Artist: Medico Peste
Country: Poland
Label: Malignant Voices
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
Five years have passed since the last album by the Polish band Medico Peste. A time in which a lot has happened. For one, a drastic change in personnel occured. Anno 2025, the only remaining original member of the band is vocalist and guitar player Lazarus, who is now joined by Zann on bass, Zerachiel on guitars and Adrian Stempak on drums. The band is also no longer featured within the ranks of Season of Mist, as they have returned to Malignant Voices, the label that also released the debut full-length ‘ א: Tremendum et Fascinatio’. Five years to address a tall order: to compose a successor to the quite outstanding second album ‘ב: The Black Bile’.
That previous album left me thoroughly impressed. A dissonant, frenzied and at times deliciously mad Black Metal album that showed off the band’s exquisite control of pace, musicianship and songwriting. The testimony of a quality recording ultimately is memorability, and that the main riff and quirky progressions of opener ‘God Knows Why’ still linger with me five years later really says enough. So needless to say, I met the recently released ‘Aesthetic of Hunger’ with anticipation. And it didn’t let me down.
The latest Medico Peste album is very much what you would expect based on ‘ב: The Black Bile’. It is complex, dissonant but catchy with elements that blend into a fascinating whole. This is forward thinking Black Metal, intense yet at times progressive and psychedelic and played with exquisite skill. So indeed, the overlap with the likes of Deathspell Omega, Sinmara, Svartidauði and their countrymen in Blaze of Perdition remains obvious. But while ‘Aesthetic of Hunger’ is a logical continuation of ‘ב: The Black Bile’, it approaches things slightly different.
I would say the madness is a little bit more toned down, although contrarian placement of melodies and tremolo picking, disturbing riffs and vocals, prominent and adventurous bass play and an ever-shifting drum landscape are still the core of the record. Perhaps part of this has to do with the arrangement of the songs, as the more quirky songs are shifted towards the second half of the record. But the placement of a cleaner and more melodic guitar play is also strikingly different, adding to the contrast within tracks. This contrast further manifests in the very present bass, an instrument that very much is used to its fullest rather than just a filler. There is a restlessness in the chaotically shifting drums. Yet its how all these elements combined melt together into a whole is what makes this musically utterly compelling.
The opener ‘Saint Anthony’s Fire’ presents that unorthodox style that the band has displayed earlier, although it just flirts with quirkiness instead of going all-in like the opener of the previous album did. In the subsequent ‘The Black Lotus’, the placement of the melodies are striking, as are the rather deranged vocals. ‘Subversion & Simulacra’ is dissonant, intense in its rhythms and in ‘Ecclesiogenic Psychosis’ we hear the band descend further into madness, with frivolous bass, soprano vocals and dissonant strumming. Similarly, ‘Folie de Dieu’ is a restless and chaotic track. One of the highlights for me is the midpaced ‘Viaticum’, a more ominous and moody song where pianos add a beautiful layer to the music. The closing track ‘Act of Faith’ is an altogether more orthodox track that is similarly aimed at a melancholic atmosphere, although more progressive elements make their way in as the song reaches its end.
Together these tracks display an increased versatility and a more honed control of the frantic elements. ‘Aesthetic of Hunger’ is where chaos and beauty have made their peace and merged into each other seamlessly. It is an exquisite record, a thrilling ride that admittedly might be too much for those looking for bareboned Black Metal aesthetics. But those that yearn for the dissonant and out-of-the-box mentality, ‘Aesthetic of Hunger’ will be one of the highlights of the year. For now available only on CD and digital, I will for sure try to grab it once the vinyl releases later this year. Splendid record!
