Mamaleek - Out of Time

One of the most interesting contributors to modern black metal, and metal in general, Mamaleek is a project headed by two brothers from San Francisco who remain anonymous, but curiously include a childhood picture of themselves on their Bandcamp page. Out of Time is their sixth album, and their longest. It’s one that furthers Mamaleek’s truly unique blend of completely non-metal outside musical elements and melancholic black metal. The album is very meditative and one that bases more of its appeal on its strange combination of flavors than nuanced construction. But just because it’s not written as easily digestible or particularly conventionally directional doesn’t mean it’s not a rewarding album to unpack.

The 77-second intro “If I Had This Time” opens the album with a beautiful guitar passage that would make Deafheaven’s Kerry McCoy jealous. “Sicarii” follows with an oddly swaying blend of smooth mid-tempo bass groove and a variety of beautiful ambient guitar leads made all the more discomforting by the hummed and whispered vocals. It’s an excellent introduction to the album and shows Mamaleek’s writing not dependent on simply unusual genre incorporations. The following track, “Tree Sonorous” is more droning, but still full of meditative, ambient guitar leads, it finds its way into darkness in a few moments, but never really black metal except for perhaps the weirdly pitch-shifted vocals near the end. Another excellent song to start the 14-track album off on a good foot.

“God Is the Irrational Number” is based on a brighter, yet still quite melancholic, guitar melody and some type of melodic percussion or Mbira-type instrument I can’t place my finger on. The song breaks down in the middle to focus on its harshly sung lyrical lamentations before its odd droning outro. The longest song on the album, “The Recompense Is Real”, follows with more ambient guitar work and spacious drumming, accented with gruff, semi-growled vocals to up the intensity. I like the way the song eventually builds up to a submerged palm-muted groove that provides a more tangible and fitting connection to black metal.

The song “Doomed Beast” is a good bass-laden track that does drone on a bit, but the band do still manage to continue to work in a few interesting musical elements such as a music box of sorts near the end to add to the album’s unique character. The title track follows with a bolder incorporation of the middle eastern music elements the band has become well-known for, percussion and wavering vocals alike, though I don’t think the band is as effective with them as they have been in the past. The short interlude track “Lapis Lazuli” works in odd horn into an odd, yet spooky melody and makes for a nice quick piece to contrast the rest of the album’s more drawn-out compositions, preparing a nice break for the bass-y intro “Where Is the Friend’s House”, which eventually takes a more somber post-rock-ish tone as an interesting emotional turn for the album, which I only wish was not so short-lived.

“My Father, My Master, My Author” sounds more in line with modern prog than anything metallic, but makes decent use of a few odd samples over a reggae-ish guitar lead. The following track, “The Last Is the First”, though, returns to the harsh black metal vocals and eccentrically dark instrumentation that has made the album’s strongest moments so notable. “Almost Dead Dog” sounds like a more emotionally torn up sister song to the intro track due to the similarity of the guitar leads, and it makes for an interesting moment of déjà vu on the album.

“Absolute Knowing” features some more Deafheaven-ish ambient guitar work and more oddly entangled vocals amid oddly incorporated eastern percussion and even accordion, but the song does play well with dynamic in its short run time. The album finishes off with the instrumental, “At the Shrine of That Freedom Whose Cause You Had Betrayed”, which ends the album with some gothic Opeth-ish acoustic finger-picking that feels like a fitting cool down from the album’s near-hour of purely odd musical alchemy.

Mamaleek have come through with let another interesting listen that expands the boundaries of what can be described as black metal. As the band’s longest album yet, not by long, but still, Out of Time still kind of shows where the band’s compositional weakness lies as the largely non-directional songs on the album make it on based almost entirely on the quality of individual motifs constructing a strong, special vibe. It’s definitely still an enjoyable listen, but not really an album that elevates Mamaleek’s sound or does more with their style than the past five albums have. With the extra length, I was kind of hoping the band would construct a few more directional pieces, maybe a few, well-orchestrated, epic songs that whirl the band’s unusual and fantastic sound into something greater than just style. Nevertheless, the atmosphere this album conjures is still interesting as ever, and I hope Mamaleek just continue to create and improve their craft.