Band:	MAL
Album:	Eonian Quiescence
Style:	Black metal, Doom metal
Release date:	December 01, 2011
A review by:	X-Ray Rod

01. Misconceptions (Synodic Period)
02. Unsinkable (Super Sargasso) Sea
03. Vomiting Fire (Coronal Mass Ejection)
04. Intra Terrestrial Enterobacter (Yersinia Pestis)
05. Antikythera Mechanism (OOPart)
06. Radioactivate (Interstellar Carrier)

You can stream and buy the album here, name your price.

With the end of a year, one of the most annoying moments is bound to happen to every music lover: The Forget-me-not Series. Those albums you wish you discovered earlier. Released in the beginning of December and me being busy with the constant flow of releases, it's not like I had any choices. This is a shame because the debut by the French MAL shows that this duo is really onto something.

There's quite a lot going on here. While the core is doom, many influences make their way through the hellish music. Black, death and a good chunk of psychedelic tunes can be found here, making this 36-minute debut one of the most promising of the past year.

Going back to the hellish comment, I really enjoyed the production of this little beast. A fuzzy and fire-like sound that is clear enough for you to know what's going on but with just the right amount of rawness to not lose bite. With their massive riffs, the guitars create a warm wall of sound but they also make sure to unleash noisy and twisted landscapes ("Unsinkable Sea") along with cleaner melodies not that different from the work of the mighty Unholy. The drums do their usual slow work but just when you least expect it, chaos reigns in the shape of unsettling blastbeats and tribal patterns ("Intra Terrestrial Enterobacter"). This performance turns impressive once you see the band's line-up and realize that the drums are actually programmed.

Ironically, the most important aspect in the album is the one that is well hidden under the production, namely the keyboards. This instrument was put to great use. While many bands keep failing because of their keyboards being on the front, ruining pretty much everything... MAL is smart enough to put them in the background where they can fill all the empty spaces with hypnotic melodies and also lift the riffs to majestic levels ("Misconceptions").

As it turns out, Eonian Quiescence is one of the better debuts both in doom metal and metal in general from the past year. With its mesmerizing and almost ceremonial atmosphere, this short yet intense album will put you in a trance and its replay value will force you to repeat that state of mind again and again. A wonderful start for this young band and I'm definitely looking forward to more releases.