SACRUMENTAL

The first thing that one can notice in this Nth Senmuth's album is that the usual mixture of genres (dark ambient, ethnic and metal) is almost absent, at least from most of the tracks. This album is very metal oriented even if there's a lot of electronics especially in the rhythmic.

Heavy drone percussion and very heavy guitar are the predominant elements of the first two tracks which could have been excellent with a bit more effort in the "melody". Not that a metal track has to be melodic, but just pumping on the instruments may be not enough. However they are not bad.

Some elements are so radicated in Senmuth's way of composing that doing without seems to be very hard. The frequent interruptions (usually once or twice for each track) by spare ethnic interludes are not used on this album, but thay are replaced by something else. Still metal, no ethnic neither ambient. Just low-volume breaks. I have to say that they are less breaking and less frequent than the ethnic ones on other albums.

Going to the album's end, "PHARMAgeddon" is the real highlight, This track features a very good guitar, sounding as often like an arabic trumpet, but following a very good line and not changing too much the album's metal feeling. The closer track proceeds on the same path but I would have expected more by a closer.

In any case, while I sometimes wonder whether Senmuth is in the right place on this site, this album deserves the "Experimental/Post Metal" classification. The serie of quite good albums released by Senmuth in the second half of 2012 proceeds on the good quality level of the previoust 4 releases but on the metal side.

Still non-essential but a nice listen.