Mutiilation
Majestas Leprosus

"You who insinuated yourself like a blade  
Into my moaning heart; you who came strong
Like a pack of demons
To make, mad and adorned, of my
Humbled spirit, your bed and kingdom - infamous
To whom, like a convict to the chain
I am bound; like the drunkard to the bottle;
Like the worms to the carcass;
Like the stubborn player to the game - may you be cursed!"

The Vampire

With cynicism that is at times dreamlike, at times disillusioned, Willy Roussel (Meyhna'ch) overturns the traditional theme of vampirism, full of gothic adventures and shadowy castles, transforming it into something completely different, a metaphor for the cancer that gnaws at man from within, pushing him to harm himself and others to give meaning to an existence already marked from the start.

Forget about the buckets of fake blood and grand guignolesque buffooneries that characterized the musical productions of Cradle Of Filth and other pitiable cases; the universe of "Majestas Leprosus" moves between more refined and decadent coordinates: "Addiction", masterpiece of Abel Ferrara, where Vampirism is reread in a metropolitan key, a mirror of a society where pain and domination prevail, and "Nosferatu", by Murnau, the only one who managed to show the slow collapse of vital forces, contaminated by Evil.

If musically the album stays within typical Norwegian coordinates, linked to a darkthronian but decadent Raw Black Metal (even if supported by the best production Mutiilation ever enjoyed), it is the conceptual imagination that is entirely personal; this album is French from head to toe, full as it is of nineteenth-century reminiscences: Mutiilation (it would be more appropriate to speak in the singular, as it is now a one-man band) represents the dark side of bohemian life, the one hidden by the sparkling sequins of the Moulin Rouge, by the frenetic vitality of May in France: when these experiences turn for the worse, there we find Majestas Leprosus. Isn’t the name of the group, Mutiilation, already a concrete sign of the lack, of the deprivation of something vital, irreparably removed?

The concept surrounding the compositions is divided into three acts, a slow descent through the aberrations of the mind, reflecting on the meaning of pain, both inflicted and experienced: this reflection will eventually lead to the choice between these two faces of Vampirism, which keeps alive and consumes at the same time. "Tormenting My Nights" clearly shows this thought gnawing at the mind, continuously, forcing the protagonist to stay awake: having reached such depths of spirit, man can only live alone, like a stray dog, continuing to harass others, and cursing himself for what he has become; between the verses, there are references to the musician’s personal life, ruined by the contact with hard drugs, repudiated by friends and other French musicians. I don’t know if he is aware of it, but the third song "Destroy Your Life For Satan" is centered on a very particular riff, based on the rapid repetition of chords, with a somewhat cheerful flavor, yet tainted by Roussel’s croaking voice: it feels like listening to a Jacques Brel song in Black Metal version, desperate and catchy at the same time.

The central section consists of three other beautiful songs, which illustrate the degree of marginalization and solitude in which the protagonist finds himself; there are very strong and visionary images, never bordering on vulgarity, which take the listener, as in a film effect, in front of Roussel's spiritual misery, forced to live among insects and stray animals, his only companions, lord of the outcasts. Only the reading of the lyrics can give a good account of the sensations experienced in front of this work.

Finally, the last section leaves a question mark at the conclusion of the story: if suicide always remains in the background as the only possible solution, it seems increasingly that the soul is destined to continue in those territories of spiritual desolation; the last track, "Words Of Evil" (the Outro) leaves us with a succession of background speeches, contrasting voices in the mind, probably condemned to an eternal struggle with itself, a parody of the hoped-for Nirvana.

An album to listen to, in its conceptual complexity, light years away from the horror that often pervades Metal, with an extremely high level of writing, which in certain cases raises an album that musically does not reach the peaks of the masterpiece "Vampires Of Black Imperial Blood" (it wouldn't have been possible).