Maledictum Iter

For some reason Konstantin Dolganov, the hardened death metaller from Saint Petersburg, from all his projects (Chamber of Torture, Internal Damage, Cenobite, Bodybag), decided to close the most promising one, Cenobite, which bangs out old-school death metal, and together with guitarist Pavel Isakov started instead a project for, humph, open-minded listeners, well, yeah, these kinds of projects are fashionable these days. They succeeded in their strategy: there's no escaping from the hypnotic monotony on "Maledictum Iter", this is usually described as "a soundtrack to a journey to somewhere out there." However, the death metal past does not simply let you go, especially since it is not the past at all.

"Dissected Flesh", the first song on the debut album, immediately makes it clear what is behind this strategy: "Maledictum Iter" is a death/doom metal opus with a slight infusion of industrial metal and perhaps other open-minded genres, but their use is more controversial. The main witnesses are heavily distorted downtuned guitars, which really pound the listener flat. The sound of the album is really modern, far from the fashionable old-school sound that is now warmly welcomed in open-minded genres, but these drawling riffs will not be misleading.

It has to be said that this is what it was all about: as we remember, "Torment Your Flesh and Explore the Limits of Experience", the second and last album by Cenobite, proceeded along in a descending line, so the final "Keys of Logic" turned out to be the longest song, the obscurest as well, filled with some sick atmosphere. "Maledictum Iter" is a logical continuation of "Keys of Logic".

There is even a lead guitar part in "Dissected Flesh", supporting the rhythm by its short inserts – this is a clear Cenobite heritage, and it is a pity that this move is not used much in other songs. Right, this was also a drawback of "Torment Your Flesh...", as the album progressed less attention was paid to guitar adornments, preference was given instead to some incomprehensible effects. There are indeed a lot of effects on "Maledictum Iter", from samples and electronic sounds to scraping the pick musically along the string ("My Own Hell"). Kassus constantly dilute their death/doom metal with all sorts of ingredients.

When the synthesizer begins to support the drawling riffs carefully with its delicate melody ("Dissected Flesh", "My Own Hell", "The Bridge", and "Immersion"), the Kassus music gets a keen melodic sense and comes close to the domain of no less than funeral doom/death metal. It is enough to recall one of the pioneers of funeral doom metal Thergothon with their only album "Stream from the Heavens" (1994) to make sure of this. Other classics of the genre – Esoteric with their first two albums, "Epistemological Despondency" (1994) and "The Pernicious Enigma" (1997), also comes to mind, although Kassus are still closer to Thergothon, because Esoteric often went into a high-pitched spectrum, while Kassus prefer to remain on the bottom end of fatality.

By the way, such well-known representatives of the death/doom metal scene as Winter also brought into action synthesizer during their veeery slow parts with hovering chords on their only album "Into Darkness" (1990), but in fact they were a death metal-ish version of Celtic Frost, and this is not about Kassus at all. Unholy, Winter's genre comrades, also used this move on their first albums, "From the Shadows" (1993) and "The Second Ring of Power" (1994), but they are even less suitable for describing Kassus because their music was more vital and melodic.

The industrial component of Kassus is created by the nonemotional groove mainly, as well as by a drum machine, but it is not at all as deadly mechanical as Godflesh's drum machine, it taps out its part more cheerfully, if we can put it that way. On second thought, the second "Sepsis Cohort" opens with a slow riff totally in the vein of early Godflesh, and in fact almost the whole song is built on this single riff – well, when we talked about hypnotic monotony above, we primarily had this song in mind. And although the industrial atmosphere is felt throughout the album, industrial influence on guitar parts is often illusory, in particular, the opening riff of "My Own Hell" would be suitable even for a black/death metal album by a band like Archgoat, but the drum machine and deformed vocals hide this point in the industrial fog.

Drone? Oh, yes, there are also passages with very long sounding chords, delighting the listener with pleasant low howling, as, for example, in "My Own Hell". However, only "Laudo IV" with its weird low humming sound instead of guitar riff can be considered as a completely drone piece, and even then, in comparison with the rest of "Maledictum Iter" this track is perceived as a routine ambient fantasy on black metal album. "The Bridge" could also be labeled as drone, it is slower than the previous songs, but the guitar part is supported here by keyboards, so it is more like funeral doom metal.

You won't be able to hear stoner on "Maledictum Iter" just because the Kassus music is too tough for this genre. Kassus prefer to create morosely an existential nightmare in their gloomy death metal bunker, they are avoiding vitality, bravura and even archness expected of stoner as inherited from psychedelic rock/acid rock. The horn and saxophone trills, which can be attributed to psychedelic rock if the desire exists, do not really encourage their music: in "Sepsis Cohort" a horn enters during the bridge, but it is so distorted that at first you might think that it is some kind of moaning or screams, while a horn (?) in "Envenomed Desert", which is covered in some strange effects, is completely lost in sensations, because it changes into a guitar solo with no less effects. The three saxophone parts in the last "Immersion", performed by Sergey Letov, a famous Russian musician and composer, the elder brother of the deceased Гражданская Оборона leader Egor Letov, are more melodic than crazy à la John Zorn, but they rather balance out the only fast tremolo-picking rhythm guitar riff on the entire album.

The temptation to attribute sludge metal to Kassus is really strong. Well, let's remember Eyehategod's debut album "In the Name of Suffering" (1990) or, maybe, their already mature work "Confederacy of Ruined Lives" (2000). Indeed, it's possible to draw an analogy between bands throughout the duration of the prolonged doomy sections, but because it is doom metal after all. It's another matter that the Kassus riffs don't have aggressive and impetuous dynamics of sludge as a component from hardcore/punk, if only the opening riff (after a long guitar whistle) of "Envenomed Desert" is quite sludgy, but somewhere at the end of the first third of the song it turns into a typical death metal riff (greetings from Cenobite again), which is usually not very widespread in sludge. And just for the sake of argument, Kassus are not copying Black Sabbath, as is customary in the sludge genre.

It is true that Kassus remind of Eyehategod with their strained, almost hysterical vocals, however, although the vocals on "Maledictum Iter" are quite deformed by effects, as well as muffled and pushed to the background in the mix, they are another obvious Cenobite legacy. That is, vocal-wise, it is more appropriate to talk about Autopsy / Chris Reifert and not about Eyehategod / Mike IX Williams.

Summary. The moral of this story is: the leopard cannot change his spots. Considering that even eminent veterans find it difficult to promote their new projects in times of oversaturation in the music market, it would be easier to pass off "Maledictum Iter" as an experimental album by Cenobite, since the subject matter has not changed much. And old school death metal also remained at the helm.