Needless to cheat, before today I had never heard of this Australian band that, in the presentation was indicated as dedicated to gothic doom. To make up for lost time and get some more information, I listened to some tracks from their two previous works, The Serpent’s Kiss and The Necessary Evil, getting the idea of a combo with rather personal traits and author of albums much darker than a certain melodic afflatus could make them seem. But Vis Ortis, the musician from Melbourne who is behind the project, on this occasion has decided to surround himself with a handful of guests to give life to an album really bold for stylistic and compositional choices. Banished any kind of song form, Mekigah plunge the listener in a total darkness caused by an extreme form of dark ambient that, sometimes, goes to touch drones sounds, while in other cases it shows relatively more accessible thanks to melodic flashes and some vocal lines that, however, everything can appear anything but reassuring. The result is surprising, given the real risk that you run, at similar junctures, to give life to a mess without rhyme or reason: Litost, in fact, keeps you nailed to the chair, proving to be a credible representation of a world in which the light has long been extinguished. Dark, solemn, dramatic, lashed by superhuman voices, the album does not discount both when assorted noises take the field, both when poignant melodies are soiled by an industrial-ambient substrate. The track that most can be remotely defined as a song is the amazing wurrmbu, close to certain uncompromising doom typical of Aestethic Death (The Nihilistic Front): here, listen well keeping in mind that this is one of the most accessible moments of the album. It’s hard to evoke such strong feelings without resorting to “lawful” means such as incisive melodic lines or full-fledged aggression: Litost could be the ideal soundtrack of a good sci-fi horror movie or a documentary on the end of life, but it doesn’t make much difference in the end, only its frightening and fascinating effect remains at the same time. The disc closes in an excellent way with the minimalism punctuated by inalienable melancholy of bir’yun: glimmer of light or illusory hope? We’ll probably find out in the next occasion; in fact, I’m quite curious to understand if this record will remain an episode in itself in the discography of Mekigah to return to retrace the path of gothic of the first two records (very nice by the way, now that I discovered them I will not set them aside easily) or if this road will hopefully be beaten in the future. In any case, great album and band from red circles.

2014 – Aesthetic Death