Decaying
cathedrals. The march at twilight towards a sure
death.Infested soil. Millions of decrepit bones
in an eternal sleep. Surrounded by shrapnel, rusty
bullets and locusts. Cries still echo in the barren
fields, remaining unheard by today's deaf society.
It's on this soil that the first great war came
to an end, it's from this soil that a band arose
that embraces this past, this pain, this blasphemy.
Formed in these forsaken fields of West-Flanders,
Amenra has been conjuring unholy sermons since
1999. Spreading their vision of a world that’s
out of touch with its past, present and future,
they take their adepts through ungodly rituals
into a world of unseen mystique. Their postmodern
vision of music, existing of droning, repetitive
chords alternated by gut wrenching hauls will
make an experienced listener renounce his definition
of music, perhaps even his whole belief system.
In their mere 3 years of existence, Amenra
already have a backcatalog that most bands won’t
assemble in a lifetime. However, none of these
well-received outings did them justice, being
unable to fully capture the hypnotizing energy
of their live performances. For Mass III they
turned this around. Produced by their own guitar
wizard The Dice (Rise & Fall, The Setup)
and mixed by Zlaya Hadzic (Sonic Youth, Motorpsycho)
and mastered in the infamous Electric City studio
in Belgium, the spirit and intensity has finally
been laid down the way it’s meant to
be.
Fans and critics know that their enchanting
concerts are the only true way of
experiencing this five piece, not in the least
because of their unique choice of locations,
like old churches, grave hills, lingerie shows
or dark forests. They’ve proven their
skills extensively, for instance on tour with
label mates Starkweather, as well on numerous
shows with bands like Red Sparowes, Made Out
Of Babies, Neurosis, Blood And Time, The Locust,
Pelican, Knut, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Cursed,
Switchblade, Anodyne, etc.
Producing huge walls of sound, Amenra have
often been compared to metal stalwarts like
Neurosis, Isis and Pelican, but their confounding
and compelling sound that mixes surrealist melody
and warped subtleties with churning rhythms,
pummeling riffs and crushing dynamics stands
on it's own.
Mass III will infest your mind like a lingering
cancer, bound to spit out your soul
like a shriveled, yellowed husk, leaving you
on a morphine drip in a side ward of
the local psychiatric hospital. And that's just
the beginning.
Praise for Amenra
"Good band! I like bands with
a concept, and with them I get the impression
that they really know what they are doing, and
that they're doing it intensely/with passion.
Amenra is certainly one of the most interesting
things I got to know through my radioshow."
:: Scott Kelly (Neurosis) ::
"Your last album is awesome!"
:: Jacob Bannon (Converge) ::
"Amen Ra will take you on a cinematic journey
beneath the depravity, dementia and corroded
beauty of humanity. Cerebral and relentless,
demanding and inviting, Mass III is the music
within the darkest black dream."
:: Dwid Hellion (Integrity) ::