ALBUM REVIEW: A Brighter Side Of Death – Mister Misery

It’s always an unexpected pleasure to encounter a band who grasps the fundamentals of great melodic song-writing so well at so early a stage in their career. Pulling from a long tradition of great melodic metal, Sweden’s MISTER MISERY perhaps already succeed better at crafting hooks and sweeping, earworm melodies than any of their horror-metal peers in bands like ICE NINE KILLS. With A Brighter Side Of Death, this quartet shows an incredible amount of promising growth on just their second release to date. Their use of melody belies a maturity of song-writing talent, and belying a just a few production nitpicks and some songs that don’t pop as much others, this is an incredibly fun and rewarding record from start to finish.

The first third of this record is really special. Tracks one through four all have amazing hooks and melodic sensibility about them. It’s clear the band writes with hook mentality in mind. Ballad Of The Headless Horseman is pure energy and fun, and a great kickstart to the album. It introduces vocalist Harley Vendetta and his vocal tone that captures a fun, video gamey vibe that totally fits with the band’s lush and liberal use of synths and electronic textures. The chorus is massive and catchy, with Vendetta using his voice to his advantage and adding an eerie touch to every note. Just massive, massive hooks here. However, the low end on this entire record is really up in the mix here, and just a tweak to level that out a bit and crisp things up would go a long way. This record is so close to sounding top notch.

Buried keeps up the catchy hooks and licks, and Vendetta‘s vocal tone again is a huge star of this horror show. He seems tailor made to sing songs of this nature, and there’s great interplay with electronic texture and dynamics on this one. The soft coda ending is a nice touch as well. Mister Hyde is as fun a track as there can be. Sure the lyrics are at their cheesiest here, but that’s a nitpick that certainly doesn’t detract from the song as a whole. There’s a great opening with record static and a muted piano to kick of a track with perhaps the best hook on the record. It’s fun and bouncy and a highlight not to be missed. And finally, Burn closes this first third with a track that is the first of a few to bring to mind the sound of a modern IN FLAMES song, which is no surprise given the band’s national heritage and the legacy that band carries. Vendetta‘s voice sounds like a young, more melodic Anders Friden, and the song’s construction falls in line as well. It does a great job capturing the essence of a creepy doll or puppet with it’s spindly chorus melody. This is a nice bit of storytelling from the band as well, and if that’s not enough, it opens with a huge bounce sure to get crowds jumping.

It’s from here that the record dips into “pretty good” territory. None of the songs that follow, save for the closer, are bad by any means, or even average. They just don’t rise to the heights of the top loaded first third of the record. Devil In Me swings like a trapeze in a Tim Burton film, and it has excellent production that, again, needs some crisping, but sounds really solid and is one step away from sounding absolutely massive. I’ll Never Be Yours has a big melodeath guitar intro and again calls back IN FLAMES. The chorus here is pretty good, but it can’t stand up to ones that appeared earlier on the record. Under The Moonlight is actually the best of the bunch of this middle section of the record. It leans a bit further into the gothic horror area and has a great hook in the chorus. It’s a nice vampiric oasis that feels almost as sweeping as FALLING IN REVERSE‘s redone I’m Not A Vampire. They definitely pair well together.

In Forever is a song bursting with potential. It’s got THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE written all over its synth intro, but gets thrashy really quick. The lyrics need some work, and the melody needs a bit of overall development but the way the band is playing here and the way the synths layer in the background, this could have been a highlight and brings great hope to whatever the band does next. Coming in as the heaviest track on the record, Clown Prince Of Hell has no cleans, but it fully works for this track, with a full on circus/calliope soundtrack to open, the riffs are absolutely massive as this song tears in. It’s the heaviest chorus by far, but it fits perfectly with this tale of a demonic clown looking to bake children into pies. It’s a chaotic and disorienting track but it’s a fun, demented funhouse nonetheless.

We Don’t Belong has a standout opening with duelling lead guitars, but they get lost under the low end and need to be mixed higher up to be given their chance to shine. The track also has another chorus that sounds nice enough, but again, a little more development would raise this one up a notch. Otherwise, it does get lost in the shuffle. Home is an interesting track that experiments with an opening using electronic beats. It’s the most modern rock sounding track, but that sense of risk taking on a record like this is admirable. It’s half time, ballad-like verse feels like a breath of fresh air and it’s another song with potential that will hopefully be developed on the next release.

Finally, we circle back to the final track that raises itself to the level of the beginning tracks of the record. Through Hell rips. Its AVENGED SEVENFOLD sounding opening puts the car in drive and the throbbing bass that opens the main riff smashes its foot down on the gas, and the band doesn’t stop. All four members, Vendetta on vocals and rhythm guitar, Alex Nine on lead, Rizzy on drums, and Alex Alister on bass just crush it on this galloping, venomous track that gets heads banging like they haven’t so far. The progressions they go through and the melodies explored make the six and a half minute runtime fly by and are the perfect end to carnival ride of a record.

MISTER MISERY are officially on notice. The potential is sky high for them, and it can only be speculated that they’ll reach the heights of bands like MOTIONLESS IN WHITE and the aforementioned ICE NINE KILLS. But with hook writing ability like theirs and with a little bit of tinkering on the songcraft, lyrics, and production, a truly astounding record is sure to come very soon. These guys are ones to watch after this record.

Rating: 8/10

A Brighter Side Of Death is set for release on April 23rd via Arising Empire.

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