allowing for any break in this thoroughly unhinged and bellicose offering. It captures the effect of the album’s opener without being anywhere near and vast and ponderous.
An Incident In The Nursery At The Witching Hour, the album’s shortest and most measured song by far, drags the pace to a relative crawl, a change that ultimately allows the subtler components at play in this band’s music to rise to the surface, and is far more impressive as a result. It’s low-fi, gothic black metal at its best, with chunky bass hooks and haunting keyboard passages and weightier guitars, along with clearer, spoken word vocals that deliver on much of the drama and potential that this album and its concept promises.
Similarly, Hallowed Ground manages, through opting for a slower tempo and a more ominous build, to craft a magnificently bleak and eerie feel that makes it far more immersive and captivating. It couples booming drums and equally sonorous bass along with the ever present keyboards, huge, authoritative guitars and another stand out performance from the vocals, which carve through the denser qualities of the music like a rusty blade, counterpointing the heavier parts with acerbic howls and deranged, enthralling moments that are very hard not to be drawn in by. It’s a fantastic conclusion to the album and its macabre narrative.
Lyrically, this album is brilliant, and indeed the way the vocals are delivered is one of the most impressive parts of this record. This isn’t to say that the music that backs up these vocals is poorly done, although some of the faster and more chaotic moments on this album, and particularly the second and third tracks, didn’t lend themselves too well to the dramatic and eerie subject matter, and the rawer production meant that some subtler elements in the music will undoubtedly be buried in the mix. This is, nonetheless, an excellent debut album, and with only a few minor tweaks, notably either sticking to a reduced pace or opting for a slightly more polished sound, whatever BAD MANOR comes up with next is sure to be something truly spectacular.
Rating: 8/10
The Haunting is out now via Labyrinth Tower.
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The post ALBUM REVIEW: The Haunting – Bad Manor appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
