Band:	Madre
Album:	Embryo
Style:	Industrial black metal
Release date:	February 2023

01. Matricide
02. Path Of Negativity
03. Self Confinement
04. Cage Of Ribs
05. Natura Morta
06. Xaos Transition
07. Amniotic Wine
08. Castrated
09. (Sweet) Red Chalice

Embryo sounds like a malignant, alien tumour, and should be your 2023 choice for scratching that Darkspace and Decoherence itch. Thudding, electronic drums and glitchy, computerised sounds abound as Madre takes you into the horrors of the foetal abyss, using discordant melodies and sweeping growls and screams to nail home the terrors of the unborn (and, I assume, of what is to come). A short and sweet exercise in noise replete with elements of industrial electronica and dissonant extreme metal, Embryo clocks in at just 30 minutes and is all the better off for it, as much more of this kind of music could easily get exhausting (and, hey, you can always replay it); instead, it hits a sweet spot between auditory terror and memorable music.

Heavily reverberated, inhumane drums, an oversized, dissonant tremolo, and indecipherable, ghastly screams welcome you on opening song "Matricide", which twice devolves into a glitchy soundscape devoid of any structure or, seemingly, purpose. On "Path Of Negativity", a roaring synthesiser repeatedly explodes into a pulsating pattern like a flower coming into bloom, before an ear-searing, shredding guitar solo brings the madness to a halt. Madre utilises many of the elements that made me fall in love with Decoherence in 2021: the ever-present dissonant melodies that never seem to reach their intended conclusion, the overly produced drums that sound more like an electronic act than anything remotely close to black metal, and most of all the utterly alien yet danceable atmosphere.

Embryo rarely rests, and when it does, like on "Cage Of Ribs", it does so with a suffocating sense of foreboding; you just know that shit's about to go down again soon enough, and of course it does. The way the kick drum is used to create mind boggling patterns behind the chugging discordance of "Natura Morta" soon seeps into the subconscious, and the glitchy, distorted snares make the entire song sound like a beast lurching forth from some unknown abyss; perhaps the embryo the album title alludes to?

A bit of a one trick pony, Madre yet infuses this short and sweet album with enough variation, particularly in the rhythmic department, for it to stay engaging for several listens. You might think you know what to expect already from the first act, and you might even be right, but tell me, did you expect the utterly ugly yet somehow beautiful soundscapes of "Xaos Transition", where the music itself sounds like it is constantly on the verge of being torn apart, only held together by the gravity of some swirling black hole far beneath the chaos? Did you expect the doomy post-metal grandeur of "Castrated", where a weeping, Cascadian guitar suffuses the arena with emptiness and longing as the various voices of the theatre scream forth their unknowable anguish? Did you expect the "breather" (eh, it's all relative) that is the final song, where a sample of Latin preaching echoes behind the indecipherable, alien soundscapes, soon to be backed up by (more or less) atonal choirs?

Madre will have you constantly questioning what you are listening to, and if you are in the market for something halfway between extreme metal, pure noise, and a horror movie soundtrack, Embryo most certainly is for you. For fans of Darkspace, Blut Aus Nord, Decoherence, Vessel Of Iniquity, and the like. To sum the album up in one word, much like the prospects of an unborn child, it is gnarly.

Big thanks to Nejde for the recommendation, always a pleasure.