It’s fitting that Neurot – the label of Neurosis – should pick up Amenra for the release of ‘Mass V’: the two bands share considerable common ground in their slow-burning, richly organic, expansive and monumentally heavy brand of slow metal.
‘Mass V’ contains just four tracks, but has a total running time of some forty minutes. But that’s not forty minutes of atmospherics and noodling, long intros and ponderous fade-outs: opener ‘Dearborn and Buried’ isn’t exactly what you’d call pacey, but it’s high impact. It’s a crushing cry of anguish that wrenches the guts and grips the soul like a vice. And they’re only just warming up.
The spoken word passage in ‘Boden’ is tense and dark as the instrumentation simmers in the background and it’s not a matter of if but when and then... blaaaamm! Bass, drums and overdriven guitars hit like a tsunami. There’s beauty in its painful inevitability, the vocals – a distorted scream – buried under the tidal wave of noise.
Engineered by Billy Anderson (Eyehategod, Neurosis, Melvins, Sleep, Swans, etc.), ‘Mass V’ certainly has the weight of all of the aforementioned, not to mention the sludge of Melvins and the astronomically epic qualities of Swans’ later work, in particular their two most recent albums. By the same token, the music conveys the same chilling alienation as ‘Cop’.
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The 13-minute ‘A Mon Ame’ does begin quietly, softly, subtly, providing a reprieve of sorts, but there’s an ominousness in the atmosphere and slowly but surely it builds and builds, first the guitars, then rolling drums and strolling bass. It’s an emotive slow-burner that’s more post-metal than heavy metal, more God Machine than Godflesh, before it twists into the territory left empty by the sadly departed Isis.
The intro to the final track, ‘Norwena / 9.10’ carries echoes of Fields of the Nephilim’s ‘Elizium’ before it erupts into a punishing welter of noise, as heavy as lead and as slow as a glacier. At nine minutes and twenty and a slow fade, it’s not nearly long enough, but it is the perfect conclusion to an album that’s nothing short of immense.
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