Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death

It’s not metal in any strict, musical sense, but being Nergal’s latest musical project since Behemoth’s incredible 2014 album The Satanist (and its accompanying EP, Xiądz), Me and That Man’s debut album was of course bound to receive, and has received, plenty of attention from metalheads all over. That’s how it got my attention, for one. Behemoth’s Evangelion was the first death metal album I remember really getting into and liking back in high school and Nergal has since garnered my respect in more ways than just his music, so I was obviously willing to lend my ears to his follow-up to what has ended up being, without a doubt, my favorite Behemoth album (The Satanist). A lot of this album’s initial attention turned negative when “My Church Is Black” was released as the first single, not nearly to “Doris”-level negativity, but those who had tuned in made their gripes known. Being that this was a Nergal project, virtually all of the audience (at least from what I’ve seen) are fans of Behemoth or people who know of Nergal because of Behemoth, plenty of complaints were of the negligible, wishfully stylistically restrictive sort (discouraging of him doing anything other than the metal he already does), no surprise there. But others noted of the first single, and its two successors, the blatant Nick Cave and good ol’ Johnny Cash influences and similarities that Nergal seemed to have no problem simply channeling through his artistic distillery with little intent to filter anything out or infuse much of his own musical ideas into while in the creative process for this album. Others found Nergal’s Polish accent to be distracting and disingenuous to the very western-y acoustic folk that the project is trying to emulate, and of course plenty of people made sure to slanderously label him a hipster and/or a poser.

Personally, I didn’t mind Nergal’s accent at all, perhaps because I’m used to it at this point. In fact, considering how little of this album sounds like anything but Nergal’s very obvious influences poured through a Nergal-shaped funnel, his voice gives this thing at least some element of being refreshing and bearing of some significant originality.

Considering the varied track record of the side-projects of musicians (not just from the metal sphere) who have dared to venture into far-off genre territory, I think Nergal ended up on the more favorable end of that spectrum; this thing is no masterpiece, but certainly farther from being a train-wreck too. Playing it safe and not trying to do some kind of Behemoth-y twist on the super brooding folk rock that the record is made of was probably a wise choice on Nergal’s part, not trying to reinvent something he’s not an expert at to begin with and instead opting to use as many pre-existing tools as he can to construct the project in a way that doesn’t completely give away that his forte is, in fact, in a much different musical venue. And he does sound comfortable here. While it’s clear that Nergal is definitely not doing what he’s strongest at, he doesn’t let on that he’s incompatible with the style or of the type of incompetence determinative of him not belonging in the genre. Apart from simply venturing out from the security of the chemistry he has with Inferno, Orion, and Seth, this record plays it pretty safe for the most part, not really taking on any grave challenges that might reveal Nergal’s weaknesses in the field, and in that sense, I’m glad; I’d probably favor the relative success of this lower-level task this album set out to achieve over some far-fetched and failed attempt at something beyond realistic ambition.

Needless to say, expecting this to be appealing in the same ways Behemoth is appealing would be unreasonable. However, an expectation for the type of thill that comes from a Nick Cave record is much more appropriate, and to a degree, Nergal delivers. I can’t claim to be that well-versed in Nick Cave’s music, but one of the things I enjoy most when I do put it on is his ability to tell some often pretty gruesome stories in such an exciting and unpredictable way. In this department, Nergal doesn’t really make any attempt at sizing up against his predecessor, rather sewing together a bunch of gothic mood-setters that occasionally carry a Satanic lyrical focus that ends of fitting finely into the mold of the songs. Maybe the album could have included “and Satan” at the end of its title if Nergal wanted to be totally upfront since that’s clearly what he loves singing about most; I’m kidding of course.

As far as notable highlights and weak spots on the album go, the youth choir vocals on the song “Cross My Heart and Hope to Die” struck me in all the wrong ways at first, but I’ve gotten a little more okay with them as I’ve heard the album more. I still find them just slightly off-putting and corny though. The featured female singer on the more energetic following track “Better the Devil I know” are a nice touch on the other hand and the song after that, “Of Sirens, Vampires, and Lovers” paints a vivid image of its subject matter to a fitting and subtle instrumental background. It’s probably one of the most basic and unexpectedly musically peppy cuts on the album, but I really liked the alt-country cut “One Day” for its distinctness on the record and actually pulling the sound off adequately. “Shaman Blues” I thought was kind of a nondescript, but decent blues rock attempt for the most part, the vocals kind of meandering in a wallow-y dizzy manner until the song kicks into some hard, electric rock to finish off. The song “Voodoo Queen” falls flat right afterwards though with a vague, skinny narrative and the cheesy refrain the song repeats throughout. The song following it is based on some cliché country rock guitar chords repeated over and over until being sort of being redeemed by being taken over by a raucous jam session. The single “Ain’t Much Loving” has some nice trade-off and harmonized vocals over the somber and dark piano and palm-muted acoustic guitar backing, which the drums break out from more and more as the song progresses.

While I’m sure plenty of hard-hearted, purist Behemoth fans will continue to slag off on this album and clamor for the next Behemoth album (the latter of which I will probably do too), I think Nergal did a good job with this record. He kind of approached it and set it up so that he couldn’t really fail too miserably on it, but he was smart with his approach and it ended up being a pretty enjoyable side project. It definitely isn’t every Behemoth fan’s cup of tea, but for Behemoth’s fans who listen to more than just metal and can see themselves enjoying something along the lines of what the descriptions of the genres within present, this record could easily serve as a modest treat for the open-minded Nergal enthusiast.