Parrilla – Femme Fatale: Ensnared By Venus

By RingMaster Review on October 6, 2021 • ( 0 )

The first part in the Femme Fatale sequence, a trilogy of EPs from UK industrial metallers Parrilla, Ensnared By Venus is a lure to the dark side of emotion and desire. Recently released, the EP is a collection of tracks which are as venomous as they are contagious, each epitomising why the band has earned such a potent reputation with a matching growth in support for previous exploits and their formidable live presence.

2020 saw Parrilla unleash debut EP, Dancefloor Messiah; an encounter which put the Southend On Sea quartet on the industrial map. Supported by just as acclaimed singles, it proved the band’s industrial metal bred sound a source of greater flavour and creative essences in its rapacious character. Femme Fatale: Ensnared By Venus pushes their boundaries again, the six tracks within virulently destructive in touch and theme yet as rousing as they are debilitating with the band taking the listener into a labyrinth of lust, desire, and anguish.

A splatter of sound welcomes opener Law Of Texas, the track emerging from an atmospheric electronic haze as those eruptions continue to burst. In no time it is marching through ears, a manipulative incitement as readily flinging its catchiness as its psychotic tendencies. The potent vocals of Dani Messmer run that creative landscape, his and fellow guitarist Luke Megran’s sonic strikes and predacious riffs merciless yet a mighty lure into the song’s tempest.

The great start to the release is followed by Bleed, Cry, Pray, Die. Its opening piano seeded seduction is swiftly bleeding sinister chaos and menace; a union echoed in the vocals as the biting rhythms of drummer David Page escalate the dark intent within the encounter. With the bass of Chris Howell resonating in the hellish desire soaking all aspects, the song is a magnet for the imagination, its body an unsettling mix of beauty and dementia where every second is unpredictable and wrong footing but thickly compelling.

Show Me is next up, wrapping ears in an orchestral caress as rhythms again jab with tenebrific fixation. Whispered vocals cannot hide the menace within voice and atmosphere, the song prowling the senses with outbursts of carnal antipathy sourced in sorrow. A sonic commination from a heart lost in despair, it proved a lingering haunting though soon eclipsed in relentless temptation by the outstanding Mannequin Complex. From its wiry grooves and electronic infection to its mechanical manoeuvres and anthemic croon, the track commanded attention and body like an infernal puppeteer; the unveiling of even darker purgatory as riveting as the breaks of melodic light.

The final pair of Desire and Femme Fatale ensured pleasure was undiluted, the first an incessant harassment of metal and alt rock as contagious as it is corrosive. Rhythms leave splintered bone and grooves singed senses, vocals just as much a transgression eagerly welcomed while its successor is a cauldron of alt/industrial metal honed to stir up keen participation and inner emotional turbulence.

It is a fine end to one thickly enjoyable encounter and though maybe Femme Fatale: Ensnared By Venus will not fit well with all it is a record that leaves the borders of industrial metal blistered and leaking into new imaginative intrusions all Parrilla sourced; meaning for us it is a must listen.

Femme Fatale: Ensnared By Venus is out now; available @ https://parrilla.bandcamp.com/