Melissa Stream Debut Album Devil’s Mask in Full
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 19th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Melissa release their debut album, Devil’s Mask, today. I think as of this post, actually. The record and the São Paulo-based group are both new, bringing together vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Melissa Rainbow with Dirty Grave bandmates in drummer Henrique Lima guitarist Pedro Barros along with bassist Anderson Vaca (also of PESTA), and after deciding to forge ahead with the project in January of this year, Rainbow wrote and recorded the 41-minute seven-tracker between then and March. It’s May, and again, today’s the release date. There is no substitute for efficiency.
Or vibe, and Devil’s Mask has plenty of that. Billed by Rainbow and the band that bears her name as “slow heavy music” rather than doom or doom metal in the outright, the fare throughout is raw, but not at all without atmosphere for that. Opener “Perfect Soulmate” opens backed by a duly thickened chug, but has intertwining layers of guitar stretched across, and the vocals add a murky sense of foreboding. Drums and bass are tasked with keeping a mostly straightforward rhythm, but there’s room for flourish there too, and as the longest song of the album (immediate points), the leadoff feels designed to draw the listener into the lurking horror that awaits in the rest of what follows, beginning with the crawl of “Buried in a Body,” which feels more forward in its structure but
still ends up in a swirling cascade of cultish incantations. Initial single “Swallowed by Blame” follows and reaffirms the otherworldly brooding in its more open midsection topped with multi-layer chants, building its way back up to the lumbering guitar and keyboard figure from whence it came, a curtain of mist drawing around as centerpiece “The Fire Eats” gets underway with its own patient consumption.
There’s a touch of grunge in the guitar progression of “The Fire Eats” — thinking Dirt-era Alice in Chains particularly — but the keys in the early and late going draw it together with “Swallowed by Blame” before, and while it’s “I, the Witch” that makes the most individual impression on Devil’s Mask as both the catchiest and most outwardly tonally weighted track, even that has both its layer of noise and keyboards well in check for the theatricality that arises amid the march of its second half, which, as ever, is directed downward, graveward, into a sonic abyss of the band’s own making. That leaves only the title-track to close out, and whatever grim gods have been invoked up to now, “Devil’s Mask” has its own presence, careening and raw and Lovecraftian and Hammer Horror all the while, a vague malevolence of low end circa two minutes in leading to the next round of layered vocals, some clean, some growled, some wailing, that accompany what in other contexts would simply be a Sabbath-style riff. Like the rest of Devil’s Mask, in Melissa‘s hands, that progression is twisted and repurposed like so much ethereal goo, turned hypnotic in its way and cut suddenly as if to preface another round of darkness on the horizon.
Given the pace with which Melissa‘s debut album happened, a quick sequel wouldn’t necessarily surprise, but what comes through clearest in this first offering is the sense of exploration of atmosphere and intertwining parts and layers to create a mood, songs as performance pieces even when recorded. It is doom, it is cultish, but Devil’s Mask pushes at the same time against convention, and is all the stronger for it. Whatever these impulses might lead to going forward, and when, the potential in the project comes from its immediate drive toward finding an individualized niche for itself. As to how far Melissa might continue to dig into that niche, that’s entirely up to them.
By all means, stream the album below and hear for yourself.
Enjoy.
Melissa is a Slow Heavy project by Melissa Rainbow (Dirty Grave, Mães Morrendo, Enxofre). Born in January 2021. Cult to slow heavy music.
Devil’s Mask is Melissa’s debut album, mixing heavy and slow riffs with gloomy melodies. Lyrics express a walk through a private hell surrounded by a veil of dramatic terror. Ode to Doom Metal with morbid environment in a psychedelism in dark tones.
Composed and recorded between January and March 2021
Record/mix homemade by Melissa Rainbow
All lyrics and music by Melissa
DEVIL’S MASK tracklisting:
1. Perfect Soulmate
2. Buried in a Body
3. Swallowed by Blame
4. The Fire Eats
5. I, The Witch
6. Pulse
7. Devil’s Mask
