Amenra
Mass V

Words smear with pitch. They tangle, they shatter into the void of the psyche. What one thinks no longer matters, only how one wants to represent it. The only thing that matters is the pain that resides inside and outside of us.

Dealing with an Amenra show is an unforgettable sonic and visual experience. In Munich in May 2011, I was there. Everything is meticulously planned to cause harm: the body is seized, stunned, shattered. Layers of primitive and verbose chords blend with Colin's agonizing sermons and his hallucinated and hallucinatory demeanor; it’s something that silently penetrates the skin, insinuates into the flesh, deep into the soul. Darkness, sweat, and tears.

There’s a place carved by time in northern France, still bearing the scars of war, a bunker in the village of Wissant, a devastating and overwhelming scene. Concrete fragmented, hundreds of bullet holes, salt and sand mixing with wounds, with blood. A lucid nightmare in black and white. With all this vividly etched into their eyes, Amenra retreated to the heart of the Ardennes (La Chapelle Studios) with producer/guru Billy Anderson (Eyehategod - Melvins - Sleep - Swans and dozens of others) to shape and redefine the canons of their impenetrable perception. Steve Von Till's Neurot is the instigator and Scott Kelly, for a handful of minutes, even becomes their accomplice (''Nowena I 9,10'').

Sounds more stripped down, more intimate, more sincere than before. As if the layer of epidermis was ripped away in one stroke, allowing the raw flesh to breathe; despite the new surface, all the essence, in its purity, remains firmly barricaded inside. In 40 minutes of sludge/doom liturgies, amidst dark and murky black sketches (''Dearborn and Buried''), stormy seas in the style of Pelican taken badly, and wretched ambient gashes (''A Mon Ame''), eternal solitude gives us the strength to face suffering. Never try to flee from it - Amenra seems to suggest - but look it straight in the eyes and push beyond.

The eternal struggle between life and death.

We know exactly what will happen... it is up to us to decide when.