Band:	Merrimack
Album:	Grey Rigorism
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	August 2009

01. The Golden Door
02. Omniabsence
03. Kirjath-Ra
04. La Sainteté Du Mal
05. Cold Earth Mourning
06. Grey Rigorism
07. When The Stars Align
08. Désaveu
09. In The Halls Of White Death
10. By Thy Grace

Some time ago, about a year or two, Black metal saw a huge uprising in one particular area of it, namely the Orthodox area. It seems to have died down now, but it was a pretty vitriolic surge of (Orthodox) Satanism-fuelled, hatred-injected and adrenaline-stimulated Black metal. Firmly rooted in old Mayhem and Darkthrone with often a good production. Well, there are always those that show up late to class, and Merrimack is one of those.

You could argue they're not late, but simply uninfluenced by trends, and frankly, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Grey Rigorism is here now and if you enjoyed the Orthodox wave and still do, it'll be here to stay. If you, like me, are a bit fed up with it (or never bothered with it), it's merely another release of the hundreds birthed each year.

Grey Rigorism is an hour long and it thrives on dark, dissonance-driven riffs and hateful shrieks. It does not have the incredible evil presence of, say, Ondskapt and neither the mind-warping dissonance of, say, Deathspell Omega. What it does have is a drum sound reminiscent of Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas. Some of the riffs bring that particular album to mind too, but in general it reminds me of a second-rate Funeral Mist or a band similar to that.

In conclusion, Merrimack's Grey Rigorism is strong but far from the end-all be-all of the (sub- sub- sub-) genre. Its good side is that the guys behind Merry-go-round know what they're doing, the bad side is that all they're doing is because someone else did it before they did it. If you do want to listen to this, grab your headphones.