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Mist Of Misery – Severance

mist of misery – severance

Info

This Swedish Melodic Black Metal band has been formed back in 2010 and has kept a steady working pace ever since their inception, with ‘Severance’ being their latest offering, from late 2022. A quick look at their discography learns that in twelve years they have been able to release four full-length albums and an equal amount of EP’s, making them indeed quite prolific. A few of those earlier releases already reached our VM-Underground pages, to which I am happily adding the review for this latest work.

If anything, Mist Of Misery has proven themselves not to be a band that easily changes their music direction. On the contrary, really. Over the course of their existence they stayed true to the Melodic Black Metal genre, adding some really nice symphonic and well-crafted melodies to their otherwise sharp and blistering Black Metal. So, also ‘Severance’ is easily labelled as another album in the band’s musical tradition. It sounds both heavily orchestrated, with thick layers of keyboards and piano melodies draped over the very dynamic kind of Black Metal. Those dynamics are mostly found in the different tempo changes and the orchestral sections that flow like a wave throughout the entire album. Because of the very present piano and keyboards, which are also mixed at the front of the sound, the guitar does get pushed into a secondary role (although there are some very nice solos and leads as well). Something the band does just fine, by the way, but it is something that not all Black Metal fans are equally comfortable with. The same goes for the sporadic use of clean vocals, although most of the vocals undoubtedly involve the rather sharp screech, the clean bits do add some variety. As a final element that could possibly divide listeners a bit is the sterile sound of the album, it makes all the orchestral parts of the music stand out well, but with that, it possibly lacks a bit of that raw edge that one often looks for in Black Metal anyway.

All in all, ‘Severance’ is a solid album and possibly even the Swedes’ best work to date. However, should you not yet know the band, it is definitely advisable to give it a good listen first before you decide to buy it, it will not be suitable for every Black Metal ear because of the somewhat clean sound and the thick layers of orchestrations. If you are capable of looking (listening) through or around that or if that is just your thing, then ‘Severance’ is definitely recommended.