MALEDICTA – Eruption From Insides

Maledicta, or in English – Maledict – is defined as: invoking evil, wishing harm upon another, or rendering a curse. Since this band, formed in 2001, is from Perugia, Italy, the “a” at the end of their name must indicate feminine gender, meaning the band looks to have monikered itself after a woman (presumably a witch) whose power logically spawns from the forces of evil. That said, with this cerebral denotation in mind, Maledicta might go down as my all-time favorite name for a Black Metal band!

Eruption From Insides, an album title that somewhat connotes the action of one’s bowels after eating too much broccoli or Mexican food, represents Maledicta’s first full-length, though self-produced, CD. Prior to this, Maledicta released 2 Demo CDs: Epoca and Dark Emersion. Maturing as songwriters, Eruption From Insides takes the band to a new level musically due to the addition of periodic keyboard accompaniment. Definitely a good move on the band’s part – the keyboard passages are truly one of the highlights of this CD, along with the percussion work.

This is not your conventional, run-of-the-mill Black Metal band. Rightly self-described, Maledicta’s music also contains elements of Death Metal (plenty of the customary Cookie Monster death chants), Gothic Metal, and Thrash Metal. Overall, you’ll find Eruption From Insides is predominantly comprised of well-crafted, original-sounding Black/Death Metal, which is delivered in a refreshingly organized, if not conservative, fashion. Don’t get me wrong, Maledicta’s music has balls, but they also have the conviction to keep it under control and to let their musical talents and innovations shine.

As mentioned above, a highlight of this CD is the keyboard work. This musician goes by the name of “.” – sort of like how the artist formerly known as “Prince” took on a symbolic name. For the sake of being able to refer to him in tangible print, I’ll call Maledicta’s keyboardist “Dot” for short. Anyway, Dot’s keyboard work provides great effects to Maledicta’s sound, mostly by adding an eerie, spooky, and, at times, psychotic feel to the music. The keyboard work varies from basic piano to synthesizers; the best parallel I can draw to the general effect the keyboards provide here is the keyboard passages present in the movie The Exorcist…almost playful at times, but enough off-kilter and with the proper emphasis to invoke uneasiness in a God-fearing individual.

With the exception of a couple of tracks in the middle of this CD, where the drum work comes through without the punch found elsewhere, the overall percussion sound and methodical presentation is very well produced. You can tell from the first track, “Neurosisma,” that the drum patterns are going to drive the direction of each song, and the other instruments are going to be introduced on queue upon the beckon of the percussion commands. It was good to hear such organization in this Metal subgenre emanating from the drum lines…because normally logical musical organization lacks.

Eruption From Insides contains 9 tracks: 7 of them full length, 1 of them a short piano instrumental, and 1, called “Praha Drinking Team,” is an “I don’t know what it is or why it is” abbreviated song. The 7 full length tracks are all good, however, and each offers something different — at times unique guitar chord patterns, other times very original bass riffs, keyboard work as discussed above, and even a beautifully soft, forlorn female voice every now and again, offering a hint of languid sadness to the direction of a couple of tracks.

The members of this quintet range in age from 18 (Dot the keyboardist) to 24 (Cerimor the singer), so in general, I’m amazed at their level of talent and self-funded production skill considering how young they are. I’m normally not a huge fan of anything that incorporates excessive use of the Cookie Monster voice, but Maledicta succeeds in not over-indulging the listener with extended vocal passages. In fact, virtually every song is instead heavily weighted towards musical passages…another good decision in my book.

Overall, a very solid, enjoyably conservative Black/Death Metal effort by a band with more talent than their years would otherwise indicate.