ALBUM REVIEW: Mal De Vivre – Red Rot
The best bands are often those that are hardest to pigeonhole. Presumably that comes down to a couple of things – primarily the chance to offer something genuinely unique, but also the opportunity to appeal to theoretically disparate tribes of fans. It’s not without its risks either though; for every band that nails it, there’s no doubt another whose approach is too scattershot or bewildering, ultimately leaving listeners asking what the point of it was. All this is to say that when RED ROT let loose their debut full-length Mal De Vivre this Friday, their press notes promising shades of everyone from CONVERGE to VOIVOD to PARADISE LOST, it could go either way.
Thankfully, it’s safe to say that Mal De Vivre is mostly successful. Led by Luciano Lorusso George and Davide Tiso, both formerly of Italian avant-garde metallers EPHEL DUATH, RED ROT seem to have a pretty good idea of who they are for a project that only formed in the midst of the pandemic. The comparisons mentioned above all feel pretty dead on actually, as what we have here is essentially a mix of prog, hardcore, goth and death metal that does a good job of standing on its own two feet rather than sounding like a game of name that influence. It’s a lot to take in for sure, especially in a tight 38-minute runtime, but the results remain largely fascinating at the very least.
Given the length of the record, the fact that Mal De Vivre comes with a 17-song tracklist is perhaps another surprise. It’s definitely impressive how much the band can fit into a single song, often squeezing what feel like ambitious progressive metal concepts into hardcore and even grindcore-esque runtimes. Admittedly though, this can be a little frustrating at times. Some of the individual tracks struggle to sink their teeth in as far as they’d like, and there are definitely a few instances where the band seem to work their way into an interesting idea only to swiftly throw it out in favour of the next one, or in some cases to stop the track altogether.
That said, Mal De Vivre is definitely a cohesive record. It may run along with a frenetic urgency, but once you get to grips with what RED ROT are up to the overall flow and feel of the album is easy enough to follow. It also manages to grab its listeners often enough, whether that’s through a chant-like vocal hook such as that which kicks off the album in Ashes, a particularly hypnotic or crushing riff (Alpha Predator and Conversation With The Demon both house great examples), or a generally compelling ferocity hammered home most of all by George’s harsher vocal stylings. There’s also often a real theatricalism to proceedings, with the band regularly evoking that kind of gothic, proggy grandeur that the likes of OPETH and VOICES do so well.
With the album title essentially translating to ‘profound discontentment’, it’s also no surprise that Mal De Vivre is quite a dark record. Lyrically, it explores a host of themes ranging from mental illness and paranoia to rage and ‘psychological deviance’. As mentioned, George explores these themes in a range of vocal styles, but the record is probably at its most convincing when he opts for harsher fare. It’s not that the clean or chanted work is weak, it’s just there’s a real believable pain and fury – a hatred even in the case of Dishonorably Discharged – that comes through particularly well in George’s screams and barks.
For a record that crams an awful lot into its reasonably tight runtime, perhaps the only really random choice on Mal De Vivre is album closer Peregrine. Opting for something quiet and reflective – as many bands have for years now – it just feels a little tacked on to an album that has spent the rest of its time in a far more gripping gear. Lay that aside though, and the aforementioned issue of occasional hurry, and there isn’t much else to complain about here. Mal De Vivre is an ambitious work that refuses to sit neatly in any one box, and as a result ends up providing a relatively unique listen that with a little refinement could see RED ROT sharing the adoration lavished on many of their fellow genre-rejecters.
Rating: 7/10
Mal De Vivre is set for release on August 26th via Svart Records.
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