Archive for the ‘Merdarahta’ Category

Merdarahta — As The Dark Clouds Swept Away We Could See The Sunset

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015

Merdarahta is a collaborative noise project formed by guitarist Topon Das from Canadian grindcore guns Fuck the Facts. The project already has a number of excellent releases to its name, rendered from the improvisational efforts of core members and musicians to whom Das has extended the invitation to participate. This past week, Merdarahta unleashed its latest sonic nightmare: an album called As The Dark Clouds Swept Away We Could See The Sunset. Alongside Das on bass, the record features Fuck the Facts’ vocalist Mélanie Mongeon, Leigh Newton from The Sun Through A Telescope on drums, and Seb Choquette from Mekhaya taking care of guitars.

Merdarahta’s new record is a confronting and focused beast of absolute darkness, from head to tail. The listener is initiated through wailing drones trembling and cackling over a cold husk of noise. “Dirt Bodies” patiently sets this cold and ominous tone before the explosive second track, “The Dark Clouds”, billows forth as a radioactive blast wave. Like Margaret Chardiet and Stefania Pedretti, Mélanie is utterly blood-curdling with the power and intensity of her supernatural vocal delivery. The song blends the experimentation with some more defined riffs amidst the swirling spirit of noise. Every moment is a savage psychological blow, taking savage delight in driving the listener into a pit of torture and despair.

“Their Blank Stares” approaches something many black metal bands would dream of achieving in terms of atmosphere. Guitars ring like death knells over cycles of noise infused with pure malevolence. Voices whisper and rasp like ghastly hallucinations, shadows of the once living on the scorched concrete of a nuclear wasteland. Across the album, the blistering and haunting gales of feedback and delay are masterful in their evocation of a meditative state, tapping a well of violent and abrasive psychedelic noise to transport one’s consciousness to despair along a tremendous, irresistible journey.

At its denoument the album morphs briefly into something particularly interesting that flirts with melancholic post-rock. “Poverty Will Spread” evolves from this initial somber and mournful lament played out between guitars infused with hopelessness and vocals of such sincere sorrow into a crescendo of percussion before finally lashing out again in one last frenzy of rage.

It could be said that this is not an album that will uplift you or that will bring you any peace. It could be a soundtrack for being waterboarded with the blood of your children, for dry drowning on the purest misanthropic vapours of scorn you may hold for the very worst of humanity. However, for those who find catharsis in such magnificent and sincere expression at its darkest and most confronting, born from the most unfettered impulses of artists’ imaginations, this is that brilliant form of emotional resonance that one simply cannot do without.

The Black Captain hosts RTRFM’s Behind the Mirror at 11pm Perth time (+8 GMT), January 28, and Brain, Blood, Volume at 1am, February 8. You can livestream RTRFM here.