(written by Islander)
“Having named themselves for a particularly nasty-looking, fast-spreading, difficult-to-remove, and potentially dangerous fungus, Portugal’s Black Mold churn out a nihilistic amalgam of black metal and punk that makes their disgusting namesake seem mild.”
That’s how we began our premiere of a song in the early days of this month from Black Mold‘s new album In the Dirt of Oblivion, which will be released by Helldprod Records on September 20th.
The label provided their own preview of what the album holds in store for unsuspecting listeners: “[T]hese true spirits of the underground only have one thing in their minds. To drain the soul out of your body and fill it with darkness, hate and despair”.
We have some more words of warning, or invitation, depending on your predilections, but the main thing we have today is a full stream of all the album’s dirt and oblivion. It proves to be a lot more interesting and varied than you might be expecting from what you’ve read so far
Consistent with Black Mold‘s punk influences, the tracks on the new album don’t fuck around. Only one of them extends beyond three minutes, and many don’t even hit the two-minute mark. The music doesn’t fuck around either.
Black Mold‘s preferred speed is racing, propelled by drums that ferociously rattle and batter and riffing that viciously scours the ears with savage steel-wool tones. The vocals are just as ferocious and scouring, a raw and crackling expulsion of belligerent rage, just on the edge of coming apart and spraying blood.
The band’s punk influences reveal themselves in other ways besides the compact track-lengths and fuck-off attitudes. It comes through in the beats (when they’re not blasting like overheating mortars) and in the slashing simplicity of the riffs. But in other ways, the music isn’t so simple.
While the riffing is often scathing, it still seamlessly shifts in its moods, crafting bleakness and agony as well as cut-throat fury. And as rough as the guitar sound is, Black Mold always make a space for their bass to be heard, and you’ll understand why when you discern how interesting those maneuvers are, and get surprised by the bass frenetically taking the lead at times in “The Infinite Expanse of Night” and “Broken Rope” (and elsewhere).
The drumming and the vocals switch things up too, with the percussion veering off into changing patterns and riotous fills, and the vocals rising in wails of utter wretchedness or choking as if strangled (when they’re not trying to tear open your jugular).
But we still haven’t exhausted the ways in which Black Mold keep listeners on their toes. While the riffing is abrasive, the guitars also shine, spear, and swirl, creating sensations of immersive and even unearthly splendor (a fine example of that is to be found in “Faint In Obscurity”) or head-spinning delirium (see, e.g. “Doom of Exiles” and “The Cask”, even though the latter might be the album’s bleakest track too). There are even times when the songs sound a bit like blackened surf rock.
So, don’t be misled by our preceding references to the band’s “fuck off” attitude. They know how to write songs that have hooks, they know how to vary the moods as you move from one to the next, and they know how to execute them with an instrumental flair you might not be expecting — while still sounding loose and even lunatic.
There’s no song on the album where Black Mold will let your adrenaline take a rest, but on the other hand we predict you won’t feel exhausted by the end. If you’re like us, you might even wish there were more.
Helldprod will release In the Dirt of Oblivion on cassette tape, limited to 80 copies (at a special price until September 20th) and as a digital download. Pre-orders are available now via the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://helldprod.com/shop/
https://helldprod.bandcamp.com/album/black-mold-in-the-dirt-of-oblivion