Bandcamp Fel, Catalan for bile, is a fitting name for a record this acrid. Marasme come out of the DIY Catalan underground on Discos Macarras, and while their lineage points toward atmospheric post-metal and crust, Altar of Plagues and Fall of Efrafa in the DNA, the way this album actually hits is heavier and more direct than that suggests. Six tracks, roughly thirty-six minutes, sung in fierce Catalan, and more often than not it trades the long atmospheric drift for blackened, groove-laden riff attack. This is post-metal that has grown teeth and a grudge.
The band are strongest where they let the atmosphere back in. “Metzina” is the standout, an organic, live-sounding piece with a wooden, un-triggered snare and a genuine contrast between intimate clean-guitar passages and dense riff eruptions, the harsh Catalan vocals sitting inside the wall rather than on top of it. “Larva” works the same balance, transparent and dynamically preserved, the instruments actually breathing, and “Boira” channels the aggression into a tight, tremolo-sharp blackened-thrash charge that stays legible at speed. When Marasme swing between crust weight and post-metal space, the anti-fascist crust roots and the black-metal chill make genuine sense together.
What holds it a notch back is the mix. Several tracks (“Urpa,” “Quimera” especially) are pushed hard into a loudness-maximized, dry, in-your-face wall, the drums reading sample-tight and the upper mids and cymbals biting toward fatigue, and in the densest passages the bass gives up its contour and the low mids smear. It is a genuinely intense, committed sound, but the ceiling on the master keeps the heaviest moments from opening up the way the atmospheric ones do. A little more air and this would hit harder, not less.
Fel is a fierce, honest, blackened post-metal-into-sludge record with real conviction and a chip on its shoulder, and when Marasme trust the quiet-loud architecture they are a compelling, genuinely heavy band. It is best taken as the bracing, bile-black thing it is rather than the drifting post-metal its influences might promise. For the crust-and-blackness crowd who want their atmosphere with a fight in it, worth getting under your skin.
Blackened post-metal and sludge with crust roots, heavier and more direct than its atmospheric lineage suggests, sung in fierce Catalan. Strongest where the atmosphere returns: “Metzina” is the standout, organic and live-sounding with a wooden un-triggered snare and real contrast between intimate clean passages and dense eruptions, and “Larva” keeps the same transparent, dynamically preserved balance with instruments that breathe. “Boira” channels the aggression into a tight, tremolo-sharp blackened-thrash charge. The reservation is the mix: several tracks (“Urpa,” “Quimera”) are pushed into a loudness-maximized, dry, in-your-face wall with sample-tight drums and biting upper mids, and in the densest passages the bass loses contour and the low mids smear. Intense and committed, held back only by the ceiling on the master.
Standout tracks: Metzina, Larva, Boira
