Malthusian - The Summoning Bell

Malthusian is an Irish death/black metal band that formed in 2012.  Their latest album, “The Summoning Bell,” is their second full-length album; they have also released a demo, a split, and an EP.  

This album is terrifyingly great. And it's terrifying in general!  The band's brand of blackened death is, on the surface, straightforward with no frills. 

But multiple listens reveal a band that thrives on the essence of a true extreme, underground sound. The tone of the instruments, the vocals…it is all played with such conviction that it becomes an exciting frill within itself.

At times, the tempo is slow and withdrawn–definitely some doom elements within the songs. The ferocity in which they swing back towards a faster paced tempo is like a tree being exploded into pieces by a bolt of lightning.

I really like the atmosphere of the album and its as impressive as the songwriting. The air of hopelessness among stark, bleak monolithic tones is present among the brutal aspects. It makes for a harrowing listen, complete with both doomy passage and uncompromising death metal bulldozing but with an atmosphere that makes you feel disgusted alongside trepidation. 

I like how the album flows too—the track placement is killer.  For example, the opening song, “Isolation,” perfectly sets up the rest of the album with a slow, haunting instrumental.  It’s like an oncoming wave of dark storm clouds.

That storm drops a torrential downpour in the form of “Red, Waiting.”  But it’s more like a hurricane as the riffs and drums swirl into a cacophony of lead guitar and bass that pulses like its own living entity.  The vocals are fantastic:  deep with a good balance between growl and echo. About halfway, the tempo dials back as the band throws in a passage where the guitars/bass seep into the cracks of the song like cement.

The title track has riffs for days and drums that complement the structure of the song rather than completely take over, although they would be more than capable of doing so.  Parts of this song are very seedy, like the bottom of a lake that runs red with droplets of blood, bodies floating before they sink forever to the surface.  The later half is a little more methodical, the music crawling out of the muck to build back up to a raging speed. 

The centerpiece of the album, the tour de force is easily the nearly 16-minute-long behemoth of a song “Amongst the Swarms of Vermin.”  The band pulls out all the stops here—this a true representation of the album’s sound and the capabilities of the band.  The first few minutes are a dirge but capped with the thunder of the bass guitars/drums.  Until the halfway mark, the music hits like a drill, going deep and harder as the seconds tick by.  Around the 7:20 mark, the band slows the music to a crawl with some of the nastiest doom I’ve heard this year.  Just as the ears begin to cave in from the density, a brief respite of ambient darkness sprawls out like a fog.  It doesn’t last long—this band isn’t going to give you too much rest!  Afterwards, the song barrels forth so strongly that I thought my house was shaking but it was just my headphones sending vibrations to my brain.  

Malthusian’s “The Summoning Bell,” is a fantastic, engrossing extreme metal album.  It’s straight up total blackened/death metal with some doom moments and an atmosphere that is as heavy as the instrumentation.  Highly recommended.  

Rating:  Excellent