ALBUM REVIEW: Omniscient Hallucinatory Delusion – MRTVI

Although black metal has long provided fertile ground for bands with a more progressive bent, it’s very hard to think of many bands that have really pushed the genre into more avant-garde realms and made it work without seemingly shedding their black metal roots almost entirely. MRTVI are one of the few bands that manage to do this right. Since the release of their Perpetual Consciousness Nightmare debut in 2015, the one man act has increasingly stretched their sound into more bizarre and visceral territories, with their aptly named second album, Negative Atonal Dissonance turning plenty of heads. It’s follow up, Omniscient Hallucinatory Delusion, is perhaps the band’s darkest and most eclectic work yet, being one of the best, and most demented, black metal albums of the year.

Living in Repetition combines vast, spacey atmospheres with jarring dissonance, with intricate drums, eclectic guitars and harsh, minimalist vocals giving this song a hypnotic, grating quality that sets a dark and foreboding tone for the rest of this album. Mass Hallucination takes an aggressive musical stance, with juddering guitar hooks with a slight mathcore influence and feral vocals giving this a claustrophobic, unpredictable sound that not many black metal bands possess. The dense, wall of noise approach of certain sections works really well, and although there are plenty of black metal flourishes, from caustic vocals to sharp guitars, it’s a brilliant example of just how experimental the genre can be. Cycles of Suffering, unlike the previous, monolithic offering, proves to be a short, but incredibly effective, approach that blends haunting ambience with punishing percussion, perfectly balancing the sublime and the severe, giving this a lighter feel with a generous helping of intensity.

Invisible Scars, an expansive, unnerving electronic interlude, creates a palpable tension, and sets up twin aural assault Self Slaughtering and Exercise in Mistakes extremely well. The first tracks rhythmic opener giving way to discordance, coupled with lots of progressive and death metal flourishes, crafting an impenetrable, rabid sound that its hard not to get drawn in by. The second of these two pieces continues where the last left off, reducing the pace and utilising a prominent drum sound to give this a different feel, with the music ebbing and flowing between demented guitar motifs and heady atmospherics with ease, giving this particular track a diverse and immersive sound.

Chains of Illusion, with its gnarled, shrieking vocal deliveries and thunderous rhythm section, has a monstrous side to it that immediately grabs the listeners attention, with slicker, more melodic moments from the guitars peppered throughout, adding a punchier side to what ends up being a very chaotic affair. Slave Mentality and Terminal Ignorance, another pair of short tracks, are probably the closest things to ‘straight forward’ black metal on here, with energetic drums, tremolo picked guitars and bellicose vocals informing each songs core, with the second track providing a change of pace, with the uncomfortable, noisy approach of the former giving way to the sonorous latter, built around bombastic, chanted vocals complemented with liberal percussion and keyboard effects, making this song feel like an intergalactic Gregorian choir.

Cosmocide and Perceived Entirety both take the music to incredibly atonal territories, with abrasive guitars, frenzied drumming and a futuristic sound courtesy of the the keyboards that inform Cosmicide working really well. Perceived Entirety makes use of this to a lesser extent, with a grandiose, ethereal sound, punctuated by authoritative, imaginative drumming, spartan guitars and clean vocals, once again tapping into the ritualistic sound that has been hinted at earlier on the album, acting as a fantastic, climactic slab of avant-garde black metal that further pushes the boundaries the album’s sound. Obscured Reality, much like the last track, has a gargantuan sound, with substantial, feverish guitar parts contrasting sharply with the baritone vocals. The more all-encompassing use of ambience, and pushing this side of the MRTVI sound to be darker and more oppressive, works extremely well, and brings this album to a close amazingly.

Even for listeners who are more well versed in the experimental side of black metal may very well find this album to be decidedly left field. This is far from a criticism, as the musicianship and song-writing MRTVI offer here is really well done, with each song contributing to the wider narrative of the album, shifting seamlessly from one to the other. There aren’t many albums that genuinely push the envelope in terms of just how extreme and avant-garde black metal can be in the same way that this album does, making this album a challenging, and at times uncomfortable, listen in the very best of ways.

Rating: 9/10

Omniscient Hallucinatory Delusion is out now via Transcending Obscurity Records.

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