‘There’s a wide chasm between Mr Bungle and Celtic Frost, and Maladie belong in the former camp. To them, nothing is off the table. They take great pleasure in confusing you and second-guessing your instincts. And yet they can go toe-to-toe with any extreme metal band when they embrace the heavier side of their music,’ said Scream Blast Repeat in our review of their magnificent 2023 LP, For We Are the Plague. It seems they rediscovered their melodic rock records of the 1970s and developed an interest in the post-grunge era of the 1990s for album number eight. Those that enjoyed their last opus will be in for a shock. The Dance of Tragedies is a tragedy for all the wrong reasons.
They start ‘Vortex of Monotony’ like a hippy rock band under the spell of the saxophone but committed to the John Bonham beat. Alexander Wenz will remind you of Therion’s Christofer Johnsson in the way he phonates his melodies, but he soon switches to a catarrh-plagued voice that would be too extreme for most black metal bands to use. The risk here is the sedate tempo and restraint of the guitars, which only get into gear at 04:50. Most of the time leading up to this sounds like Paradise Lost feeling their way back from the Depeche Mode era and into the caverns of doom metal. Uninspired down-picking guitars are the weakest component in this valiant attempt to captivate you. The black metal transition for the final two minutes feels like a missed opportunity to break free of the 1970s worship.
Unfortunately, ‘Behind All Suns’ searches for the same flowery timbres with the saxophones providing the sentimental melodies. It feels like an alternative rock band from 1998 filling the MTV void while better bands rise up the ranks. Adding gory death metal vocals to this makes no sense. Close your eyes and this is what Cheap Trick would sound like with The Neal Morse Band directing affairs. What happened to the schizophrenic dynamics and sinister sense of humour? Listening to ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ by Journey might be more fun than this anodyne offering.
It doesn’t improve from here. The upbeat energy of ‘Too Old to Die’ is eight minutes and twenty-five minutes of surfing between melodic rock and hardcore punk. The guitar tone is forgettable and anachronistic. It might even be in standard tuning. Andrew WK would enjoy it, but those that liked the last album will wonder if this is the same band. Maladie’s origins are in black metal, but The Dance of Tragedies suggest they have no time for that genre now. The radio-friendly alternative rock of ‘The Unknowable’ is the type of music that would make Pavement sound listenable to a rock audience, but that does not excuse it. Hauke Peters’ saxophone is out of place here as is the feel-good sentiment behind the up-tempo drums and guitars.
Side A is a severe disappointment for Maladie’s metalhead fanbase, and Side B is more of the same ska-inspired rock that would embarrass the nostalgic punk in your father. Throwing the occasional black metal passage into this stale pop-punk is ridiculous. It’s almost as if they agree with this criticism and up the ante towards an evil death metal path after three minutes, but it sounds like Mr Bungle devoid of inspiration. Why is the party rock of ‘Embrace Our Curse’ ten minutes in length when it’s nothing more than the playful but camp theatrics of Electric Six with a tinge of melancholy at its core? The black ‘n’ roll parts would not even scare your grandmother. There are hints that it might be willing to expand into a Tool-esque piece of prog metal transplanted into the Arabian sands, but it’s a sad indictment of an avant-garde metal band when the most enjoyable features are the techno beats and bright saxophone solos.
The brief dalliance with thrash and death metal in ‘On Inaccessible Paths Part I’ is tolerable but spoiled by unimaginative guitars. They finish with ‘On Inaccessible Paths Part II’ and leave you wondering why they need one hour and ten minutes for a record that lacks verve and imagination. Let’s hope it’s a rare misstep rather than a point of no return in their discography.
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 29/05/2026
Record Label: Apostasy Records
Standout tracks: N/A
Suggested Further Listening: Thought Industry – Outer Space Is Just a Martini Away (1996), Octoploid – Beyond the Aeons (2024)