Amenta have for a few years now been one of the Australian undergrounds most viciously vile exports. The band has been extremely active since 2021, having released an album, a split and an EP, not counting the imminent arrival of Plague Of Locus their latest offering. Plague Of Locus is a covers album that also features an original, the title track, but it's not like most other cover albums you've heard. The band takes the work of masters like Alice In Chains or Killing Joke, as well as regional favorites like Nazxul and Lord Chaos and runs them through their uniquely apocalyptic brand of industrial death metal.
On Plague Of Locus The Amenta are reprising a broad swathe of dark music. In fact it's kind of strange to see how far reaching they go on this album, featuring re-imagined cuts from everyone from Diamanda Galas to Wolf Eyes by way of My Dying Bride. Yet through it all, while The Amenta certainly are paying tribute to these classic songs, they find a way to pervert them and make them all the more blasphemous and addictive. It's extreme industrial metal done with a taste of glorious misery, unrepentant and eager to leave you gasping for air. The Amenta have found a twisted vision that works and then applied it to songs we know and love.
This is in many ways a challenging listen. The harsh noise ministrations of their cover of A Million Years speak to that. But the band seems clear minded in their mission - to honor those who came before but to give it a twist that only an experienced and visionary band would be able to pull together. There are very few bands in my eyes who could pull something like this off without it seeming cheesy, or like they were trying to be a different band altogether. But The Amenta find their own path through and this is exactly what makes it so compelling.
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