Menace Ruine: The Color of the Grave is Green

(Union Finale)

CD | DL

Out Now

BUY HERE

 

Menace Ruine explore death, dreams and drone-folk with The Color of the Grave is Green. Andy Brown reviews for Louder Than War.

Ghosts haunt every corner of the new album from drone-folk duo Menace Ruine. With the album title taken from a poem by Emily Dickenson; The Color of the Grave is Green takes us on a transcendent trip through death, dreams and drone. For the last 19 years the Québec-based duo – consisting of Geneviève Beaulieu and S. de La Moth – have been creating music that feels impressively singular. It’s the bands eighth album and – somewhat reassuringly – it sounds as sublime and strange as I’ve come to expect.

Courtship Dance pours from the speakers like some haunted hymnal. “The winter tomb is empty of its corpses/ Almighty is the Lord,” comes Beaulieu’s voice as the drone’s rumble, ache and screech their way into the world. It’s a distinctly sombre kind of psychedelia, shrouded in death and devotion. The sound revolves around heavily distorted synths, percussion and Beaulieu’s hypnotic tones. How can I even begin to describe that voice? Ominous and commanding while providing the disquieting calm at the centre of the storm.

Menace Ruine create a sound that is intrinsically tied to the natural world and – more specifically – the woods of Saint Alphonse-Rodriguez in Québec. It’s here amongst the trees where the album was born. Rather remarkably, the beat on the first track was made using the sound of a ruffled grouse (the bird apparently uses a log as a natural resonator) while various field recordings were absorbed from their surroundings. Each piece feels like its being drawn up from the earth, covered in soil and long-buried secrets.

While early records – like 2010s Union of Irreconcilables – immersed us in an undeniably oppressive darkness, there is something decidedly hopeful about the music on the duos latest offering. The lyrics on Once a Ghost pine for a connection to another world, a place of restless spirits and surrendered souls. A tale of death, joy, comfort and transcendence. Combined with the oddly uplifting tones of the drone, the whole track feels cathartic and unexpectedly euphoric.

Through the Waterfall is an inarguably intense and discombobulating listen yet there’s an intriguingly melodic undercurrent flowing beneath all that noise. I can hear shades of electronic innovators Silver Apples in the mix. Meanwhile, Let It Flow blooms with heavenly drones that make me feel like I’ve just stumbled across some cleansing, riverside ritual. “Let it slip through your fingers/ Drift from your heart/ All the grief and the useless” sings Beaulieu like a wise woodland spirit. It’s a beautiful piece of music.

At The Mid-Moment Of The Night’s Dividing finds us in the midst of some whispered, folk-drone apocalypse. Beaulieu sings of a “spring bubbling with life” while also invoking, “the end of the universe.” A slow, sparse 10-minute centrepiece that simply oozes atmospheare. Themes of life and death continue apace with the noise-ridden Mingled and One which concludes with the singer imploring us to, “Surrender to death/ Surrender to life.” Maybe it’s just me but I find it all strangely therapeutic.

Bird calls and the sound of the trees fill every inch of the entrancing Chthonic Heart. While electronic music is often framed as somewhat ‘futuristic’, Menace Ruine’s synth sound feels incredibly organic and earthy. I’m imagining them setting up in the woods and utilising the trees as some makeshift power source. Roots instead of wires. All of this is to say, that the duos music is far more than the sum of its relatively simple parts. They really have tapped into something special and managed to carry that spirit – untarnished – over nearly two decades.

Broken by Fate finds us lost in a sea of shadows, strewn with “watery graves” and frightened people “fleeing war and persecution.” This is juxtaposed with the image of kings travelling into space. The ambiguity and mystery have slipped away and the images are all too familiar. Amongst the duos dark, rumbling drones, the compassion and the anger is tangible. You can hear this plea for humanity as she sings, “As we toughen our borders/ We toughen our hearts as well.”

The Color of the Grave is Green examines death in many forms yet these apocalyptic visions are met with compassion and “love everlasting.” Musically, you can hear that blend of darkness and light through every shifting dronescape that the duo creates. It’s the sound of green shoots growing atop a grave; the sound of life breaking through the cracks.

~

Find Menace Ruine on Instagram, Facebook and Bandcamp.

All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War here.