MAERE is a Black/Death metal band based out of Oldenburg, Lower Saxony in Germany. The band has been around since 2017 an this is their debut EP entitled "I" through the Lavadome Productions label, and released back on January 31st 2020.  The album comprises 6 tracks with slightly under 27 minutes of music. I was not familiar with this band whatsoever before performing the review and I was intrigued to see what type of blackened death metal I would be introduced to with a relatively new face on the block as the band has only been around for less than 3 years.

Essentially the band loves to use quite a bit of dissonance in their music and they like to play around with the feeling of anticipation. There is a repetitive pattern at times, but then out of the blue, you get an extremely powerful low-tone guitar riff that just shreds right through the eardrums. The black metal side of the compositions is mostly on the musical side and not the vocal delivery.

The atmosphere the band conveys here is similar to old-school MORBID ANGEL or even latter-day NILE. The sound is sludgy, dirty and just plain overwhelming (in the positive way). The riffs are designed in a way where it sucks you in and just leaves you in a trance, the best comparison would be NEUROSIS, the ultimate masters and pioneer of the post-metal genre. It is hard to tell if that band is an influence on their compositions, but to me there is definitely is an aura of that legendary project on this EP.

Surprisingly, the overall sound and production is very solid, especially for a first-time effort. The standout song on the EP for me is the last track "I, Transcending"(also found at the bottom as a YouTube link), and if you have read some of my reviews before, a word I use a lot is apocalyptic, because as some of the other projects I have listened to, this band could very well be a soundtrack companion to a story of chaos, zombies and impending doom on mankind. That saying, even if I believe the album closer is the standout, the other tracks really blend well together in a doom/post-metal/death metal maelstrom that leaves you wanting more, which I am sure this band will provide in the immediate future.