Mehenet come from New Orleans, and “Horse to the Earth,” the second track of their new LP Ng’ambu, begins with some sounds that locate the listener in that city’s nightworld: the sounds of a zydeco band are audible, as if heard from some distance down an alleyway; dogs bark—not ferociously, but clearly in response to something. Then there is a sequence of metallic noises that are harder to identify: links of a chain dragging against a hard surface? a steel door sliding down from its overhead housing? The noises are gone almost as soon as you can register them, swept away by a different sort of metal: a doomy, scabrous riff, which also obliterates the distant zydeco band. It’s a harsh transition, but if you know New Orleans’ vital contributions to metal, it’s not entirely disorienting. Underneath all the plastic beads, gumbo and to-go Solo cups, there’s a city that’s been wracked for decades by chronic poverty. And then there was Katrina. And Rita and Ike and Cristobal and Laura. And Ida. All of those catastrophic storms and all of the suffering have intensified the underground metal emerging from the city.
Ng’ambu provides assertive evidence of the intensifications. In the world of metal, New Orleans is most notable as the birthplace of sludge, but the nasty vituperations of Eyehategod’s Dopesick (1996) and Acid Bath’s Paegan Terrorism Tactics (1996) have largely been supplanted by the polished, doomy tones of the more recent and broadly popular records by Down and Crowbar. “Horse to Earth” commences with doom’s deliberate, downbeat tones, but soon Mehenet’s characteristic USBM chaos churns and slashes at the song’s structure. The band’s playing is caustic and tough, in the mode of USBM bands of the past decade like Woe and Barghest, but with a rawness that turns up the songs’ heat. That feels like New Orleans, too—humid, sweaty, a stink of rot and a buzz of blowflies.
Mehenet additionally appeals to a number of black metal’s thematic and conceptual traditions, claiming its members are initiates of Ordo Templi Orientis, the Satanic organization associated with Aleister Crowley and Thelema. When Mehenet’s lyrics are delivered in English, the sentiments seem on the mark: see this passage from “Whom God Did Despise (Exu Asa Negra),” in which vocalist Algol shrieks, “I am the image of my father / Who rides on black wings / Who pecks at the rib of Adam / Hear the echoes of my screams!” The combination of elements is fairly interesting, but the symbols themselves might be a bit too familiar. Much, much less familiar are the sounds of Portuguese, the language in which Algol shrieks most of the record’s lyrics. At the beginning of “The Mystery of Nations (Exu Kaminoloa),” he sings, “Uma noite expressa bruma / Eu caminhava no cemitério / Junto as tambas, eu vi am homem / Alma bendita com seu misterio / Mas a ele preguntei / Quem era come muita me respondeu.” Again, the symbols and setting are recognizable, but the language gives them a particular charge, and the notion of a “night hazed like espresso [this reviewer’s translation]” has an atmosphere and figural vibe that effectively evokes New Orleans.
The city is on America’s doorstep to the Caribbean, and also to the larger Atlantic World in which Portugal was an important imperial player. Mehenet has indicated that Ng’ambu addresses and incorporates elements of Quimbanda, a Brazilian religion infused by magic and ritual, itself based in African animist traditions. Portugal’s outsized significance in the Atlantic slave trade provided both the vector and one of the motivators for the establishment of Quimbanda, which contests the moral authority of the Catholicism of Portugal and Brazil. This reviewer lacks the necessary theological and historical knowledge to comment on how Quimbanda and Thelema might interact, but clearly both seek to give shape to spiritual experiences that resist established powers. Mehenet’s engagement with Quimbanda attempts to infuse the “black” in black metal with a set of cultural and spiritual energies that rage at Christianity’s long and shitty history in the Caribbean: see Bartolome de las Casas, the reactions to the Haitian Revolution and any number of apologies for slavery. It’s a fascinating thematic maneuver that gives this already very good black metal tape some additional intensity and interest.
