Band:	Schammasch
Album:	The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean
Style:	Black metal, Death metal
Release date:	October 25, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Crystal Waves
02. A Somber Mystery
03. Your Waters Are Bitter
04. They Have Found Their Master [feat. Kathrine Shepard]
05. Image Of The Infinite [feat. Kathrine Shepard]
06. I Hail You, Old Ocean

A year after releasing the colossal, genre-spanning triple album Triangle, Schammasch delved deeper into one of the more unexpected sounds of that album with the EP The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite. Seven years on, they revisit Les Chants De Maldoror, and in the process display some more novel interpretations of their style.

Since emerging at the beginning of last decade, Switzerland’s Schammasch have been one of the most exciting new voices in black metal; this was already the case when they were shaping their own distinctive spin on the genre with Contradiction and Triangle, one that was ritualistic, bleakly atmospheric, thunderous and at-times melodic, but became even more so the case when they dedicated the third of the three discs on Triangle to a fascinating exploration of dark ambient tribal music. The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite was a detour with which they further expanded upon those tribal ambient interests before reverting to their established style on 2019’s Hearts Of No Light. However, there were a couple of new experiments on this album, most notably the gothic rock stylings of “A Paradigm Of Beauty”, and a taste for the gothic is just one way in which The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean throws up surprises.

For the unfamiliar, Les Chants De Maldoror is a transgressive poetic novel from the 1860s that became highly influential upon surrealist movements across media, and like the 2017 EP, The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean draws lyrical inspiration from the text, specifically sections of it that extol the splendour of the ocean’s vastness, and the insignificances of man’s pettiness in comparison. To dictate these sentiments, Schammasch’s C.S.R. makes greater proportional use of clean vocals compared with past records, and specifically the goth-tinged clean-sung style from “A Paradigm Of Beauty”, in addition to the mantric chants appearing on previous records.

Instrumentally, The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean retains a lot of recognizable aspects of the band’s material to date, but in a notably lighter form. The four long songs on the album each have their own passages where the emphatic tom-heavy drumming and ominous blackened riffs come into play, but they are but a portion of what to expect during these songs. The ‘post-black metal’ in the album’s promo blurb feels fitting, as demonstrated on opening song “Crystal Waves”. A lengthy clean introduction takes obvious cues from post-rock, and even as percussion and deep shamanic spoken word enter the fray, the tone is still dainty. After the first burst of blackened distortion, the track alternates between cleaner and heavier sounds, and even the heavier portions are frequently uplifted in some form or another, whether by a melodic lead guitar motif or a post-rock tremolo that takes the mix in a blackgaze/atmo-black direction.

Other songs have more of a black metal focus, with “Your Waters Are Bitter” probably the track most consistently oriented towards darkness and extremity. Having said that, while the mood is ominous throughout, the extremity remains scaled down, with blasts only really emerging in the final few minutes; while I wouldn’t call this a post-black song, the gradual descent into malevolent tones across the duration of its runtime does have a touch of post-metal to it structurally. There are additional blasting onslaughts during “They Have Found Their Master” and “I Hail You, Old Ocean”, but they are often either sandwiched between cleaner parts, or themselves uplifted by clean vocals or guitar leads.

The review thus far might be perhaps overstating the jump in style of this album compared with past efforts, as Schammasch have taken songs in more atmospheric directions and dabbled with melodic guitars and clean vocals a fair few times previously. Having said that, there are moments when the record does make a more marked departure. After a series of ebbs and flows, “They Have Found Their Master” finally pulls everything back in the final couple of minutes, crafting gentle, shimmering soundscapes that are joined by vocals from Kathrine Shepard (Sylvaine); this ending serves as something of a prelude for “Image Of The Infinite”, a fully clean song with mellow guitar arrangements. The verses somewhat recapitulate the tone of “A Paradigm Of Beauty”, albeit arguably even softer, while the song’s second half grows increasingly delicate and spacious as Shepard’s vocals take over from C.S.R.

It's new territory for Schammasch, and may cause some contrasting opinions among fans (as may some of the other clean singing across the album). Personally, I quite like it, particularly as it progresses, but it’s also not too remarkable in its execution. On the whole, I find The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean to be a very likeable listen, and it is intriguing to hear the band exploring this direction, but while there’s aren’t many specific things I harbor reservations over (there’s a couple of repeated vocal bits in the middle two songs that fall slightly flat for me), I do think it perhaps falls short of the past few releases in terms of its peak impact. With the thunderous force and intense atmosphere diminished compared to Hearts Of No Light, what that’s replaced with doesn’t quite compel in the same way, and individual song memorability is arguably a bit lower.

Having said that, while I suspect that I will come to rank The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean as one of the weaker releases from Schammasch, I’m not disappointed by it; the post-black atmospheres are satisfying, and the more emphatic parts still make their mark when they come. It also ends on a strong note; “I Hail You, Old Ocean” has a stirring last 5 minutes where gradually morphing riffs and rhythms are accentuated by exciting and memorable lead guitar motifs before ultimately fading into synthy oblivion.