Who could dislike a band with a song called “Don’t Eat My Legs”? The new black metal avant-garde can be a bit stony-faced, but as you might infer from the cover and song titles Iblis’s Menthell has a touch of the whimsical about it. More than a touch, in fact. This is a strange, jocular album that flits between oddball gimmickry and genuine black metal bite.

First track White Claudia immediately seems to plant itself in the ground that has been broken over the last few years by bands ranging from Code to Twilight to Todtgelichter. But it soon becomes apparent that there is something slightly weirder going on. Frenetic blast riffing is accompanied by weirdly faded-out vocals (the Code likeness), before breaking down into oddball synth noises suggesting a more high-energy take on the brilliant Angst Skvadron. Later on, it segues into one of those quiet post-metal sections, which are extremely common nowadays, but which thankfully constitute a tiny enough element here to keep Iblis well away from that particular growing pile. No, this is something authentically odd- a fact confirmed when we are immediately placed into the Ephel Duath-like quasi-funk intro to 12 Sycamores, a riotously disjointed black metal laugh-a-long interspersed with handclaps and “Ein, Zwei, Drei, Vier” shouting. Clearly there is a sense of humour at work.

In fact the album is a treasure trove of heterogeneous oddities. Sometimes the band is bright and relaxed, like the opening of the title track, with its skipping fusion rhythms that suggest drummer Szafot has been listening to mid-70s Herbie Hancock records. This song is also equipped with twanging fusion bass-lines, as is closer Billl Skins Fifth, where they interlock with winding riffs and grandiose falsetto to take on the likeness of Carl-Michael Eide’s Virus. At other points there is a harder technical finesse, as with the twisted groove-thrash riffing on Origin suggesting tech-thrashers like Revocation. And sometimes the edge and the eccentricity collide, like Poison in your Food, which is built around disorienting staccato riffing and croaking vocals that sound like someone taking the piss out of Inquisition. It is garnished with probably the first whistling solo I have heard in metal.

Some people might find it Methnell annoying, but I like it. While it is in many ways a tongue-in-cheek record, it is hardly Weird Al Yankovic, and there are moments of metallic power that mean the quirks come over as eccentricity and humour rather than goofiness. Interesting.