Melechesh – Emissaries
Emissaries - an agent sent on a mission of a secret nature, as a spy.
-Dictionary.com
Emissaries isn’t really aptly titled for Melecheshs’ 4th album, but that doesn’t take away from the album. After all, it’s just a title, right? But while the definition of emissaries is soft, sneaky, and/or secretive, this is a fast, firey, in-your-face type of album. Abstract time signatures and tempos on some riffs (like ‘
Double Helixed Sceptre’) to the oriental-esque acoustic (‘
The Scribes Of Kur’), Emissaries has just about everything covered with this album. While the album doesn’t necessarily present any Earth shattering, bone breaking, or extreme progress, there is certainly some exceptional songs on here. ‘
Rebirth Of The Nemesis’, while a bit lengthy, is just a taste of what’s to come.
The Good, The Bad, And The Mediocre
The guitar has sweet riffs all around the album, and the acoustic piece, ‘
The Scribes Of Kur’, helps with variety. But the guitar department is dragged down because there is barley any palm muting. While some of you might not see anything wrong with this, just imagine a treble heavy guitar tone, tremolo picked, swept, whatever, all along the high E, B, and G strings, all along the album. While ‘
Leper Jerusalem’ provides an oasis, as well as some other parts on some other songs, it doesn’t make up for the first flaw, witch is: not enough palm muting or deep staccatos with a whiny, treble–heavy tone. The album also has solos, which are sometimes short (‘
Touching The Spheres Of Sephiroth’), but they still prevail, and I find nothing wrong with Ashmedi and Moloch’s solos.
The drums are incredible, everything’s not a blast-beat, like some albums (In Sorte Diaboli), and everythings not all slow. I find that Xul is a very talented drummer, while no Martin Lopez, he can stll provide crushing speed (‘
Sand Grain Universe’) and have enough sense to make equillibrium on technicality. Nothing upsetting about the drums, so now we move on—to the bass. While audible sometimes, theres not much to say about it, it can shine for a very limited time (‘
Gyroscope’), but overall, you can’t expect much from a bass with a Black Metal band, can you?
We now venture to the vocals. Personally, I don’t hate them, but I cannot sit through this entire album with Ashmedis vocal style. It’s like a Black Metal, high pitched Atreyu at times, but not as bad. He seems to spit out words and curdle them, making them throaty and just unlistanable. He has his spots though, like on ‘
Rebirth of the Nemesis’, he can prove to be a vocalist who can push you far, far away and suck you right back in to liking him again. Mabey some lessons, or
something, and I may be able to accept Ashmedi. For now, though, the vocals are neither abyss-ly bad or soaring good, they are just, plain and simple,
mediocre. Production is, without a doubt, flawless. Nothing is overpowering anything, everything comes in like sunlight through a clear window. The kick drum sound (witch is very important to me) is incredible, I really like what the producer (unkown at this time) did with the album.
As for the lyrics, they are very descriptive, and as with most Melecheshs’ subjects, deal with occult themes. Take this from ‘
Ladders To Sumeria’…
As the prime echelon of cenobites - they unite
Construct the Ziggurats - for the divine
The secret sky ports
The Towers of fire
Under wormholes
Vessels of Enki soar
The Ladders to Sumeria
On the grand white temple of Uruk
Lie the zenith mark... Ascension
To leave these terrestrial plains
The seven titans, they commune
Kochab of the Annunaki, it awaits
12th entity of our solar dominion
…so overall, a nice, impressive album for the Mesotopian Metal band Melechesh, leaves you wondering what will happen next, but in the meantime, you keep coming back and back for another listen.
Pros and Cons
+ Riffs and solos are inspired and creative
+ Superb drumming
+ Production is flawless, couldn’t be better
- Ashmedis vocals
- Trebly heavy riffage
FINAL RATING FOR MELECHESHS’ ‘EMISSARIES’ – 4.0
Recommendations-
Rebirth of the Nemesis
Sand Grain Universe
Touching The Spheres Of Sephiroth
