On its debut opus The Disfigured and the Divine, international band Emasculator ticks all the boxes of so-called “brutal” death metal, hijacking the often misogynistic connotations of this niche in the process. But beyond the message, this all-female quartet delivers an excellent dose of inhuman ferocity.
Inaccessible, opaque and bestial: these are the watchwords of the niche known as brutal death metal, a subgenre of extreme metal renowned, among other things, for its lyrics of violence and horror. Although unintelligible, these words blend naturally with dense, fast-paced music of rather low frequencies, often walking a fine line between exploitative fantasy and violence targeting women. Fortunately, a number of artists today counter this by turning to science fiction or turning the gory clichés around. Emasculator takes the latter route, with singer Mallika Sundaramurthy writing her lyrics from the point of view of goddesses of destruction such as Kali and Durga, unleashing their vengeful wrath upon Men (with a lower and upper case M).
Musically, The Disfigured and the Divine delivers the goods: the drums hammer uncompromisingly, chaining blast beatsand heavily syncopated rhythms, the strings rumble so as to wall the listener in, and the vocals are guttural and unintelligible. Fortunately, Emasculator go one step further. The interlude “The Unassailable” notably highlights the mystical influence that runs through all the lyrics, thanks to samples of Indian tampura and Sanskrit chanting. The contrast with the harshness of the other tracks is very effective, and one would like to hear more of these elements in the band’s future output. This would make the originality of the themes shine all the more brightly.
Although the death metal scene is less and less populated exclusively by men, Emasculator still achieves what other recent bands such as Nervosa, Crypta and Castrator have failed to do: create original death metal whose music stands out beyond the feminism that underpins its genesis. Be that as it may, Emasculator is a band to watch, one that could spearhead real transformations in the brutal death metal sub-niche, both musically and demographically.
