Pa Vesh En - Martyrs - review
Pa Vesh En - Martyrs - review
Tracklist
01. A Vigilian Impending Murk02. The House Of Pain
03. In The Torment Cell
04. The Revenantās Overture
05. Among A Stir Of Echoes
06. Following The Pestilent Maiden
07. When The Lights Out
08. The Carnival Of Eerie Souls
09. Le FantƓme De Cette Madame
A review by
Netzach May 11, 2023
Fuck whatever you think about black metal. Fuck whatever I think about black metal. Fuck whatever anybody thinks about black metal. See? This is what black metal is about. Individuality. Expression. Strength. Emotion. Rebellion. Creation. Destruction. Perseverance against all odds; Satan, Sisu... Netzach. This is exemplified none the better than by Belarusian one-man band Pa Vesh En. On his previous album, Maniac Manifest, I was [url=review]absolutely enthralled[/url] by his maniac mix of mismatched melody, maudlin melancholy, and marauding masochism. A big part of this was the production, which is taken to the next level on Martyrs. The production is terrificable. It all sounds like shit in the best way possible. It sounds like nothing youād ever want to hear ever in your life, and itās absolutely fantastic.
Kick drums blend together with toms, and even the hollowed-out snare, to create an undying murk of noise, only brought up from the lowest darks by ride and crash cymbals that chime so god-damn trebly youāll have tinnitus from it. This is all by design, of course. Pa Vesh En has found a way to make lo-fi work in his favour. For real. This is not lo-fi as in Ulverās Nattens Madrigal or Beherit's Drawing Down The Moon, this is lo-fi made into an art form. And if you listen closely, itās not even lo-fi at all. The guitars sound absolutely majestic (none of that overly trebly stinginess, but a well-filled blackened doom mid-register), the screams and growls and even female vocals at times engulf the spectrum from every (im)possible direction, and the wailing synths top it all off, soaring above and beyond this absolute mayhem as a conductor to the hellish soundscape. It's mostly just the drums that sound oversaturated to the point of unlistenability, their warbling and crashing simultaneously raping the auditory senses while leaving behind them echoes of sheer oblivion in the split seconds after every murderous strike, and the bassā¦ this so often forgotten instrument in black metal, is what ties it all together. It is always clearly audible, tying the violent insanity to the earthly realms. By production value alone, Martyrs is something so completely different from most stuff Iāve heard that I would be content calling it a new face of black metal.
Martyrs is loosely based on a French-Canadian film of the same name, which tells the story of two young women on a revenge quest against the people who abused them as children. Well, thatās uncomfortably relatable. Moreover, IGN ranked it one of the best 100 horror movies of all time, so maybe youāll get two recommendations out of this. After a short intro replete with eerie synth choirs and a short passage of doomy black mayhem, we enter āThe House Of Painā, which sounds exactly like the title implies, enough said. Ethereal howls and slow, melodic, majestic synths cruise upon blackened doom riffs that surge forward as if - wait, enough said, I said! āIn The Torment Cellā opens up with a deceptively groovy, descending riff that soon devolves into a very loud, very noisy, DSBM-like number that after a while erupts into a complete blast beat mayhem where it becomes nearly impossible to tell the instruments apart from each other. There are, fortunately, the synths and bass behind everything here to bring a sense of weeping melancholia and melodic grounding that soars behind and above the absolute noise that is created by the interplay between the drums and other instruments.
After the doomy overtones of the three songs that make up the first act (Vigilia), the noise levels are ramped up to eleven in the second act (Liturgy). āThe Revenantās Overtureā mixes insane blast beat eruptions with droning organs, and in āAmong A Stir Of Echoesā, the interplay between the snare and the cymbals are put to their best effect, creating an ebb and flow of noise that I can only describe as gut-wrenching. The main two-chord riff is like the black metal version of Mogwaiās āLike Herodā. I have never heard anything like it before. Listening to it on full volume, it sounds so surreal, abrasive, and evil, I can hardly imagine anything worse than thisā¦ which is a compliment, of course. Youāll feel ill from the way the production highlights the music, and itās absolutely hideous in the best way possible.
