Menace Ruine - Union of Irreconcilables

Devil Women With Evil On Their Minds.

Menace Ruine is a blackened drone duo from Canada. This is the follow-up to the two releases that were released in 2008. This duo manages to create a unique sound that is very hard to actually withstand for long periods of time.
The first release from this duo was what could be considered experimental black metal, but the record that followed that record, and the one the preceded this one, took a much different route. That album, "The Die Is Cast," removed almost all of what is commonly associated with black and replaced it with more doom and drone based music with the same production values. This album picks up where the last one pretty much left off, with droning music that is a bit schizophrenic at times. This comes from the almost conflicting nature that the music has.
The songs on here are long and droning, with very raw production, creating a very noisy effect throughout this entire album. Despite this, each track is can clearly be differentiated from the next. There is plenty of difference between tracks to keep someone entertained. The opening track, ...Collapse, is a very noisy and aggressive track that still has a very black metal sound to it, while the track that follows it, The Upper Hand, has an almost industrial march feel with crooning female vocals.
Though there are still tracks that are hard to make heads or tales out of, mainly the two longest tracks on here. Not Only A Break In The Clouds But A Permanent Clearing of The Sky is a mouth full for a song-title, but it's one of the hardest tracks to really make any sense out of since for the most part it's a avant-garde noise track with weird glitches and crooning coming in about half way through. Primal Waters Bed is along the same lines, but uses a bit more atmospheric ambiance with the drones.
Despite all the variation, there are some moments where your jaw will simply hit the floor in amazement as to why or how this duo would want to make a track like this. There is a track on here composed completely of feedback, Corrido De Perdition. Be a band to take initiative and go into left field directions is normally something that deserves praise, but this is a little overboard.
Overall this is one strange mind fuck of an album. This is one that takes a long time to even begin to make sense of, I've listened to it several times already and I still can't make heads or tails out of some of these tracks. If you're into total avant-garde blackened drone left field experimentation, check this out.
Overall Score: 5
Highlights: ...Collapse, There Will Be Blood