In the house of post-metal, Amenra is a closed door. It’s not locked; you can open it and step through, but what’s in that room will not be what you expect. While the Neur-Isis sound is front and center, the specter of screamo looms over much of the Belgian act’s discography, chiefly on Mass III. It was the difference between them and similar post-metal acts, but the Neurosis influence nearly got the better of them five years ago on Mass V--although an outstanding record in isolation, it lacked the emotive angle of earlier Masses, rendering it a little clinical in execution, and an anomaly in Amenra’s body of work. Mass VI makes immediate amends, demonstrating over the course of opener “Children of the Eye” that the strain of screamo they buried on Mass IIII and V has bloomed into a more holistic nihilism, inextricable from the monolithic post-metal they’ve been perfecting for years. The song doesn’t feel its nearly twelve-minute runtime. Amenra are masters of tension-and-release, stirring dread and capitalizing on the promise of catharsis with some of the most nerve-jangling screams and churning guitarwork I’ve heard this year. By the time the song collapses in on itself, you can almost feel the sweat beading on your own chin, but there are still three more equally insurmountable epics still to go.
The quasi-religious tone Amenra’s work intentionally projects (their name is a portmanteau of “amen” and the name of the Egyptian sun god, Amun-Ra; this is based on a theophilosophical platform I admittedly don’t know a thing about) gets further representation on Mass VI with “Edelkroone” and “Spijt,” two ghostly spoken-word tracks that have the air of contemplative scripture readings; orations in a dark and silent cathedral. Islanded between the twenty-three second respite of “Edelkroone” and “Spijt,” “Plus Pres de Toi” (French for “closer to you”) emerges like a mountain out of a deep mist, climbing with more urgency to more despondent heights than “Children of the Eye” (it’s about three minutes shorter) before sinking into a still more mysterious fog. It’s a miserable journey you’ll feel better for having taken, as it’s peak Amenra; and there’s time to reflect on what we’ve heard as “Spijt” unspools from spoken-word to full-band explosion, before “A Solitary Reign” creeps in. Only a few seconds longer than “Plus Pres de Toi” and shorter than both “Children of the Eye” and closer “Diaken,” “A Solitary Reign” is still far and away the most impressive song Mass VI has to offer, and is an immediate contender for my song of the year. While Amenra aren’t strangers to clean singing, the way they fully incorporate this area of vocalist Colin H. van Eeckhout’s range introduces a heretofore unexplored dimension of the band’s sound, much like Jacob Bannon's much-improved singing on Converge's latest. Against some of the most aching post-metal infrastructure the band have yet produced, van Eeckhout’s breathless whispering guides us out of the temporary relief of “Spijt” (Dutch for “sorry”) and into the uncertainty of the present. It gives way to emotive moans and ends with the frisson of his singing layered against soul-scouring shrieks while the song slumps and implodes around him. It’s cosmic, but deeply physical--like watching a tornado make landfall, or a landslide in action from a position of dubious safety. You could get sucked into the song at any moment, and if you do, there’s no chance of making it out. “Diaken” seems almost perfunctory following such a monster of a song, but it’s well-worth the eleven-minute runtime to hear the band recapitulate on all their strengths new and old: although lengthy, its cinematic pace and introverted vocals turn the screws just as effectively as “Children of the Eye,” and its climax is as vicious as anything the band have done since Mass III. You won’t be sitting still when those final riffs come crashing in, but you may have to double-take when the song comes to its abrupt conclusion. The silence seems totally intentional, but more damning than reflective--rather than the pregnant silence haunting “Edelkroone” and “Spijt,” or the quiet intensity characterizing the album’s numerous passages of subdued dread, this silence rings with emptiness. -Brian L.
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