Seeing that the trio Malkuth contains two members who play with the experimental improv group The No Neck Blues Band, I confess to being surprised to discover Malkuth themselves stick to playing no-nonsense old school black metal. There is not even a hint of guitars or drums wanting to break out and doodle on their own, or of slight blurriness in the album. I've had a couple of NNCK albums before and one of these had beautiful shimmering silvery cymbal clouds but on "Sefirah Gevurah", the emphasis is on tight coordinated technical playing all the way through. But then why would Malkuth want to reference any of their previous bands through a black metal filter? This band is its own project and has its own style.
All track titles are in Hebrew and I assume also that the whole album lyrically is about some dark aspect of Jewish Kabalah philosophy. The album title derives from an aspect of the Kabalah Tree of Life where there are located ten spheres or sefirot (plural form of sefirah) which channel divine light from the upper, more refined planes of existence to the lower, more material levels. The fifth sphere or sefirah is Gevurah (Severity or Justice) which balances the overflow of divine light but also helps to create demonic powers known as sitra achra. So Gevurah is something very important and complex in Kabalah beliefs. Mystical Jewish philosophy aside, the music is energetic and moves at a fast (but not very fast) pace and the sound is bright, sharp and clear. There is no bass guitar at all which explains the almost sparkling quality of the music overall. Wish I could say the same about the vocalist whose voice is extremely ravaged and hoarse and more or less stays that way to the point where he sometimes comes across as an irritant in the music.
The first two tracks showcase Malkuth's clean tremolo guitar style but it's not until "Berehit Hara Elohim" that we get something really interesting: a doomy and slightly more atmospheric take on the Malkuth style. The music seems darker though the guitar sound is still clear and sharp and the quivering tones just never seem to stop. Track 4 gets shrill and punky but there are also sustained steely guitar tones. "Adam Beliyyalal" is a monumental piece where the musicians throw in everything they've got from shrill and insistent tremolo guitar climbing ever higher and higher as the song progresses to an unexpected doomy-sounding conclusion. With track 6 we get something close to an immediate and quite memorable riff, the only really melodic thing Malkuth have allowed on this dense album.
There is plenty of raw and sharp guitar-heavy music full of bright and intense energy here. The emphasis is on tight and precise technical delivery with no apparent concern for atmosphere or use of effects to influence listeners' feelings or awareness. The overall sound of the album is basic, what the musicians play is very much what you hear with no post-production work obvious. I think with this kind of straightforward, back-2-basics and direct black metal where the emphasis is on clear-toned guitar riffs packed densely together, there's a danger of the music being too technical and dense all the way through and the first couple of times I listened to this album, it did come over as a huge dense barrage of squiggly guitar delivery from start to finish with hardly a pause for breath and at 34 minutes, it was like a solid block of raw guitar! With a few more listens more individual riffs and melodies can be distinguished but highly recognisable riffs that are identifiable with their tracks are very few. This album probably should carry a health warning - the first time you play it, it will hit you right between the ears like a 10,000-tonne concrete slab falling off the top of a building. That's all the influence Malkuth need to have on your feelings or awareness.
Some reviews I've seen describe this album as claustrophobic but no, I don't find this album claustrophobic at all though I can see why people would describe it that way: the songs are all structured in a way that there's hardly any space in the music, no pause for breath and because the sound is clean, you can hear just about every note played no matter how fast the musicians play.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=Lzm8f9hQadw&t=736s
