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I sure as frig haven't listened to the bulk of releases that came out this year, but I gotta say I've been really optimistic with what I've heard thus far and Mass VI by Amenra is right up there with the fuckin' cream of the crop man, maybe even the album of the year for me, it's what I needed to hear when I didn't even know it. Absolutely floored and covered in my own piss and semen, I don't know why I am, but I am.
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It's important to talk about the atmosphere of Mass VI, because it's heavy like a dead dog on your birthday and as digestible as steel wool slathered in cheese whiz and it's to the credit of everything that makes this album so good; Mass VI makes me want to care less than I already do when I'm at my worst, even with the many driving sections of incredible optimism lies something languorous, dragging like an emotional anchor, dead fucking weight albeit not fatalist and whiny. It's hard not to tie in your own negative emotions, using the rancorous wall of sound as a battering ram to form a cathartic like state because somehow this feels personal, and that's what a great album does, it resonates, negative or not.
The absolute desperation in Colin's vocals are what set Amenra apart from other similar bands, strikingly palpable as he heaves up bile and wrings out emotions with his tortured delivery, and the moments of clean singing provide a different type of dismal backdrop, harrowing and visceral in their own right that strike a chord of emotion; ennui. This contrast is rarely achieved with similar success. It's a well oiled machine all the way down to the snare pop and the gurgle of the bass to the dissonant wall of guitar whirr, which is to say the production is impetuous and the songwriting is impregnable, with no faults to speak of. Everyone wants to slap around 'best album of the year' to anything decent, but Mass VI is above such objective opinion, it is known fact that this is one of the strongest releases in an all encompassing sense dummies.
Can't help but appreciate that album cover as a piece of dreary art worthy of castles and mortuaries.
Mass VI (bandcamp)
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