The Germans Maladie are a crowded combo that, in deference to the moniker chosen, defines its musical style plague metal. In fact, the work of the band is not easily definable as it conveys elements of the darkest metal (doom, black, depressive) reworking them with a progressive and experimental vein whose standard bearer is certainly the saxophonist Hauke Peters. In fact, the first thing that strikes you when you listen is the warm tone of this instrument whose imprint reminds me not a little that of David Jackson of the legendary Van Der Graaf Generator and, in the end, I do not think it is a blasphemy to attribute to a work like …Symptoms… a visionary worthy of the seventies Hammill, all obviously transposed on a metal plan. When it turns out that the rough voice belongs to Déhà (also on piano and cello), a sort of King Midas of the extreme underground European scene, many circles are closed: frankly, I have no idea how much, in percentage, is measurable the compositional contribution of the Belgian musician, the fact is that at times emerge passages whose irresistible progression and poignant melancholy bring back to one of his best projects, We All Die (Laughing). Surely, however, even the other seven components are essential to the success of this magnificent musical fresco, starting from the second vocalist Alexander Wenz, with a stentorian and evocative timbre, to the excellent trio of guitarists (Bjorn Koppler – Mark Walther – Kevin Olasz) and the rhythmic couple (Moritz Grenzmann – bass – and Tobias Blach – drums). A team work, then, that provides one of the most delicious fruits of recent times (the album was released at the end of last year, but perhaps it has not yet been talked about as much as it deserves): …Symptoms… winds for about forty minutes as a single track (Divinitas – A Journey) subdivided into eight parts, which allows you to repeat in different stages the beautiful theme (part II and part VII) and somehow to end the album as it had opened, in a sort of perfect circular structure. In the middle there is everything that the inspiration of this ensemble of musicians allows to pour on the score, so that seamlessly alternate parts only apparently in contrast to each other (and that if handled by others would perhaps become really) but actually linked by a melodic thread anything but thin, even when to take the field are the blast beat outbursts of black matrix. This is a general description of what you can find inside this work of Maladie, since entering in the details of something so brilliant and multifaceted would risk to be redundant, as well as misleading: so you just have to listen directly to …Symptoms… to realize how much great music revolves around us, you just need to really want to intercept it.

2016 – Apostasy Records