Mütterlein – Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound Review

By Dear Hollow

I’ve always unfairly ranked Rorcal above Overmars. What can I say? I got into Heliogabalus and Born Again around the same time, enamored by both single epic song interpretations of hardcore vigor, pained dissonance, and pitch-black sludge. Still, Heliogabalus took the cake when it came to bottom-scraping hellish riffs, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Themes differ, as Rorcal’s elegant storytelling added further majesty to their colossal attack, while Overmars’ scrappy commentary on injustice and religious trauma owed a more anti-establishment aura. Rorcal remains one of my favorite acts, while Overmars broke up in 2011. Out of sight, out of mind, but it wasn’t until now that Overmars has come back to haunt me in the form of Mütterlein.

Mütterlein is a project of Overmars vocalist/bassist Marion Leclercq,1 but the sound in comparison to Overmars is a spiritual successor only. The sludge is present in the density in much the same way Author & Punisher offers, in walls of electronic darkness, synthesized percussion, and trip-hop beats, while climactic moments of mammoth post-metal chugs crash through like a freight train. Always rooted in more ominous atmospheres recalling the resounding organ of its cover, third full-length Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound offers an electronic trip to the shadows that feels grandiose and explosive where it ought to, but far too stripped down in others.

Mütterlein revolves its movements around a synthesized beat, resembling either a darkwave pulse that feels a tad like Perturbator or a thunderously precise snare that feels like an electronic interpretation of Isis, and its movements flow around and atop it. It’s a simple but effective structure, as largely these percussion movements carry across an entire song, while Leclercq’s atmospheric songwriting allows more metallic movements to mesh in a slurry with the synth-driven elements that combine into a haunting overture that recalls some of horror’s more cinematic moments. From a synth-centric version of Amenra in its diminished post-metal rhythms, leads, and call-and-response riffage (“Wounded Grace”) to the pulsing wave of density interwoven with angelic choirs atop trip-hop beats (“Concrete Black,” “Ivory Claws”), and guest appearances of Church of Ra’s Treha Sektori in sprawling dark ambient interludes (“Memorial One,” “Memorial Two”), Mütterlein has a formula that is effectively simple and simply crushing when it needs to be, although its more minimalist pieces drag on for far too long (“Anarcha,” “Division of Pain”).

Mütterlein places its claustrophobic sound design front and center, and like any good post-metal album, vocals are just another instrument in Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound. It’s a bit of a shame, because Leclercq gives her most passionate and disconcerting vocal performance, relying on a drawling Audrey Sylvain (ex-Amesoeurs) post-punk groan (“Ivory Claws,” “Memorial Two”) and a rabid Kristin Michael Hayter (formerly Lingua Ignota) sermonic howl (“Memorial One,” “Division of Pain”). Too much of the music becomes monotonous and repetitive without enough of her vocals to keep up the vigor and energy, its pulse quickly dwindling to a flatline (“Division of Pain”), making the tracks that feature a switch-up at its midpoint highlights (“Wounded Grace,” “Ivory Claws”). The sound palette is nice when her vocals guide the horror, giving a climactic three-prong attack of vocals, electronic pulses, and overlaying leads, but when one of those crucial elements is removed, Mütterlein quickly loses its bite.

I miss Overmars, but Mütterlein offers a brand new sound that’s both densely crushing and darkly atmospheric, even if the sound is imperfect. Recalling the likes of Author & Punisher in swaths of punishing electronics, Amenra in its haunting melodic approach, and Lingua Ignota in the fury behind the mic, there’s a lot to like about Amidst the Flames. However, there’s a thin line between intrigue and monotony, and when the track goes too long or Leclercq removes her vocals, the result becomes painfully dull in its more stark passages. Feeling a tad long at a normally reasonable forty minutes, Mütterlein offers a mixed bag with triumphant highs and dull lows in Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Websites: mutterlein.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/mutterlein
Releases Worldwide: May 9th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AmbientMetal #Amenra #Amesoeurs #AmidstTheFlames #AuthorPunisher #DebemurMortiProductions #Electronic #ElectronicaMetal #FrenchMetal #IndustrialMetal #Isis #LinguaIgnota #MayOurOrgansResound #May25 #Mütterlein #Overmars #Perturbator #PostMetal #ReverendKristinMichaelHayter #Review #Reviews #Rorcal #TrehaSektori

For @loewe's #MusicWomenWednesday:

Music in Low Frequencies: Unconsciousness

https://song.link/3j4k7jd2ffrkj

FFO #Sinistro #BoltGun #Rorcal

R.A Sánchez – L’Ottava Sfera Review

By Dear Hollow

The trouble with genre-bending avant-garde artists is the line between utter brilliance and foolhardy amateurishness. Like a sleeping bear of sonic putridity, artists poke it with their toes of jazz and ambiance and drone, and it largely is a matter of time before they’re greeted with the teeth, and consequently, our ears are bathed in confusion.1 R.A Sánchez, proprietor of the ambient weirdness of Black Baptist, offers this odd concoction in solo debut L’Ottava Sfera, a title which is translated to “the eighth sphere” in Corsican. Balancing crystalline and dark ambient soundscapes, jazzy chord progressions and spurts of brass, and a drone weight, all to a pace seen in funeral doom, it takes its sweet and pitch-black time oozing into the bones with sluggish precision.

