This is an older release that came out on Malignant several years ago, but I just discovered Des Esseintes a few weeks ago when I was looking through the Malignant Records website. The labels description for this Swedish industrial project got me interested in checking them out further, and I can report back that this is some excellent apocalyptic industrial that is actually quite different from the dark ambient and death industrial that I'm used to hearing from Malignant. Des Esseintes is the solo industrial project of Magnus Sundstrom, a member of the Cold Meat neo-classical group Protagonist who here mixes together apocalyptic slabs of distortion, heavy machine percussion and furious tribal drumming, heavy use of samples that are looped into sinister diatribes, brutal power electronics, swells of Wagnerian orchestral strings, and relentless rhythmic noise. The atmosphere on all of these tracks is dark and oppressive, and Sundstrom is really adept at melding his corrosive noise textures with nightmarish dark ambience and crushing industrial rhythms. Mondo Macabro compiles all of the vinyl releases that Des Esseintes released from 2000 through 2002, including the Muse and On/Off 7"s, the split LP with Magmax and the split 10" with Negru Voda. There are also three unreleased tracks included, and everything has been remastered for this release for maximum loudness and heaviness. Des Esseintes has been compared to a cross between Swedish rhythmic noise beatmasters Tarmvred, Merzbow and the horrific orchestral-noise arrangements of Shinjuku Thief, which sounds pretty accurate.