Menace Ruine – “Cult of Ruins” – [Alien 8 Recordings]

2008 debut album is heavy and twisted but don’t call it metal. Montreal duo of multi-instrumentalists draw on goth, black metal (especially the French style), funeral doom metal, industrial drone, psych and shoegaze influences to distill a new genre as-yet unnamed by misguided music journos. S. De La Moth’s ghoulish shrieks create a dichotomy with Genevieve’s gorgeous Nicoesque intonations: masculine/feminine, fire/ice, rage/sadness, menace/ruin. Interestingly, their two vastly different vocal styles do not share any of the trax. The music is dichotomous too: it has frantic black metal moments of Deathspell Omega atonality (t.1, 4, 7) and some that lean toward smacked-up deathgaze miasma (t. 2, 6). Faves are t.3 (nice balance of influences, female vox) and t.4 (unsettling black metal tantrum, male vox). Some songs descend into formless industrial delirium by their ends, (e.g. t.5, for five minutes). Skillful use of pedals makes instruments sound unfamiliar throughout. T.3 and 5 feature ‘baroque’ guitar work that is SUPER reminiscent of Peste Noire– not that I’m complaining! This is not trendy ‘shoegazing black metal,’ but rather a classification-defying and harrowing soundtrack to the meaningless tragedy of your choice. Caveat: excessive listening may cause drug addiction, isolation and/or suicide.