In songs such as āFollowing The Pestilent Maidenā, youāll be carried away by the percussive noise, the energetic guitar arpeggios, and synths and screams crying their hearts out. Then, as the melodic third act (Emanation) emerges from the diabolic maelstrom of the second one, youāll dive into the orchestral piece that is āWhen The Lights Outā, setting you up with reverberating, earth quaking drums and beautiful synths leading into a breathtaking, doomy DSBM number. In the final song, āLe FantĆ“me De Cette Madameā, a female choral voice enters to bring some more melody to the whole. It soon devolves into whispers and melodic shouts that echo throughout the final parts of the song and tear at the edges of sanity. Something so beautiful turned into utter darkness at the flick of a wrist.
I repeat: this album is black metal reimagined, repurposed and redesigned. Perhaps the second and third acts contain the most interesting stuff, and perhaps some quieter parts would have made it a slightly less exhausting listen, but nah. I find very little fault here, though you have to be in the right state of mind to fully enjoy the chaos. With stellar songwriting from start to finish, expert dynamics in its focus on three distinct acts, and unique production that I think I need not say anything more about, Pa Vesh En has created something you will never have heard before, and might even wish you had never heard afterwards. See? It doesn't get much better than this. Martyrs is simply black metal perfection.
I reserve the 10/10 for albums that have managed to stand the test of time, but, ayeā¦ Perfect.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 10 |
| Originality: | 9 |
| Production: | 10 |
Written by Netzach | May 11, 2023
Comments
Comments:
13
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Posts: 1265
I envy you for hitting such a gem, something you can give a 10 right up without a doubt. I'll check it out next week, sounds like some solid black metal.
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Posts: 1761 Written by 24emd on 11.05.2023 at 10:44 Yeah. It's the way he uses the production as an instrument in itself that creates a very unique atmosphere, and the songwriting is stellar too. I'll add a YouTube link to the review for one of the preview tracks. Thanks for reading!
---- My "blackened synth metal" solo project: maladomini.bandcamp.com. Whenever I write something funny, weird, or pretentious... I learned English by playing Baldur's Gate, okay?
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Posts: 87
Very intriguing review, to a very intriguing album. Especially since the movie is basically one of the finest pieces of horror cinema ever created. Sadly the album is not on bandcamp yet. CanĀ“t wait to hear the whole thing.
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Posts: 1761 Written by Jacob Butcher on 11.05.2023 at 17:32 It's out 19 May 
---- My "blackened synth metal" solo project: maladomini.bandcamp.com. Whenever I write something funny, weird, or pretentious... I learned English by playing Baldur's Gate, okay?
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Posts: 7950
I've hardly able to fill the black metal records in my collection due to missouts off my radar. No idea about this band(or its history), but your review sold me here. I'll definitely smash this down.
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Posts: 6694
Great review! This has now become one of my most anticipated black metal releases so far this year 
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Posts: 8300 Quote: Yes 
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Posts: 8702
I didn't really feel the last album, but I appreciated your enthusiasm so much that I lined this one up to listen to. I'm definitely connecting a lot more with this record, but I still appreciate your review's enthusiasm more haha I think I was perhaps expecting this to be a bit more out there that it feels like to me when listening to it; underneath the muffled production, the black metal for the most part doesn't feel unorthodox to me (although it clearly has variety to it, given that it can go from grim dissonance to the strikingly triumphant synths on When The Lights Out, and with the female-sung bits in Le Fantome De Cette Madame, it almost feels slightly trip-hoppy). I do find myself wondering at some points whether the production is entirely working entirely in its favour; I was expecting something as striking as Kryatjurr Of Desert Ahd's sound based on your review, but occasionally it just sounds like it's muffling and leaving me straining to hear passages that would sound just as impactful if they had a bit more power to them from the mix. I also agree with the suggestion that the last two thirds are more interesting than the first third
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Posts: 87 |
Posts: 87 Written by musclassia on 19.05.2023 at 10:22 Spot on comment. I feel exactly the same after some spins.
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Posts: 9646 Written by DarkWingedSoul on 27.05.2023 at 09:54 Believe it or not, I haven't gotten to this yet, but I will soon
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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