MELENCOLIA ESTATICA — Hël (review)

MELENCOLIA ESTATICA — Hël album cover Album · 2012 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Time Signature
The crowd of silent starving children...

Genre: black metal

As the name of this act indicates, we are dealing with music which is in the more melancolic and depressive department. Melencolia Estatica's third effort definitely leans towards depressive black metal, but there is definitely much more to this album than your average, stereotypical self-loathing I've-heard'-some-Shining-and-cut-myself-while-drinking-whisky attitude that otherwise characterizes depressive black metal.

On this album, Melencolia Estatica draw on traditional, dare I say old school, second wave black metal based on slow blastbeats combined with darkly harmonic tremolo-picked guitars, accompanied by very harsh growls. However, these elements are juxtaposed with atmospheric passages featuring clean guitars and murmuring and chanting female vocals. This creates a rather creepy atmosphere which suits the overall music quite well.

The production has slightly fuzzy but not at all lo-fi. The fuzziness helps generate the atmospheric feel of the album, but, that being said, it should probably be pointed out that the vocals are not drowned on reverb, which is otherwise typical of the more atmospheric type of black metal.

Fans of expressive and melancholic black metal with depressive overtones should definitely give this album a listen.
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