Martriden - The Unsettling Dark Review
by Mark Hensch
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Having had months of time for repeated spins of this album, the only thing I can say that is Unsettling about Martriden's debut full-length is how well-crafted it is. The production literally booms with muscular, airtight extremity, while the band themselves play an earnest cocktail of extreme heavy metal rich in vibrant melodies and stifling darkness. Few bands sound so confident so early on.
Drawing liberally from all of Europe's major heavy metal movements since the early 1990s, Martriden crafts a powerful, violent, and often grandiose album. The Unsettling Darkness slams with Behemoth's energetic violence, Meshuggah's complex savagery, and At the Gates' sense of cutting melody. Through it all weaves Opeth's sense for forlorn atmospherics and Emperor's diabolical brew of evil and majesty. Combined together, these disparate elements are tempered by Martriden into a sleek, shiny weapon, the likes of which is wielded with both precision and beautiful, chaotic barbarity.
Perhaps as an insult to the direction of most heavy bands today, "Intro" begins The Unsettling Dark with a chugging breakdown, the likes of which is soon swallowed whole by the rest of the album's pillaging music.
"The Enigma of Fate," for example, features more animalistic fury in one cut than a band like Job for a Cowboy could muster in an album. Blistering blastbeats back pulverizing riffs, all while synths rise mournfully in the background. Ferocious speed-picking next leaves into a death metal assault worthy of Behemoth, the song marvelously collapsing into a windswept beatdown ala later period Emperor.
"The Calling" writhes with cold, melodic twists and turns, its predatory litheness like a stalking animal. Cutting guitar sweeps clash like swords before the band explodes with fiery leads and equally slamming riffs. With a grand finale sounding like a panzer crushing one's skull, this is a monster song for sure.
The next two songs form a pairing known as "Ascension." The first part continues the album's previously war-mongering ways, thunder strikes of manic harmonics weaving through somber moans. The slowly blastbeating juggernaut that emerges from this template makes for the album's strongest cut, a mix of aggressive death metal and intensely played guitar melodies. Somber yet savage, this one slays.
"Ascension Pt. 2," in contrast, cools things a bit. Like mist rising off a black still-lake at night, explosive percussion backs soft synth washes and a visceral guitar pattern recalling Opeth.
"Procession for the Hellfire Chariot" is like a rain of steel arrows, piercing with its catchy riffs. Slow and massive, the song grooves with Meshuggah's inhumane technicality yet reveals a maliciously oldschool evil aura Meshuggah themselves has never possessed.
Title track "The Unsettling Dark" begins with a vaporous guitar progression recalling the darkest conjurations of Emperor. This hellish metal anthem hovers somewhere between the elegance of progressive death metal and the detached sadism of technical groove.
"Prelude" blazes past with some ripping riffs out of the Enslaved catalog, as they are both heavy yet organic. The true treasure of this song, however, lies buried within its slower portions, a twisting maelstrom of frostbitten tremolo-melodies. Furthermore, the lonely Chopin piano interlude ending the cut is pure Anthems to the Welkin at Dust.
"A Season in Hell" is a war hammer of a song, striking with muscular blasts of brutal death metal. The brutality in turn leads to an eerie, peaceful interlude of synths and guitars not unlike later Burzum.
"Immaculate Perception" is a dark, creepy slice of cinematic guitars, its passages of moody and atmospheric folk ending the album on a quiet, depressing note.
Chilling, epic, violent, and intelligent, The Unsettling Dark marks a band with meteoric levels of talent. After hearing this, I find little surprising in the fact Emperor personally had Martriden open for their final shows. Rest assured this beast is ranking high in my best-of list for 2008.
Martriden's The Unsettling Dark
Intro
The Enigma of Fate
The Calling
Ascension Pt. 1
Ascension Pt. 2
Processional for the Hellfire Chariot
The Unsettling Dark
Prelude
A Season in Hell
Immaculate Perception
CD Info and Links
Martriden - The Unsettling Dark Rating:10.00
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