Enhanced Audial Terrorism

Haunting the dry streets of Salt Lake City, Febris Manea is a peculiar entity that has brought misery to all mortals unfortunate enough to make his acquaintance. This morose entity is operated by the malignant sorrowmancer only know to the rest of the world as D.O, who has utilised Febris Manea - in some form or another - since 2017 to spread his message of apathy through ley lines of stained concrete and broken glass basilica. Jem’s Label, an emerging cabal focusing on an array of extreme metal incantations, was right to align itself with Febris Manea and the physical artefacts released only elevates the torturous spellcraft of the incantation to higher planes of wretched agony.

The first D.O release, Hel, was released under the banner of Basillio Blanco, a short lived psych/doom entity that focused on experimental guitar passages. It would not be until 2018 that the first true Febris Manea release came into existence, Plagues of Wrath, and the follow up demo, Meaningless Empty Endless. These incantations are when Febris Manea brought the sound most familiar to his acolytes to the world with haunting DSBM styled riffs, punishing drums and morose howls. These were horrific excursions into a world of strife both external and internal, catalysed by an urban drape of apathy and morbid indifference, falling in line with fellow entities of misery Xasthur, Manierisme and Endless Dismal Moan, the latter of which would influence D.O more and more as time passed. In 2019, In the Burrows of the Nightmare, and, Fall into Nothing, Become Unreal, furthered this ordeal of pain by refining all elements and increasing the sonic assault upon the flimsy existence of modern mortals. In 2020, Febris Manea set about unchaining a spell of such rabid terror that the alleyways were drowned in bile, streetlights were shattered in torment and a new age of sorrow was heralded by its awakening.

Enhanced Audial Terrorism is the sonic equivilant of a jihad in the head. Nothing D.O cast before from his litany of sorrowspells can hold a dim lamp light to the spectral sadism he has forged in his breeze block coffin for this incantation. Ravishing walls of sound envelope the listener in visceral blasts of shrill tremolo guitar lines, innovative drum destruction, harrowing production and absolutely devastating shrieks of vocal affliction.

The drum sections are an experimental force of tactile devastation, that does not entirely rely on archetypal blast beats and displays flashes of exploratory drum work not usually heard in the genre. “Sincerity of Slaughter” best exemplifies this by pushing a frenzy of schizophrenic percussive cymbal led assaults that hits the listener with jarring patterns of mid-paced, flash fire violence. Sebastian Brown was an excellent choice for the piece. This new mercenary crusher was an excellent choice on D.O’s part and adds a new flavour not found on previous incantations, Brown committing his percussive war cirms with little to no hesitation.

In truth, however, it is the wicked melodies employed by D.O, along with his instinct for punishing production, that really sets Enhanced Audial Terrorism ablaze in a funeral pyre of miserable blood stained flames. Whether he is attempting to mentally break the listener with spells such as “Sincerity of Slaughter” which are filled with riff after riff of relentless agony, each cramped next to the other in concentration camp torture, or spells such as, “Flaying Bodies, Gnashing Teeth”, which employ contrasting sections of desperate fury next to passages of sublime despair. It is needless to say that D.O has set the dystopian, skyscraper bar high for other entities to follow - let alone overcome.

It is not too hard to imagine the US Armed Forces using this album to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where they have used extreme music before - played at punishing volumes - in order to break their prisoners into giving up crucial information. What would emerge from these chambers of audial torture would not be mortal, but a broken creature of warped mind and stained soul - just another slab of empty meat to be grinded up by the mechanised military industrial complex. Febris Manea uses similar tactics of psychological hostilities; with exceptionally painful tracks such as, “Enhanced Audial Terrorism”, utilising an almost noise level of spellsmanship to deliver the equivalent of audial corrosive acid poured directly into the mortal ear socket. Even Japanoise tyrants such as Merzbow and Hanatrash would be pleased with the dissonant terror Febris Manea enacts upon its unfortunate victims, mental capacity warped and stretched, membranous matter reconstituted into delusions of happiness always just out of reach.

Febris Manea is the wasteland of the urban sprawl. The apathy of dilapidated suburban nightmares. The fanaticism of the I.E.D. The pessimism of crowded human filth. D.O is akin to 19th century author Joseph Conrad, eliciting the stark reality of human absurdity to such surrealist heights that it rivals the pure fantastical romanticism of gothic themes more typical of black metal as a whole. Combined with the Japanese slasher aesthetic of the album cover, the obsession with contemporary combat footage, middle eastern culture and the surrealist suggestion of the images used - Febris Manea has evoked a fascinating medley of concepts that are both, oft uncast and oft unspoken, in the genre as a whole.

Stand out incantations include, “Fetishization of Fear”, which is a grand exhalation of deep trauma that uses contrasting sections, one of melancholic build up and one of cathartic release - drums and howls let loose in an explosion of glass torn tears. “Psyop” begins with a jarring medley of reversed guitar lines that foreshadows a lambast of mind shredding riffs that only return to the jarring reversals that it began with. “Into the Festered Pits of Unknown Horrors”, the only cantrip to give nod to the gothicism of it’s forebears - is the most cruel of the spells on offer - lulling the listener into a sense of comfort after the mid mark, but only then to crush them once more into oblivion with the dissonant collection of noise/tremolo riffs that the spell began with.

Needless to say; all the tears spent, all the blood sacrificed, and all the ennui endured by D.O over the years has been worth the wait. He has achieved his objective and has truly created a spell that will soak the earth in human suffering for millenia to come. Febris Manea has reached new heights of concrete apathy with Enhanced Audial Terrorism, who’s attitude of irreverent reflection truly set his spellmanship apart from fellow contemporaries.

Audial injection inserted into nervous systems, mortal dreams and hopes snapped by black boots, psychological damage spreading outward into civilian domain - Febris Manea sits upon a throne of forgotten nobodies, a crippled god savouring the pathetic mewls of his ruined congregation.

Originally published in GLOOMHAMMER Issue II