Labels: Phratry
Review by: Alex Deller
This was put out by the same label that punted the rather spiffy Swear Jar CD our way, and while it doesn’t tickle my fancy in the same manner it’s still quite the little corker in its own right. While stock descriptors like ‘fast’, ‘loud’ and ‘shrieky’ might automatically suggest these guys are heading down the screamo path there’s a lot here to set Mala In Se apart from that particular rabble, lots of weird twists, twiddles and wrong-sounding noises that could – at a push – hint at how End Of The Century Party might’ve sounded on a Bastro / Shipping News / Breadwinner kick rather than a rote Orchid / Funeral Diner repro or whatever shitty bands like Touche Amore are claiming as points of reference these days. Swirling elsewhere amid this strange, soupy brew are odd twinges of Skin Graft-esque dissonance, slippery Keelhaulish riffing and, in tracks like ‘Devil’s Dung’ or ‘Line On’ some great atmospheric plunking and shatteringly climactic moments that achieve their devastating ends without solely relying on a charm bracelet’s worth of shiny new delay pedals or nth-generation Envyisms. This, I’d say, makes for something really odd, really artful and really worth your time if any of that shit I just said makes the slightest bit of sense to you.