Beats and yelling: Condemner

Male Patratis Sunt Atra Theatra Parata
Out 28^th June, self-released

Condemner take a sledgehammer to the already crumbling edifice of death metal, smashing the lavish facades and elaborate archways, vestiges of a genre that has strayed far from the path of lucidity, relevance(?). Selecting only the most essential foundational stones from the rubble, the project of building anew can begin. ‘Male Patratis Sunt Atra Theatra Parata’ is the process of forgetting, of stripping away redundant appendages, needlessly labyrinthine technique, well meaning but ultimately futile intellectualism, until nothing remains but a linear, logical progression of an idea through several rudimentary developments. Whilst comparisons to Profanatica are not unwarranted, Condemner are laborious in their desire to unpack and develop themes ad absurdum. I’d hesitate to call the process enjoyable, but the obsessive in me admires the thoroughness.

Aside from the primal black metal colouring to this music, Incantation lurks as a clear influence across these lengthy pieces, bringing a much needed focus and clarity of purpose to John McEntee’s latterly oblique riffing language. The result is essentially a form of drone death metal. Even riffs constructed from faster melodic passages are repeated or dwelt upon well past what a death metal audience is accustomed to, with only the most minor variations offered for comfort. Percussive punches interject chromatic tension, pushing the music forward to a point of contrast before lapsing back into a recklessly monomaniacal procession of death metal ephemera placed on the rack and expanded until each cell and membrane loses coherence.

The most basic ideas are stretched to comedic extents. Suggestions follow logically from one another. But each element is elongated so far beyond what is reasonable that they seem to take on an absurdist life of their own, wresting the structure from any clear forward momentum, only to be interrupted by the next major theme as it is clearly and precisely unpacked from the preceding material.

Ironically, the addition of a real drummer somehow enhances the undulating mechanisations. Where the previous effort ‘Burning the Decadent’ elaborated on lengthy yet spirited bursts of drab speed metal platforming dark melodic runs of crisp simplicity, this album meanders around the same mid-paced barrage with psychopathic persistence. Whilst certain passages do reach for a blast-beat, the majority is Bolt Thrower paced or pivoting around the tugging rhythmic punches of mid-period Immolation, although where Immolation used this technique as a way to insert link phrases without losing dramatic momentum, here they are ruthlessly stripped back and deployed as a domineering centrepieces.

Despite the substantive musical elements claiming an obvious ancestry in death metal, it would be more accurate to call this black metal in the traditional sense of the term. Tags like drone death metal or ambient death metal feel appropriate if one is to make clear to the modern audience what sets this album apart from more run of the mill recent efforts. But the project itself is ideologically austere, minimalist. Any surplus material is duly and violently jettisoned. One’s attention is fixed entirely on the development of singular, linear themes via repetition and sound logical sequences. For this reason ‘Male Patratis Sunt Atra Theatra Parata’ feels more like a step sideways than backward for the genre. A brief, clarifying provocation to the wider extreme metal landscape, a reminder to anyone willing and able to listen that the raw materials of the past are still viable building blocks, configurable into endless novel forms if one has the patience and guile to administrate these bountiful resources.