supraliminal's Full Review: Black Art by Mental Home
I purchased this album two years ago after reading a few positive reviews describing this as atmospheric dark metal. This description brings to my mind mystical music dominated by chants keyboards and sound effects with the guitar jumping in only from time to time. I like that kind of music too, but Black Art is so much more. The music is blackish (kind of how Moonspell's Wolfheart is blackish) metal, and the keyboards and atmospheres roll, swirl, and undulate around the guitars perfectly, making a song together rather than compromising the heaviness. In addition, the lead guitar is usually playing a frenetic lead on top of the limb banging rhythm, so the first listen pretty much serves to make you wonder what just happened. I was somewhat overwhelmed and had to play this album several times before I could actually grasp each entire song. This album really doesn't compare to anyone else, it's in a league of its own, but if I had to compare I'd say they sound like Mercyful Fate after they just listened to Wolfheart and they went and hired the vocalist from Evereve to snarl for them.
The album starts off with "Under the Wing of Camayun", which opens with a keyboard and atmosphere only intro that made me think this was the typical dark metal type album. Creepy bells and piano with sampled choir gives way to raging guitar accentuated by a swampy string like keyboard lurking in the back of the mix.
Song two, "The Plague Omen" is driven for most of the song by rolling double bass that adds more lethalness into the flowing liquid mass created by the other instruments. Multiple different keyboard sounds and some samples permeate throughout in various stages of out in the open and almost hidden, and at one point in the song there is a strange high end guitar part that embeds itself so well into the mix I have to strain to tell what it is doing. There is so much going on here it's hard to take it all in, I find myself concentrating on some buried music so hard I skip back to the beginning of the song to hear what I've missed.
"Into the Realms of Marena" features a funeral organ intro that makes me think of Mercyful Fate. This is a less guitar intensive song that has more noodling then thrashing rhythms.
"Silent Remembrance" has a very cool keyboard part with a spacey bell like sound to it that serves as the intro and break. Again there is so much going on here that it's hard to absorb all at once without a few listens. Even the guitars themselves are this way. Concentrate too hard on the frenetic lead melody and you may miss the thrashing rhythm, and vice versa.
"In the Shades of Inspiration" is a keyboard and chorus effect only instrumental. A soothing, haunting break from the systematic neural destruction suffered so far.
"(Wish For) Pagan Freedom" is a guitar dominated piece serving as an anthem for pagan freedom (duh), the boards seldom make an appearance here, but a constant background of atmospheres and an even more present than usual lead guitar make this just as expansive a project to absorb as the rest of the album.
"Winter Art" features a mellow, soothing verse with semi-hidden boards, choir like sampled atmospheres, and a cool bubbling bass setting the tone for whispered only vocals that give way to an inspiring and loud chorus and some really deep, thick atmospheres, maybe the thickest on the album.
Mental Home saved the best for last, "Tides of Time", with catchy, thrash like riffs mixed with the usual all encompassing atmospheres and a lethally catchy chorus. The song trails of into a mellow, breath catching keyboard/atmosphere outro that soothes up to the point when you realize the album is over, which is sure to spark a deep seeded frustration and anger.
The cd also has a bonus cd/rom video for "Pagan Freedom", which is kind of cool but also kind of disappointing since the video is just claymation. Ah well, these guys are underground and from Russia, I guess the budget probably wasn't there for a feature film or anything.
Anyone who is into atmospheric, gothic, or otherwise creepy metal would be doing themselves a favor checking this album out. I would also recommend that you get Black Art before any of their other albums, I like Vale and Upon The Shores Of Inner Seas, but they just don't stack up to Black Art. Anyway, if you like anything from Mercyful Fate to Tiamat's Wildhoney to Moonspell's Wolfheart to Evereve you're sure to love this one.
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