Liste des groupes Black Avantgardiste Iblis (PL) Menthell

Nuklear Rock ‘n’ Roll, baby! Don’t pay too much attention to the Avant-Garde Black Metal genre mentioned on their page since it would be very much misleading as there are almost no Black Metal elements in the Poles’ music. But there is Avant-Garde. For sure.

A fitting description of Iblis’ music would be trying to picture Disharmonic Orchestra, Not To Be Undimensional Conscious era, with loads of extra groove. The few of us that still remember the Austrian band know that they should expect something close to Death Metal with a peculiar twist. Madness, madness, madness. And another dose of madness.

It’s probably a given that the reference to Disharmonic Orchestra is probably too obscure for most. In recent years, I would refer to Beissert, a German band that plays a very distinct brand of metal with whom Iblis share a lot of common points. Though, on Menthell, the base sounds very much more Death Metal (riffing, blast beasts, etc.) you’ll find more or less the same elements: Baroness meets Pantera meets Faith No More meets Infectious Grooves meets Disharmonic Orchestra (yes, you got that one again for free).

Now those are not really obscure bands but I can see how it could be puzzling to imagine all these references put together. Yet, Iblis managed on Menthell to offer something really coherent despite the madness. It sure goes in all kinds of directions but retains this love of the headbanging riffs, this groovy feeling induced by fantastic bass lines (the bass is MEMORABLE here!!), deranged lyrics and vocals and epic songwriting with progressive undercurrents.

In the end, I guess there’s not going to be a single review of this record that will do justice to these guys’ music as it’s a bit too harsh to describe with mere words. Let’s just say the experience is thrilling and past the initial “what the fuck” moment when playing this for the first time (and taking a look at the psycheshroomelic cover does that too…), you’ll soon come back for more if you’re into experimental stuff (and I’m not usually…). Iblis signed a peculiar yet great record and shows that Poland's scene is not only great Black Metal or Death Metal, but that there is a lot more than meets the eye.