Album Review: Inverticrux - Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program - Reviewed by: Geoff McGraw

Band Name: Inverticrux
Title: 
Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program
Date of Release: 2014
Record Label:  Exalted Woe
Genre: Horror Metal
Album Review Format: Digital
Website: Inverticrux
Reviewed by: Geoff McGraw
May 2014 

Track listings:   
1.Sin By Thy Guide 
2. On Six Limbs 
3. Malcontent Manisfestation 
4. Lorreta's Lost Leg
5. Here Faes All Wordly Pleasures
6. Attack Of The Scarecrow Clowns From Planet Spider

Imagine if you will...... The night deepens the moon rises, a cloud drifts over that pale circle in the sky, and on the hill just over the rise you see the mishapen forms..perhaps a hunchbacked grave robber slinging dirt from a spade while the love child of the Phantom of the Opera, a Banshee and King Diamond urges him on to greater and greater acts of defilement......... Yep.... you got it..... that's what Inverticrux sounds like.

Inverticrux mixes many genres of metal together, so really you could call it black death doom metal. The music itself  is ponderously heavy, moving as though the mummy was trying to slog through quicksand with his usual stuttering gait. Not afraid of off kilter arrangements and minor keys the band provides these in abundance. Vocally it can only be described as theatrics....immensely theatrics, the many different styles here are layered in multitracks and can only be described as above in my 1st paragraph.

Production values here I assume were intended to generate the feel of a live show, it has the feel of a great empty opera hall, with a lot of reverb and echo. So much of the definition of the individual instruments is lost, however it must be said that for this band it works, it simply increases the creepy feel. I was disappointed in one thing production wise, the samples the band uses tend to cut abruptly, leaving a gap between the sample and the song, a better blend here would heighten the mood.

Those listeners who like their music undeniably creepy, and who will give something a chance despite that first "what the hell is this", may find "Malcontent Manifestation Monitoring Program" an experience of unusual proportions. I say experience because although it is "music" it's not about the music, much as going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not about the movie. I have to believe that this band must excel at live performance, the aural portion lends itself perfectly to a dark vaudevillian horror!

6 of 10 horns