Union of Irreconcilables

Imagine a much less catchy Nadja. Or alternatively, try imagining a much more catchy Merzbow. Then add a tiny streak of black metal, and my descriptive task here is done. But in case that doesn’t satisfy you, let us explore this unfriendly yet oddly compelling record a little further. Sharing a label with other such merchants of blackened bemusement as L’Acephale and Fauna, Menace Ruine are, in essence, a noise act. Their tracks are abrasive, often screeching slabs of pulsating sound, but unlike those comparable bands that are really a chore to listen to (for example the skullsplitting Wolf Eyes) this, perversely, is an album with genuine hooks.

The 10 minute stretches of feedback (e.g. Not Only a Break in the Clouds but a Permanent Clearing of the Sky) are balanced by tracks like The Upper Hand- virtually a pop single in comparison. On this tune, the same horrific, mangled-machine sounds are forged into an actual riff, of sorts, cycling regularly to the beat of slow, militaristic drum rolls. And the female vocals have a real tune- wailing away plaintively far above the ugliness below.

Then, in the second half of the album, a black metal ooze starts to seep slowly through- if not tangibly, certainly in terms of its aura. On There Will Be Blood, a dolorously minimalist chord progression whirrs away under a haze of static. You can’t make out the details, but it feels perpetually on the verge of taking the form of a Xasthurian tremolo death rattle; an effect amplified by the Burzumic electronic sounds that surface periodically, intensely reminiscent of the song Dunkelheit. This is followed by what is probably the most effective track here, Nothing Above or Below. Built around an utterly despondent, looping melodic line that sounds like it’s being played on a church organ (again, layers of hiss and fuzz make it difficult to tell), this is one of the most unsettlingly funereal dirges you will hear all year.

This is intense music. On one hand it’s the kind of thing that, for all its harshness, risks being able to skulk off uneventfully into the background, given how used we are becoming to comparable levels of extremity. What really makes it is the way that powerful melodic ideas are woven deeply into such uncompromising textures. Intense and forbidding.