Artist: Melth
Country: Canada
Label: Berserk Ritual Productions
Formats: Digital
Year: 2025
Emerging from the equally inventive and unpredictable group of musicians who previously brought us acts such as Gotthammer, Complot!, Moulin Banal, Adversaire, Shezmu, Pénombre and Kiloton. The exact identity of the two musicians involved is still somewhat shrouded in mystery, but the musical signature of Olivier B. Emond (aka Comte Bergaby, aka C.B., aka T.K.) is unmistakable, operating here under the pseudonym O-25. And just like many of this duo’s past and present projects, Melth too is impossible to penetrate, not even with a steam-powered jackhammer.
Previously the duo has caused a minor buzz in the (deepest) underground with Complot!, giving the Black/Death War/Bestial genre a new violent twist. While they went all traditional with the sadly defunct Gotthammer, O-25 also started Kiloton with which he again explored the outer rims of the War Metal genre. Kiloton has lots of electronics and even power tools to propel the music into an even more niche of the genre, experimental and occasionally hard to swallow – try listening to the 80 minutes ‘World War V’ discography CD.
Melth, their new brainchild, is actually a combination of the slightly more classic sounding Canadian Bestial Black/Death Metal of Gotthammer with the sonic violence of both Complot! and Kiloton. The result is, and it may not really surprise, rather disturbing. The first result of their renewed musical collaboration under this moniker is this 15-minute digital debut demo tape, ‘Fatal Suffusion Of Tissues’. If there was still any shadow of doubt, the cover art chosen for this first demo is reminiscent of early Carcass or bands such as Lymphathic Phlegm, Last Days Of Humanity, Dead Infection, etc. Although musically of a different order, the result is largely the same.
It is pure violence, presented as music. Rough and relentless like Gotthammer, smothering and overwhelming like Kiloton. The rawness and the merciless hammering makes you gasp for air all the time, only given a bit of a breather in between the tracks with a few eerie samples and nauseating beeps. It might be obvious that this is not for those who are looking for safe stuff nor for folks who like their music dynamic and sophisticated. This is, as Agent Steel so beautifully put it back in 1987, “hammering metal into your heads”.
