Review: MERRIMACK “Omegaphilia”

MERRIMACK “Omegaphilia”
Season of Mist records

Merrimack’s dark and distorted roots reach back in time to the mid 90s when they first starting building scorched soundscapes of rabid black metal. By the time they got around to a debut album in 2002, Ashes of Purification, these French firebrands were already making a name for themselves on the European underground circuit.

So much so that US label Moribund Records came knocking, with Merrimack eventually releasing two albums with them. With a burgeoning reputation, the Gallic outfit were offered support slots alongside the likes of black metal demigods such as Marduk and Nachtmystium.

Latest album Omegaphilia, released via Season of Mist, opens with some disturbing croaks, groans and moans that sounds as though some kind of bloodied tribal ritual is about to take place. With the intro to ‘Cauterizing Cosmos’ complete Merrimack lay down a great throbbing riff before pulling the pin to unleash an explosion of black metal carnage. Against a thrashed out onslaught of riffs that bounce off each other like dodgem cars, a pounding beat pours fuel on the flames with Vestal’s vocal croaks and cries adding a human voice to the inhuman wall of noise.

Having laid out their incendiary intentions from the off, Merrimack keep the wheel of torture spinning like a penny with ‘The Falsified Son,’ embellished by some great spiralling solo work and rat-a-tat blasts from the perfectly named sticks ace Blastum. The deeper into the Merrimack mind you delve the more intricately shaded sonic nuances start to appear, with the tempo masterfully measured to build and then slow the tension.

‘Apophatic Weaponry’ briefly allows Vestal to draw breath, as Perversifier  and  A.K. engage in a guitar sparring match with bassist Daethorn the meat in the scything sandwich. Merrimack lay down clearly defined aural patterns, riddled with menacing complexity and depth.

On ‘Gutters of Pain’ a siren like intro creates that foreboding feel that this ain’t gonna end well and sure enough a bestial lick from Vestal’s viper-like tongue triggers another avalanche of misery that will have you shovelling like a trapped coal miner to try and find a chink of daylight. A breakdown guaranteed to send any pit into a collective stomp gives the song additional layers of menace.

The haunting ambient textures carry over into the slumbering ‘Sights in the Abysmal Lure’ in which a cleanly picked riffs edges things along accompanied by a steady beat and Vestal’s heavy sighs. A Blastum blast sends the whole thing spiralling downwards into a toxic maelstrom but Merrimack find the escape hatch just in time to steady the songs, before marching on defiantly towards a corrosive climax.

Nerve ends are left dangling like a stray shoelace on ‘Cesspool Coronation’, one of the album’s more fevered tracks, during which Merrimack seem determined to infuse every guitar chug with all the satanic fluids that they can muster.

The album closes with the nine-minute finale ‘At the Vanguard of Deception’ which kicks in with venom right from the start as the blastbeats hit the deck like giant hailstones. A song of this length allows Merrimack to work in between the lines, chiselling away like a mastercraftsman to ensure every rugged riff is presented in just the right way. The tempo ebbs and flows with majestic precision and Vestal exercises his larynx with the timing of a hawk swooping on its prey.

A symphonic choir delivers a cathedral filling harmony to finally bring Omegaphilia to a flamboyant finish, Merrimack looking down from the pulpit with satisfaction on the desolation wreaked by their immense slab of rasping black metal.