Fans of the grim and foul music we so enjoy will always need the serious side of the tunes. We crave those albums that make our skin crawl, send a cold shiver down our spine or make us rethink our perspective on a vital topic. We also need albums that are ludicrous, allowing us to sit back and temporarily be a drooling mouth breather for a while. Martyrs is a phenomenal film for a horror movie comparison, but it is not made for many repeat viewings, so it’s important to balance that out with a goofy-ass gore fest like Freddy vs. Jason. On album number 10, Benighted is much like that 2003 classic slasher in that it’s well-produced, and everyone involved knows that the mission to be executed is one of pure brutality. With Ekbom, mission accomplished.
Once you get past the intro track with its standard eerie sounds and slow synths, it will take you approximately five seconds of “Scars” to experience your first shit-eating grin as Kévin Paradis comes blasting in, completely annihilating his snare drum before Julien Truchan unleashes one of his glorious piercing pig squeals to announce the album has properly begun. The vocal variety is a significant part of what makes this band so successful. Between Truchan and bassist Pierre Arnoux throwing in some backing vocals, they hit high screams, guttural lows, mid-range bellows, and a host of seamlessly flowing animal sounds. Rhythmic assault is the game’s name, and Truchan knows how to complement Paradis’ relentless battery perfectly. A touch of moodiness carries over from the intro to an ominous synthy break late around the track’s mid-section. Closer, “Mother Earth, Mother Whore,” conjures a similar air with its slower intro featuring a sample of someone describing a woman’s horrible medical experiences and followed later in the track by a bleak tremolo riff.
At first, that may have you worried that Freddy thinks he’s Florence Pugh in Midsommer all of a sudden, but rest assured that everything betwixt those bookends is pure unadulterated absurdity. In fact, right after “Scars,” “Morgue” pops in with a supremely ignorant opening riff accompanied by lightning-fast fills and the album’s first knuckle-dragger of a breakdown. Clearly, whoever brought the synth ideas to the practice room got a swirly and was told they’ll get about 30 seconds to be a moody party pooper, and then it’s back to business.
The band seems to be in competition with themselves for the first half of the album because by the time they get to “Nothing Left to Fear,” they’ve lost their damn minds. The opening is a ludicrously speedy, scribbling riff darting over a monstrous stretch of gravity blasts. The track is given an extra dose of madness by featuring Oliver Rae Aleron from Archspire on guest vocals. I can’t come up with a better fit for an extra layer of vocals than Aleron since he primarily acts as a rhythmic weapon in his own band that focuses heavily on speedy technicality with a penchant for hooks. “Nothing Left to Fear” offers exactly that. Aleron and Truchan trade guttural barbs while creating a vocal hook that will have you bellowing the song title right along with them. If, for some reason, you doubt the capabilities of anyone involved with Benighted, I would highly recommend giving the live tracks on Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master a listen. It somehow manages to be even more impressive and precise than the recorded material.
Benighted primarily stick to one mode and have on many albums at this point, but they know when to spice in some elements to keep things interesting. Whether it be the aforementioned moody bits, a well-timed breakdown, a brief wild guitar lead (“Metastasis”), even more guest vocals (Xavier from Blockheads on “Fame Of The Grotesque”), or putting a little swagger in the riff (“The Reason For Treason”), this quartet knows how to make 36 minutes of cranial abuse feel like only 10. When you need a wild dose of speed to help you turn your brain off and have some fun, hit play on Ekbom.