ALBUM REVIEW: Memorrhage – Memorrhage
Let’s cast our minds back to the 90s. Some of our readers, and indeed our writers, may be a touch too young to remember the glory days of KORN and MUDVAYNE. Moving into the 00s, some may not even have been into metal when SLIPKNOT reached their peak. Grimy nu-metal dominated the alternative scene, with one particular song from NINE INCH NAILS becoming a firm favourite for sexy time playlists. Alternative and industrial metal were the flavours of the month and we couldn’t have been happier. How about now? Well, perhaps not so much on the industrial front, yet MEMORRHAGE are hell bent on paying tribute to the love gone by with their self-titled record.
The brainchild of Garry Brents of GONEMAGE and HOMESKIN greets us with 11 tracks of pure dystopia. To the point we don’t know where it’ll go from one second to the next. Memory Leak, the first track written for the project, goes zero to a hundred in mere moments. We’re left shellshocked for a moment when confronted with a frantic barrage of noise. Brents’ growls are almost carnal in nature which, when cast against the sound of mechanical ticking, sends uncomfortable chills shooting up the spine. It’s clear this is not an album to sit and chill out to as Exit comes with a decimating scream into a wall of angular riffs. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore as MEMORRHAGE clearly seeks to be a jolt to the system.
The issue with this is when an album goes full throttle so quickly, there’s very little room for it to do anything else. There is also the problem of the material all sounding the same – which Reek runs into. While it may lull us into the false sense of a slower number, the veil is lifted quickly into another spiralling track. There are filthy riffs aplenty to devour and the scratching tracks add another layer to the disaster of a life as it “circles down the drain” but it sounds exactly the same as the previous tracks. Though things change with Finesse which shows… well some finesse within muted guitars for the verses and a somewhat minimal construct. The angular verses and squeals fill out for the “chorus section” which leads us to believe this one was constructed further into the project. Carrying much more of a purpose than previous tracks, we wonder whether this is more of a proving ground than a final product.
Old Wave brings us back to the KORN influence as the beat mimics that of one of the better tracks in the legacy band’s discography. Though this track quickly becomes “just a relic of the past trying to blend in” as rather than paying tribute to those golden days, it simply rips them off completely. 90-second Lost again suffers from the kitchen sink syndrome, though there’s very little sticking to the walls of this particular crafting station. However there are elements of hardcore and bastardised metalcore leaking through which we can always appreciate. Knurl builds upon this further still with a spiralling riff yet it becomes lost within the track’s build up. It’s here we hear the project experiment with pacing as Knurl grinds down into a melodic pre-chorus as well as a slower instrumental which paves the way for a rap section.
Fatigue hits with Brain Wield. There’s only so long people can enjoy being beaten over the head with a cacophony of noise and the wall hits hard. It’s a shame as there are flashes of ominous tones within the instrumentals and flashes of screams but once the wall hits, there is little coming back from it. With three tracks left, the runtime seems to drag. Lunge breezes over the head with bubbling riffs and the introduction of sung vocals – something which could have been introduced earlier perhaps. While Utility offers some reprieve with its slower vibes and modern metal influences, this oasis doesn’t have the serenity it promises. With heavily edited sung vocals, it feels jarring and uncomfortable rather than the break from the mental onslaught. Closing track Ex-Sprite hits like a hammer to the skull with grinding guitars and dense instrumental but comes at the end of an already marathonic listen.
As mentioned, it’s hard for an album to bounce back from listener fatigue. MEMORRHAGE hits the block hard. Trying to power through that for the sake of a message is an honourable thing to do, but this would have served better as a series of EPs rather than a full-length. Is this the tribute to days gone by we were promised? The answer to that is purely subjective. For us however, it’s everything we tried to forget about the glory days.
Rating: 4/10
Memorrhage is available now via Big Money Cybergrind.
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