(written by Islander)
On April 3rd Adirondack Black Mass will release the third album by Malauriu, fittingly named The Third Nail (though we suspect that name has other meanings besides the fact that it’s the band’s third full-length). We’re giving it a big showcase, not only providing listeners a full stream today but also publishing an interview of Malauriu’s founder Schizoid and their vocalist RM tomorrow.
Those of you seeing the album’s cover art for the first time will likely be perplexed by how strange it is, and it’s worth sharing Schizoid’s explanation, because the cover image connects to the album’s lyrical themes, and indeed to the often macabre nature of the music. Here is an excerpt from the interview we’re publishing tomorrow:
Initially, I had commissioned the artwork from a well-known Italian painter, and we received back an excellent cover that we will certainly use in the future. However, I was deeply struck by a documentary about Easter in Sicily. The Sicilian scenes that reenact the Crucifixion are truly dark: hooded figures mock the participants, priests walk in procession, and effigies of Christ are raised onto the cross. It is a perfect scene where the sacred and the profane merge into a grotesque spectacle that fully embodies our music.
In thinking about this you should also know that Schizoid is Sicilian, and that other current members of the band are also Italian, though all of them now reside in London. With that understanding, here’s another excerpt from the forthcoming interview, this time a part of RM’s insights about the album’s lyrical themes, which revolve around the hypocrisy and depravity of Christianity as manifested in Italian culture (and of course elsewhere as well):
The album’s lyrics explore these aspects from multiple viewpoints: the duality of good and evil in ‘Empowerment Rights’; the weakness of the flesh and the ‘resurrection joke’ in ‘Death Celebration’; the damnation of Christian souls and the church in ‘Hell Mouth’; the perversion and abuse in ‘Satanic Witch’; the sexual deviation of Christians in ‘The Curse of All Flesh’; the unholy aspects of funeral ceremonies in ‘Purple Ceremony’; and, once more, the hidden depravity of the clergy in ‘Monotheistic Filth’.
The entire interview will be worth your time, but today we ought to move on to the music. The Third Nail includes eight original songs and a cover of the infamous “Abuse Myself, I Wanna Die” by GG Allin.
Malauriu open with “Rising From The Cemetery“, a hellish cavalcade of thunderous rumbling, hideous screaming, eerie wailing, and the tolling of funerary bells, and then they move right from that scary scene-setter into “Empowerment Rites”, the album’s first single. That song launches listeners into a slashing and bounding black/punk romp. It’s both feral and menacing, with vicious snarls and crazed, scorch-the-earth screams adding to the demonic fury, and the riffing also infernally blazes and miserably contorts.
The song also suddenly stops and starts, brutally pounds and cruelly throbs, and sends ecstatically swirling and strangely wailing and quivering guitar (and/or keyboard) solos spiraling toward the rafters, embellishing the music with an occult aroma. As the first full song, that one is viscerally compelling, diabolically dangerous, and likely to get its hooked claws buried in your head (the whole albm is loaded with hooks).
Malauriu keep the heat turned up high on the ensuing “Death Celebration“, a truly sulfurous rampage that includes frantically skittering, feverishly boiling, savagely jolting, brazenly blaring, and bleakly hulking riffage, as well as constantly varying drum rhythms, nimble bass-work, and further doses of those rabid, acid-strength vocals. “Hell Mouth“, as its name suggests, is equally hellish, and a probable fire-starter in mosh pits wherever it’s performed on stage, though when the tempo shifts it too becomes a hulking and hideous musical golem.
From there Malauriu continue leading listeners on their tour of hell on earth, sometimes creating cold-blooded sensations of menace, malice, or misery, and at other times going viciously wild, while continually moving from d-beats to blast-beats and other rhythmic places in between, and varying the vocals to include monstrous snarls and fanged growls.
They also bring in other changes, such as the witchy and seductive keyboards and chanted words at the end of “Satanic Witch“; the dismal moaning crawl that makes up much of the riffing in “Purple Ceremony” (though the music in that one also insidiously twitches); the ghostly horror-show that ends that same song; and the grotesque spoken words and tormented screams that appear within the relentlessly dynamic “Monotheistic Filth“.
As mentioned earlier, the album concludes with Malauriu’s reinterpretation of “Abuse Myself I Wanna Die” by GG Allin. It includes monstrous guest vocals by Diego DoUrden (Mystifier/Evoked) and Dr. Heathen Scum (Mentors). In the hands of all these performers the song is a black-hearted intertwining of vicious black metal and primitive, jaw-breaking punk, with fiery doses of demonic soloing in the mix. And man, the vocals really are monstrous.
All in all, the word that keeps coming to mind throughout the album is “hellish”. Or maybe “fiendish”, or “feral”, or “ferocious”… or all of them. But let’s step out of the way and let Malauriu give you their own introduction (with our thanks for their kind words):
We’re glad to finally share our new album through No Clean Singing. It’s a killer platform that’s helping us reach so many more people with The Third Nail. Our thank you goes to them for the amazing support!
Talking about the new record, we aren’t looking to reinvent the genre or add anything to it. Malauriu has always proven, album after album, we can write music that encompasses extreme metal as a whole. This time around, we wanted to pay tribute to primeval black metal and give it a raw, punk edge.
The result is right here, for you all to enjoy it for what it is: no makeup, no fancy dresses, no fucks given straightforward music for all the true believers out there.
The Third Nail was recorded by Schizoid (guitars) and R.M. (vocals), aided by the following session musicians:
Black Doom – Bass
Frozen – Drums
Felis Catus – Keyboards/Samples
Marbas – Keyboards
G.T. – Guitar solos on tracks 2, 5 and 9
Malauriu now have a solid live lineup based in London and are looking forward to taking their music on stages soon.
The Third Nail was mixed by Carlo Altobelli at Toxic Basement Studio in Italy, and it was mastered by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio in Sweden. It will be released on April 3rd by Adirondack Black Mass on CD and digital formats. It’s available for order now:
PRE-ORDER:
https://adirondackblackmass.bandcamp.com/album/the-third-nail
MALAURIU:
https://malauriu.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/malauriu/
https://www.facebook.com/malauriuofficial