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Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite [EP]



8 | 80 votes |
Release date: 9 June 2017
Style: Black metal, Death metal

Owners:

52 have it
7 want it


01. Prologue
02. The Weighty Burden Of An Eternal Secret
03. Along The Road That Leads To Bedlam
04. These Tresses Are Sacred
05. May His Illusion Last Until Dawn's Awakening
06. Chimerical Hope
07. Do Not Open Your Eyes

The Best Ambient / Drone / Noise Album Of 2017

Staff review by
Auntie Sahar
Rating:
N/A
When bands that have won themselves a sizable following through the employment of a certain sound suddenly change their sound radically with a new release and piss off a good portion of their fanbase, I love it. Why? Because it shows the band in question doesn't care about pleasing fans by recycling a certain formula, and that a lot of fans are a lot less about "let the band do what they want" than they'd lead you to believe. This is inevitably going to be the case with this new EP from Schammasch.

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published 17.07.2017 | Comments (14)

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Comments

Comments: 18   [ 1 ignored ]   Visited by: 255 users
29.04.2017 - 17:05
Rating: 8
Paz

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29.04.2017 - 17:07
VIG
Account deleted
Written by Paz on 29.04.2017 at 17:05

MA tracklist is fucked up

It also says it is an EP there... is it?
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29.04.2017 - 17:10
Rating: 8
Paz

Written by Guest on 29.04.2017 at 17:07

It also says it is an EP there... is it?

Back in the day, The Synarchy Of Molten Bones was also considered as an EP there

According to Bandcamp this album has 32 minutes of playing time.
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29.04.2017 - 17:17
VIG
Account deleted
Written by Paz on 29.04.2017 at 17:10

According to Bandcamp this album has 32 minutes of playing time.

Well then this is a full length. It doesn't really matter though, new music from Schammasch will be great.
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29.04.2017 - 17:26
Desha
delicious dish
Let's see if they can pull it off. Slightly sceptical for now.
----
You are the hammer, I am the nail
building a house in the fire on the hill
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29.04.2017 - 17:37
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by Guest on 29.04.2017 at 17:17

Written by Paz on 29.04.2017 at 17:10

According to Bandcamp this album has 32 minutes of playing time.

Well then this is a full length. It doesn't really matter though, new music from Schammasch will be great.


If the band or label calls it an e.p. it is an e.p. no matter its playing time. hell, Reverend Bizarre have an e.p. that clocks in as 73 minutes (Harbinger Of Metal)
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Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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29.04.2017 - 17:38
VIG
Account deleted
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 29.04.2017 at 17:37

Written by Guest on 29.04.2017 at 17:17

Written by Paz on 29.04.2017 at 17:10

According to Bandcamp this album has 32 minutes of playing time.

Well then this is a full length. It doesn't really matter though, new music from Schammasch will be great.


If the band or label calls it an e.p. it is an e.p. no matter its playing time. hell, Reverend Bizarre have an e.p. that clocks in as 73 minutes (Harbinger Of Metal)

Yeah, I was thinking that, but I'm still assuming this is a full length. Ill go see what the band or label has said about it.
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29.04.2017 - 17:45
Rating: 8
Paz

Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure.. But at this point I'll leave it like that.
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30.04.2017 - 06:19
Jaeryd
Nihil's Maw
Call me a fanboy, but I preordered this sumbitch as soon as I saw the Schammasch Facebook page post about it. Huge fan of this band--realize it might be a bit simplistic or dull for some, but I personally love the atmosphere they create in their music, ambient bits and all. They also have some cool-ass merch, and I probably now own more T-shirts for this band than I do for any other. Looking forward to this.
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07.06.2017 - 16:44
Rating: 9
mz

Why would they put the average, "normal" black metal "Chimerical Hope" in an otherwise great, esoteric and alien sounding percussion driven drone EP?
I can totally see people calling that track the best one here, but seriously, I would like schammasch to stop being a BM band at this point and just produce something in the vein of the rest of tracks. The EP opens in amazingly, and ends somehow on low notes.
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Giving my ears a rest from music.
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07.06.2017 - 22:32
Jaeryd
Nihil's Maw
Written by mz on 07.06.2017 at 16:44

Why would they put the average, "normal" black metal "Chimerical Hope" in an otherwise great, esoteric and alien sounding percussion driven drone EP?
I can totally see people calling that track the best one here, but seriously, I would like schammasch to stop being a BM band at this point and just produce something in the vein of the rest of tracks. The EP opens in amazingly, and ends somehow on low notes.

