(Andy Synn presents an exclusive premiere of one of the darkest, harshest albums of 2026)
Success, or so they like to say, can be a double-edged sword.
And the music business in particular is full of bands who have reached the heighest of heights – whether critical, commercial, artistic, or some combination of all three – only to then have to live in the shadow of their success for the rest of their careers.
For Swiss Black/Sludge/Doom coven Rorcal this sonic apotheosis came in the form of 2019’s demonically intense Muladona (based on the novel of the same name), whose visceral, soul-scarring assault on the senses deserves – in my opinion, at least – be held up right alongside the nastiest, gnarliest works of Dragged Into Sunlight, Primitive Man, and This Gift Is A Curse at their very best.
That’s not to say that the band’s previous output – from the colossal Drone-Doom of Heliogabalus to the grinding attack of Világvége to the asphyxiating, Post-Metallic atmospherics of Κρέων – were in any way lacking (indeed, the latter is, quite rightly, considered to be something of an underground gem), but Muladona raised the bar so much, creatively and conceptually, that both 2021’s Witch Coven collaboration and 2023’s more Blackened Hardcore-leaning Silence still felt somewhat eclipsed by their progidigious predecessor.
This Friday, however, will see the release of the band’s nightmarish new album, Mahre, which doesn’t so much seek to escape the shadow of Muladona as it does dive even deeper into it, pursuing a darker, more disturbing path, and today we have distinct (mis)fortune of presenting the album in its entirety via the medium of a fascinating, and disturbing, full-length video accompaniment for the record, created by the band’s frequent collaborator (and friend of the site) Eeli Helin.
Now, as well as saying that success is a double-edged sword, “they” also like to say that lightning never strikes twice… but while I’m no meteorlogist it certainly seems to me, based on what I’ve seen and heard of Mahre over the last few days and weeks, that Rorcal have definitely struck something special here, something which doesn’t exist in competition with the previous high points of their career but rather builds upon them to create a similarly towering sonic edifice in its own right.
Across a crushing, claustrophobia-inducing forty-one minutes (and change), these five movements take you on a traumatic journey into the depths of the band’s collective unconscious – a journey reflected in the unsettling procession of eerie imagery and haunted, liminal landscapes which make up the accompanying video – each seamlessly interwoven track dragging the listener relentlessly down, down, down into that abyssal space between the darkest, doomiest end of Post-Metal and the heaviest, most harrowing side of Sludge, drawing parallels along the way with the likes of Amenra, Phantom Winter, and even the sinister soundscapes of Treha Sektori, at their bleakest and most unforgiving.
From the brooding, slow-burning ambience and pounding, sludge-soaked rage of the first movement, via the the strangely melodic, doom-laden strains of “Movement II” and the scorched-earth stomp und blitz of “Movement III”, to the grinding discordance and huling desolation of the punishing penultimate track, Mahre successfully marries the colossal weight of the band’s earlier years with the even more visceral nature of their most recent work(s), culminating in the pulsating push-and-pull between clamorous, abrasive noise and ominous, oppressive atmosphere that makes up the fifth and final movement of the album, by which time it seems likely that all but the most resolute and resilient listeners will have been thoroughly weeded out.
Those who do make it this far, however, will have the distinction of having experienced one of the most excruciatingly intense albums of the year in its entirety, an album which once again reaffirms Rorcal as one of the most artistically uncompromising bands in existence today.
Mahre was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Downtone Studio and will be released this Friday on Humus Records.
Pre-order the album here: https://humus-records.myshopify.com/collections/pre-orders
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