Funereal Moon - Rites of Black Putrefaction

Do you love the earliest releases of Sarcofago, Mutilator, Insulter and Vulcano and attempt to wreak bloody vengeance on poseurs who dishonour them? Do you have patches of Necrovore, Beherit, Blasphemy and Mystifier hand-sewn onto your cult 80s jacket? Do you live on a steady diet of 80s speed/thrash/death/black metal demos but always thought Destruction's Bestial Invasion of Hell demo was too clean? Do you require necro noise in your music as much or more than clarity? Well... Funereal Moon formed in Mexico back in 1994 and have released 4 full-lengths, 4 compilations and assorted EPs and demos but are very unknown, definitely part of no scene and this is the first time I've got my hands on a CD by them. Their older stuff, I'm told, contains a lot of ambient material as well, but there is no overt display of that here.

Like the gnarled and grizzled veterans of some forgotten king's army looking derisively at the young'uns and yearning for the days of yore, Funereal Moon probably belong to the True Old Guard of metal; and they aren't just longing for the old days either, they are gamely trying to turn the clock back to when they were wee lads (after all, history does repeat itself and neither modern physics nor eastern mysticism is too keen on the linear, forward motion of time) while pushing forward in their own consciousness into blacker realms. So, is Rites of Black Putrefaction any good, you ask? Fuck you, wait and see. My, my, the attitude is just rubbing off, isn't it...

This doesn't have a modern or old school Swedish "dirty" production. Being a buzzsaw, note-skipping rattle that sounds like it was played on a grate rather than a guitar, the rhythm guitar, using time-warp techniques, was possibly recorded in Belo Horizonte for Cogumelo Records circa 1986. Songs begin anchored by a simple riff and maintain similar tempo varied only when necessary while the guitar evolves into progressive variations of linear but dissonant melodic lines sometimes reaching a blur of sound. On track 6, "The Bloody Hammer of Inquisition" for example, what passes for a riff moves into a melody line structuring itself into a riff/melody pattern and finally into squealing, eerie, ambient non-melody. The shrieking, atonal guitar leads are as superficially out of place yet inherently fitting as the solos on Wicca. Drums are sparsely punctuated ritual blasts, present mostly as a guide to tribal hypnotism. Vocals range widely from snarling, strange, Spanish utterances to low, indecipherable, blackened projections with an instance or two of clean singing. While this album doesn't contain strictly ambient tracks, it does carry an occult atmosphere and consciousness and the heavy feel of ritual ambience is draped over it, both akin and dissimilar to Beherit. This album may not seem to have dynamic range upon first listen but as you fall deeper into it the clever, squalling use of guitar and the rhythm and variation of the high-volume vocals aided by the blasts will entrance you in quite the way that the band intends.

I really do not know why Funereal Moon has not become even a cult favourite like several of the bands mentioned earlier. Or maybe they have and I do not know... After absorbing this, I definitely need to listen to their previous material too. Anyway, they deserve respect simply for travelling their own path, bowing to no trend. Rites of Black Putrefaction will not make you want to throw out I.N.R.I. (then again, if you did, you'd probably be on founder Impure Ehiyeh's hitlist) but it is a worthy, if minor, addition. Limited to 300 copies, this is intended for members of the tribe of old, raw, unholy South American metal or ritually aspected raw black metal ambience only. Otherwise, "if you are a false don't entry".

June 30, 2010

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