Rorcal are a Swiss post-black/doom metal band and this is their seventh album.
Rorcal are a shapeshifting band that are more than worthy of your attention, (here, here, here, here, here). In other words, when they release something, it always rewards investigation. So what grim shape does Mahre take?
Mahre blights us with a horrifying vision of dissonant blackened sludge doom, edged with industrial malice and malevolent drone. Across 40 bleak minutes, we are subjected to Rorcal’s foulest darkness, and it is glorious.
Mahre is divided into five tracks, but is essentially one long piece of work. Rorcal build and destroy their impressively nasty compositions with contemptuous ease. The music spreads like an oppressive plague, blanketing the land in claustrophobic terror. It infects the listener, turning them into a vector of supernatural contagion. Once taken, they’re lost forever. (interesting aside – most of this paragraph was written before reading the promo blurb, which speaks of similar things, including the idea of dreams becoming infectious. Maybe there’s something to this…).
Rorcal shape their immersive terror into a journey that you’ll want to take again and again, despite how harrowing it is. This is a punishing, unforgiving work. It’s a layered assault on the senses, an endurance test that’s destined to be failed. It’s not one-dimensional though, instead warping and contorting the nightmares it spawns into music that shakes the heavens and cracks the earth. Mahre is a destroyer, but one that claims multiple realms of its own in which to attack and proliferate.
Yep, this is impressive stuff. For the right kind of person, Mahre is a record destined to make a lasting impact.
Rorcal have hit upon a rich seam of blackened gold. Mahre is a superior work, there’s no doubt about that. This material is extremely strong, even for them.