I don't feel that at all. I think that track does sound relatively average, but in the context of the rest of the tracks, it's pretty good. If you look at this EP as a single song, it's basically a huge ambient/drone song with a short, simple, but powerful black metal section, and that makes the thing a bit more interesting and diverse as a whole.
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09.06.2017 - 22:29
Jaeryd
Nihil's Maw
Yeah idk exactly why but I love this one, too.
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10.06.2017 - 03:36
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Well this is pretty damn good, aside from that one track Mahdi mentioned... ruins the flow of the rest of the album and feels very out of place. I suspect this EP may be a bit polarizing for the band's fanbase and that some won't like it because "it's no metals," kind of like the reaction to that ambient album WITTR did. But at this point I too would probably prefer Schammasch to drop the BM and just explore this drone personality more
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I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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11.06.2017 - 14:33
Rating: 9
InnerSelf
proofread free
I love both of their sides. Their Black Metal is still top notch and even though Chimerical Hope might feel out of place, it is still a fine fine track.
This is EP is so good, goddamn!
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He who is not bold enough
to be stared at from across the abyss
is not bold enough
to stare into it himself.
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12.06.2017 - 17:33
Rating: 10
deswesher

I got addicted to this! So good.
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fullblackreviews.com
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13.06.2017 - 02:17
Jaeryd
Nihil's Maw
Huh... I must be among very few who really liked Chimerical Hope as well as everything leading up to it. I really enjoy how this EP acts as a single song that morphs from drone into doom-ish territory and then into an almost hopeful/uplifting black metal before fading on that epic-sounding closer. I don't really prefer one side over the other here--the whole thing just really works for me.
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17.06.2017 - 16:05
Zap
Guest
Written by Jaeryd on 13.06.2017 at 02:17

Huh... I must be among very few who really liked Chimerical Hope as well as everything leading up to it. I really enjoy how this EP acts as a single song that morphs from drone into doom-ish territory and then into an almost hopeful/uplifting black metal before fading on that epic-sounding closer. I don't really prefer one side over the other here--the whole thing just really works for me.

Indeed, I'd say it's pretty cohesive despite being varied. Definitely my favorite album of theirs so far. I hope they continue in this direction.
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31.07.2017 - 19:19
Rating: 9
musclassia

I liked Triangle a lot, and all 3 CDs included in that, but disc 3 did feel a bit disconnected from the other two. This feels closer to a proper merge of the tribal ambient from that record with their dark metal side, and it works really nicely. May His Illusion Last Until Dawn's Awakening in particular is pretty damn excellent. Chimerical Hope is a slightly weird departure from the sound of the rest of it but I don't mind it, even if it's not as strong as some of the other tracks.

In response to one or two comments above, not sure it's entirely fair to have a go at a fanbase of an extreme metal group for not liking a drastic change in sound; tastes differ y'know. I guess there's a good middle ground to be found between blindly gobbling up anything a band releases regardless of style or quality and just refusing to accept any deviation from the sound that made someone a fan in the first place. As long as they're not hostile to the band, I think fans are allowed to be disappointed by any major departures from what makes them like the band, and mocking that disappointment just because they've shifted towards something you actually like seems a tad 'superior'. I feel that way about Opeth; after releasing all the music I love I appreciate they're perfectly entitled to record the music they are currently doing and that I should be grateful for giving me 9 albums of music to savour, but at the same time I'm not going to pretend to like Heritage or Sorceress just because it's different to what they've previously released.
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