The Darkest Shrines

"One shot project" Malaöun is the brainchild of one ML who lives in Baling, Kedah state, in northern Malaysia - I guess if the project is just "one shot", the debut album "The Darkest Shrines" must hit whatever target ML has set for it so he can return to his usual routines which include heading two other solo black /death metal projects Impious Blood and Voidnaga, and playing guitar for blackened death band Thorns of Hate. The issue with "one shot projects" though is if the first recording is bad, then they'll have to keep doing whatever they've set out to do until they get the next recording (or the next) right; or if the first recording is too good, then everybody will want these projects to continue! So the unenviable goal for "The Darkest Shrines" is to be a recording that's neither good nor bad - just average!

After a gloomy all-synth ambient haunted-house introduction, complete with swinging door on creaky hinges and a bleak washed-out sighing ambience, the album shoots straight into four long tracks of raw 1990s-style Scandinavian old-skool melodic BM with a strong death metal influence and never looks back. Heck it never even pauses for breath apart from the short spaces separating the songs. The vocals are cold frost-giant raspy, the tremolo BM guitars are skittery and the drumming ranges from so-so efficient to blast-beat thumping. Songs have end-of-times apocalyptic themes of plague, the death of planet Earth and the rest of the solar system, mysterious forces answering occult summons and Cthulhu-like alien invasion in luridly dense and intense lyrics that resemble slogans or the titles of 100+ songs ML might have to write for future Malaoun albums if "The Darkest Shrines" turns out to be a hit with the underground metal crowd.

The first track "Introduction / Ominous Womb of Crimson Death" sets the style for the album but second song "Herald of a Thousand Horrors" takes the basic rapid-fire blackened death into another realm with monstrous reverb-edged vocal roars and a deranged, machine-like relentless attitude in the guitar playing. The grinding music assumes monster industrial proportions as the lyrics dive into images of blackest horror and desolation. At the rate this music is going, being "average" is looking ever more distant as a target goal. After the bleak darkness and insane monster horror of "Herald ...", we go into a brighter if still pitiless and intense world in "From the Ashes of the Dying Sun", with yet more jackhammer blast-beat percussion, brain-cleaning guitars and lyrics detailing the collapse of the universe in all its overwrought glory. A strong martial folk element is present in some of the lead guitar soloing. Madness, pain and utter bleakness and lack of hope are all expressed here in a song that becomes ever darker as the imagery moves closer to final doom. Final track "Towards Perdition And Blazing Flames" still features purple-prose lyrics but has a triumphal air as the portal of death beckons and transcendence to another realm becomes the new reality. The music seems to have an otherwordly edge to it with the vocals becoming even more frosty and the music ascends to another level of stuttering machine-gun insanity.

The music remains fairly basic in style and instrumentation throughout but there is a definite progression in mood and emotional intensity, and each succeeding song creeps closer to sheer insanity and mental chaos. Just when it seems about to break and collapse into uncontrollable noise, there is a brief flare of rapture and ecstasy and it all suddenly ends. The feeling that follows is sheer relief, though some listeners may feel deflated and exhausted. I can see why perhaps ML intends this project to be a short one because if he had to repeat himself a second time, he'd be coming close to breakdown - this recording is that intense in mood and in its themes. "Average" this album most definitely is not - it is really one of a kind.

It might not be very original, the focus is obsessive to an extreme and the lyrics are batshit delirious - but this album has a vision that will hold its listeners spellbound with its sinister and oppressive quality. I can see it becoming a cult album in years to come.