When most people think of black metal, they conjure up images of long-haired ghouls in corpse paint and spiked arm gauntlets, running around frost-bitten forests in Scandinavia and burning churches. The iconography of the genre is well known, and at this point also a little hackneyed. Where once bands like Emperor and Darkthrone were feared and respected in equal measure for their dangerous music and even more dangerous lifestyles, now they are treated almost as pantomime villains; as comedic figures ripe for ridicule. It only takes a cursory Google search for images of former Immortal frontman Abbath gurning and dancing to see that there’s little genuinely scary about the traditional approach to black metal anymore.
In the last decade however, a number of bands around the globe have taken it upon themselves to drag black metal kicking and screaming into the modern age, blending it with aspects of crust punk, grind and hardcore, all at once creating something to be genuinely feared again. Without the curtain of silly costumes and make-up to hide behind, this movement of bands has poured every ounce of their efforts into crafting savage, atmospheric, unrelenting music that transcends the old genre barriers. From Italian blackened-crust titans The Secret to North Carolina’s kings of darkness Young And In The Way, through to Belgium’s majestic Oathbreaker, these bands have created an entirely new way to experience black metal. Now we can add a new band to that hallowed list, in the form of London-based Calligram.
Comprising members from the UK, France, Italy and even Brazil, Calligram have spent the last three years honing their sound to a jagged point, and are now ready to unleash the rotten fruit of their loins on the world in the shape of ‘Demimonde’, a five track EP that houses enough fury and gloom to cast a shadow over the entire UK music scene. Kicking off with a squall of feedback and fuzz-drenched riffs, opener ‘Red Rope’ sets the tone immediately, its heavy ambience quickly giving way to a driving D-beat that Trap Them would be proud to call their own. From there the band are quick to break out the blastbeats, and when they arrive they do so with the power to shake the cement from between the bricks of your house. Though a fairly standard part of the black metal sonic palette, it’s difficult to argue with the effectiveness a solid wall of blasting and buzzsaw guitar has, and Calligram harness this ancient power with ease.
Second track and main single ‘Bed Of Nails’ is another flesh-ripping blast of blackened noise, offering little respite for much of its running time as it moves from walls of nerve-shredding guitar through to a pummelling middle before crashing down at the end into a dark, downbeat finale. The atmosphere throughout the EP is one of downtrodden misery, lead vocalist Matteo’s harrowing cries sending nervous shivers down the spine as the band rattle away behind him. The EP remains frighteningly intense right through the epic penultimate track ‘Black Velvet’ to the monstrous closer ‘Bataclan’, a track that begins slowly and ominously before exploding into maybe the most white-knuckle barrage of riffs the record has to offer.
The production work on ‘Demimonde’ only adds to the atmosphere, Wayne Adams having captured the band perfectly – though a staple of ‘traditional’ black metal, there’s no tinny drum sounds or paper-thin guitar here. Every riff sounds huge and barbaric, every drum blast is crisp and clear, and thanks to Alan Douches’ tremendous mastering job the whole thing holds together wonderfully.
Calligram have created something special on ‘Demimonde’ – a masterwork of blackened hardcore that stands up against any of the band’s more well-known contemporaries. Though only five songs long, it contains enough substance that it satisfies despite the short running time. If the band can sustain this level of bleak intensity over the length of a full album, we may be looking at one of the most defining bands to ever crawl out of the blackened hardcore crypt.
JAMES LEE