Two years after the release of In Exile, Noblesse Oblige release their 3rd album Malady, an occult concept album that cites the visual mysticism of Kenneth Anger, Aleister Crowley’s storytelling, and the morbid melancholy of Christina Rossetti’s poetry. The album is the conclusion of an exploration of the occult, initiated by the band’s involvement in Robert Pacitti’s 2009 London Spill Festival Tarot Deck project, for which Noblesse Oblige (in collaboration with photographer Manuel Vason) were asked to visualize their own interpretation of The Lovers Major Arcana card.
Further inspiration was the Voodoo literature by Haitian writer Rene Depestre and readings of field research work by anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard and his studies of witchcraft and magic among African tribes. The aura of these texts and stories have been incorporated in many of the songs while Valerie, who during her teenage years lived on the French Caribbean island of Martinique — one of the heartlands of voodoo practice — worked up her own memories of myths and stories told by the locals, including her voodoo priestess neighbour.
Fittingly, the production of the album also features several exotic ingredients such as timbales, kazoo and ukulele in continuation of the band’s use of world music sounds, mixed with their traditional blend of kitsch and new wave theatricality — for as dark its subject matter is, Malady contains some Noblesse Oblige’s most melodic and poppy moments yet.
Steve Morell about Noblesse Oblige Album - Malady
It’s a warm, darkly erotic, timeless summer album that catched me and still does as soon as the weather is good in our city. If it is obvious that Noblesse Oblige put their hit at the beginning of the opus with „The Great Electrifier“, what follows is no boredom. On the contrary, they proved that you can still keep the listener on the edge of his seat for a whole album. Just before my two favourite songs, „Equinox“ and „Moonchild“ (...) We fell in love with the summer breeze that surrounds us and all we need is to sit down in the mildness, forget the raw cold air of our dear city. I’m inevitably wondering if it’s gonna go on like this until the end or if something else will surprise me (...) . They celebrate the rite of love and warm darkness. They attire mystical concepts, drift on their „Way to Equinox“ and meet Severin Von Kusiemski in the hot sand where the devil’s ransom hides, all that in the name of the greek god Pan and his flute... We just relax and let them lead us without any resistance. After a first quick listen, one could think that it is the perfect disc for the gothic scene. In fact it is much more thant this. The „true purist gothic scene“ could not consider it as its album since it is much too sunny, even sprinkled with mambo and salsa, and this is good like this! (...) . No! You have to love this album, learn to love it, like the dark though pleasant contemporary times in which we live. Noblesse Oblige went their own way, they moved on and remained honest yet. The question now is to know where this „way to the equinox“ will drive them after this timeless album called „Malady“, which will probably not be considered as it should be before a couple of years. (Steve Morell 2010)
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Reboot FM Zero Hour #3
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SoundCloud Zero Hour #3
Zero Hour #3 - Steve Morell with Noblesse Oblige by reboot.fm
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