Artist: Mütiilation
Country: France
Label: Osmose Productions
Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2025
Mütiilation may never have been a truly controversial band, but Meyhna’ch has never made a secret of his misanthropy. Whether that is part of the show and image or not, it has largely determined the band’s musical legacy. With this latest album, their eighth, released on Christmas Day 2025, he is once again drawing on that same source. When you read the lyrics of ‘Pandemonium Of Egregores’, it is clear that Meyhna’ch is not yet done with the pitiful state of humanity and his total contempt for religious thought patterns – hence the egregores. Musically speaking, there is no earth-shattering change either.
Osmose Productions claimed that this new album sounds a little more melodic that the previous one, that marked the return of Mütiilation after a long period of absence. However, that claim should be taken with a grain of salt. I listened to the album several times in its entirety before reading that it was supposed to be more melodic: it’s not something that immediately struck me. And that’s a good thing. Mütiilation is a band that thrives on its ugliness. Black Metal as a whole benefits from a rough edge, but Mütiilation has become synonymous with it, an inseparable part of its musical identity and overarching aesthetic.
Alright. The closing track, ‘Hashischin Cage’ is possibly the most melodic track Meyhna’ch has ever recorded. With its thoroughly doomy character, this song fits well to its title and purpose. Although the lyrics are kind of vague, they seem personal as well and refers to the “Club des Hashischins”. A somewhat secret Parisian society that experimented with drugs, mainly to escape everyday misery. This more or less elitist club had members such as Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Charles Baudelaire. All figures who contributed immensely to the 19th century literature and poetry. Something that was reflected in some of Meyhna’ch’s previous work as well.
That drug-inspired, almost delirious way of making music is largely part of Mütiilation’s past, but seems even more evident in their later work, with ‘Pandemonium Of Egregores’ perhaps being the most striking example. Perhaps now the musical intention flows more naturally, something that can be attributed in part to the excellent work of BST (Sotherion, Doedsvangr, ex-Antaeus, ex-Aosoth, ex-Aborted, among others), who was responsible for the mixing and mastering of both this album and the previous one.
