Male Misandria / Malveillance

Though Suffering Jesus Productions has, sadly, recently closed its doors, one of its final acts was to get out this split between Italy's oddly named Male Misandria and Québec's Malveillance. While the uninitiated listener might find it odd to see a split between a grindcore band and a black metal project, the similarities are apparent immediately upon listening. Both Male Misandria and Malveillance provide unrelenting and vicious blasts of musical violence that go for the throat and don't stop until they've tasted blood.

Male Misandria start the split off with “Magister Makeup”, an intense track which balances brutality and speed with skill and good song writing to great effect. It provides an immediate glimpse as to the showing MM make here. The guitar tone is clear and gives every riff a clarity which allows their memorability and heaviness to shine. This is a definite plus given that the music depends heavily on the guitar; the bass is inaudible, the drumming provides what it needs to but doesn't shine, and the vocals are impassioned but don't step far out of an often seen mix of higher screams and lower growls. There are moments when the screams get particularly high pitched and out of control, and that's when the vocals shine the most; “Marble Marquinia” and “Mothlife” both provide great examples. Though the other aspects of the music aren't particularly exceptional the riffing is thankfully strong. As said, they are memorable and heavy, switching up enough to keep the songs interesting and exciting while not changing up so much that the riffs don't make an impact. Male Misandria are strong song writers in general; “Marble Marquinia” and “Mannerless Maternus Mo” have dramatic openings, “Mothlife” ends with a high speed solo, and the way a melodic lead threads its way through tremolo picked rhythm guitar in “Male Model Merge” is reminiscent of certain types of black metal. The crescendo of Male Misandria's half is “Martyr”, which nears 6 minutes and is the longest track on the split. It's a dramatic and complex song that shows off MM's strength as song writers. It's full of interesting moments: it opens with an “Egyptian” sounding riff (or at least Egyptian in the bounds of the West's musical imagination), before shifting into black metal inspired riffs. The song has many moments that nearly hit epic territory, and it has a very interesting bridge where atmospheric guitars and distant, echoing vocals mix with shifts between black metal inspired riffing and thick chords. They wrap things up with an inexplicable dark ambient/industrial track, “Masto B”, which doesn't make a ton of sense, but is at least solid for what it is.

Malveillance's side opens with its own weirdness. “Rien” is an ambient track over which F (Malveillance's one and only member) simply speaks in a way that brings to mind a pissed off, slightly drunk man. If I understood French, I might be able to read more meaning in to it, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Every song is named after an individual. A web search got me hits on a few of the names, who appear to be important figures in Québec of some form or another, so it seems safe to say that Malveillance's half is possibly dedicated to a variety of influential figures in Québec's history. As soon as “Rien” finishes, F immediately kicks into what Malveillance is known for: filthy D-Beat inspired black metal with a raw, simplistic and hateful style that is no doubt influenced by the work of Norway's Ildjarn. The guitar and bass have a thick and dirty raw production that I find benefit's Malveillance's sound even more than the production on his previous release, Consentir a L'absurde. The only problem with the production is the drums. The cymbals have a very tinny sound; I can't decide if it's a crappy drum machine, or if the recording of real drums wasn't done quite right. If you can look by it, the core of Malveillance's sound is present and as strong as ever. The songs shift between one or two black/punk riffs, with a thick, low end sound. As is typical of this style, the songs are presented in some ways as variations of a theme, providing an intense and holistic listening experience, rather than one dominated by clearly demarcated songs. I think Malveillance is one of the top acts of this style, and any fan of it should find there thirst sated by his performance here. It's length of only 14½ minutes gives it less variation than Consentir a L'absurde, but it more than provides the visceral experience I look for in this kind of music.

The split ends with a few bonus tracks from each artist. Male Misandria presents a less refined version of the grindcore previously. The production is much rawer, probably because the songs were recorded in 2007. “Spazio” isn't as interesting as the earlier tracks and “Love” is your typical under-10-seconds grind track. “Vivere da padroni” and “Vi Odio” are more interesting thrashy numbers with some audible bass actually popping up. Some synth weirdness pops up here at times most prominently in “Vi Odio”, where it shows up in the break down and sticks around for the rest of the track. The synths are pretty awkward, and I'm glad they dropped them. Those last two song are also a bit over long. The bonus tracks aren't totally unwelcome, but they really bring to light how much MM have evolved as song writers in 4 or 5 years.

Malveillance only has two bonus tracks. “Cloportes Soumis” fits in with the style of the earlier songs, and it seems like it might have fit better there. A cover of Crude SS's “Nazi Go Home” follows, and it's been infused with the Malveillance sound so much that it's not really identifiable as anything but. Still, it's a nice track that closes off the album well.

Overall the split is an excellent showing by both bands and I highly recommend it to fans of either, to fans of grindcore or extreme punk/black metal mixtures, or in general to anyone who likes extreme music that boils down to a musical punch to the face. Though Suffering Jesus' label side is unfortunately dead, they're distro is still open, and this split is more than worth its cost.