Macabre - Grim Scary Tales
Decomposed Records
Death Metal
14 songs (49:36)
Release year: 2011
Macabre
Reviewed by Charles
This is almost like a death metal Alestorm but with serial killers instead of pirates. Except I hate Alestorm, and I categorically do not hate this. Far from it! Indeed, Macabre have been around since the 1980s, and that longevity belies the unseriousness with which they take their death metal. Calling themselves ‘murder metal’, even in a field devoted to horror, serial killers, violent accidents and the like, they stand out as perhaps the most zealous of hackers and slashers. Oh, apart from Mortician, obviously. But then, Macabre is way better than Mortician as well. It’s like a funny death metal joke; a cackling pastiche set to music of high enough quality to see you through forty minutes without getting tired of the gimmicky song-writing.

Grim Scary Tales builds impressively on where the last full-length album (and apparent micro-genre manifesto) Murder Metal left off in 2003. I don’t know where Macabre have been since then, actually. Presumably hoarding rubber gloves and rope. Anyway, their approach is utterly distinctive, with snappy, unfailingly energetic songs, based around either crisp machine gun death metal riffs or crunching, hooky mid-tempo grooves. This brevity also suggests a heavy grind influence and that’s no doubt true, particularly in the harsh vocals which have a punkish shriek about them. But the big thing here- the unique thing, in fact- is their obsession with melody. And I don’t mean a melodeath “shove a bit more tonal colour in the thrash riffs” type of pseudo-melody. I mean hammy falsetto renditions of melodies that sound like (and I think often are) bastardisations of kids’ playground songs. A twisted juxtaposition.

Indeed these elements are really developed here to what could be construed as a ludcrous extent. As indicated by the title, this dwells at great length on quaint folk stories reinterpreted by brains clearly overfed on horror films and true crime picture books. They are invariably narrative, relating the kind of tales you might use to shut your kids up. Take spectacularly warped highpoint The Black Knight, which rapidly and repeatedly switches between a chugging Deicide-like death metal rattle and an infuriating, incongruously chirpy major-key chorus worthy of the hammiest power metal. The lyrics: “Gilles de Rais was a man, aristocrat in his homeland. Gilles de Rais, was a man, who cut up the French children. What Gilles de Rais would do then, was masturbate on their organs”. These sorts of refrains, though certainly not ever-present, really define the band’s sound more than any other element. In this way, the novelty folkster-metal scene (I knew my Alestorm somparison was relevant!) is almost as good a reference point as any of the death metal classics. They have that same approach to songwriting: start with an irritating, childlike melody, and let things fall into place around it. The difference is, in Macabre ‘s hands tunes appear as ghastly, grinning clown-face nightmares that menace the burly death metal beast, rather than drunkard-hooking crutches upon which to build an ironically-inclined student audience. At other points, though, it is simply high camp (Nero’s Inferno).

Elsewhere you will find gore-splattered country and western spoofs (The Bloody Benders), plenty of a more retro sort of widdly guitar soloing (Locusta; Mary Ann), and even a Venom cover (Countess Bathory). At times it simply feels like a stupid novelty act, but at other points it's quite joyous. Macabre are like the metal equivalent of a joke shop severed finger.

Killing Songs :
The Black Knight, Bella the Butcher
Charles quoted 80 / 100
Other albums by Macabre that we have reviewed:
Macabre - Dahmer reviewed by Danny and quoted ?!? / 100
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