L’Ottava Sfera does well in emulating the darkness of its cover art.2 Inspired by Catholic imagery, as well as sonic inspirations of experimental jazz, funeral doom, and avant-garde composers like Krzysztof Penderecki and Iannis Xenakis, R.A Sánchez offers a pitch-black sonic exploration into formality, death, illness, and madness, on paper penned like this year’s Swami Lateplate. While albeit merely hinting at metal through expansive soundscapes infected with cancerous doom, L’Ottava Sfera feels heavier and darker than some of metal’s more vicious offerings – as dread and dying course through every fiber of this beast. Undeniably divisive and jarringly stitched together at parts, R.A Sánchez offers a pitch-black descent into meditation and madness through its weaponized gloom.

R.A Sánchez essentially takes funeral doom and drone and strips them to their bare minimum: as atmospheric and unrelenting but its teeth are notably absent, pinpointing its potentially divided reception. Punishment is not his aim, but rather evocation. L’Ottava Sfera’s tracks range therefore from ambient sprawls touched by the crooked hand of drone to dense and unforgiving weight that tugs on the throat. Designed like an unassuming crescendo, the album opens up with the simple and overlong “Nimu,” which can simply feel like a warbling improvisation on a Roland synthesizer. Maneuvering between jazzy chords with underlying pitch shifts, there is little else to be impressed with, continuing into the piano-led “Forma,” whose pastoral chords are interrupted by a staccato break: again, a rather unassuming twist on an unassuming track. However, there dwells beneath the true monster of L’Ottava Sfera at its halfway point: a growing crescendo of drone that adds depth, darkness, and weight to the jazzier proceedings. Even then, the chord progressions stand at odds in “Forma,” with a dark minor scale dominating the drone clashing against the relatively lush major proceedings of the piano.

It isn’t until the full weight of the meticulously constructed and wildly mind-warping “Qutb” that R.A Sánchez reveals his hand. Beginning with a relatively toothless doom beat alongside a synth substitute for squealing feedback, the dirge warps into deep and dark drone slogs that feel the weight of eons, while narrowly skirting the “metal” tag. Balanced with a segment of wonky jazz spasms, a revenant of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, the drone hits as a welcome ton of bricks that suddenly dominates the track with a tastefully religious tone that pairs neatly with the ritualistic flavor. Colossal fifteen-minute closer “Gnosi” continues this trend in the mammoth climax of L’Ottava Sfera, where drums and drone approach an uncanny valley version of brutality (recalling this year’s Rorcal) while the ritualistic and shamanistic drone-inflected jazz drags listeners kicking and screaming into the darkness, recalling Neptunian Maximalism or Zaäar. A true test of patience, interlude “Sovranu” is a sprawling ambient track that slowly and methodically swells from near silence to suffocating density throughout its fourteen-minute ethereal march – although a masterclass in ambient dynamics.

R.A Sánchez toes the line between coyly amateurish and meticulously cunning across the album-long dynamic of L’Ottava Sfera, ultimately landing on a sound best described as soul-crushing – even if it takes a while to get there. The pitch-black tones that embody the destination “Gnosi” showcase the intention and care all along: an ultimate emptiness that scratches under the skin with a duality of both religious and primal weight. The road is bumpy and forlorn and your patience will be tested across its forty-four-minute runtime of divisive genres, but fans of jazz, drone, and dark ambient will find their journey well rewarded.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: STREAM
Label: Lost Tribe Sound
Websites: blackbaptist.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: December 1st, 2023

#2023 #30 #AmericanMetal #AtmosphericDoom #BlackBaptist #DarkAmbient #DarkJazz #Dec23 #Drone #FuneralDoomMetal #Jazz #LOttavaSfera #MilesDavis #Neoclassical #NeptunianMaximalism #NonMetal #RASánchez #Review #Reviews #Rorcal #SwamiLateplate #Zaäar

Going through the release radar playlist on Spotify.

Rorcal is back with a new single release. Full length is forth-coming.

https://rorcal.bandcamp.com/album/silence

https://open.spotify.com/track/5jLTtu0bquNpP4pm4UqPGe?si=1e24e6a065404cc0

#NewReleases #ReleaseRadar #bandcamp #rorcal