ALBUM REVIEW: Diorama – MØL
When MØL unleashed their debut album Jord on the world back in 2018, the whole metal community sat up and paid attention. Universally acclaimed and a staple on end-of-year lists (including #2 on our very own Albums Of The Year 2018), there was much anticipation for their follow up. Now signed to Nuclear Blast, MØL presents Diorama, and – spoiler alert – it was well worth the wait.
Kicking off with Fraktur, it doesn’t take long to realise that this is business-as-usual in a broad sense. Swelling to life through quintessential shoegaze instrumentation before exploding into razor sharp black metal vocals, everything you love about MØL is present. The first thing that sets this apart from their prior works though is that Diorama is a record of jubilance. Where Jord was dark and brooding, Diorama is uplifting and celebratory; where their self-titled EPs were brash and bruising, this feels vast and infectious; where past releases have sounded like a band trying to establish themselves, this sounds like a band that knows they have cracked the formula.
None of this is to say that MØL have lost their edge, far from it in fact. Tvesind starts as one of 2021’s most apocalyptic songs, but progresses to an ending that is as life-affirming as it is crushingly heavy; while Itinerari is an unrelenting assault on the senses that goes darker and harder than anything they’ve produced until now. Instead, MØL have simply taken in a wider pool of influences: Serf features a pop-punk riff that will greatly appease the emo scene kids of the late 00s; and the title track to close the album is (for the first half, at least) a stunning, pop-tinged ballad that has Kim Song Sternkopf showcasing his clean vocal abilities to staggering effect, in tandem with a fantastic feature from Katherine Shepard aka SYLVAINE.
The main differentiator throughout Diorama though, more so than the upbeat, major-key delivery, is the presence of choruses. This is a black metal record with hooks and singalongs, without sacrificing the essence of the genre this band has perfected. Lead single Photophobic features Sternkopf’s vocals at their charismatic, vitriolic best, underpinned by an earworm riff that ensures the song will live rent free in your head for the rest of the week. For a band with a stellar live reputation, this record is going to feel even more massive when we finally get to hear it played live.
There is no escaping the fact that frontman Sternkopf is a generational talent and one of the best in the game right now, but Diorama gives every band member and instrument the room to breathe. The rich guitar tones of Frederik Lippert and Nicolai Busse Bladt that are so generously laden with effects and lush reverb; the machine-precision drumming of Ken Lund Klejs; even the humble bass guitar is given its time to shine under the hand of Holger Frost. This is a celebration of everything that is MØL.
The ‘difficult second album’ is a cliché as old as time and after the unreal quality of Jord there were few who thought it possible for lightning to strike twice. Not only has Diorama lived up to lofty expectations, but it has also raised the blackgaze bar even higher and established MØL as one of metal’s most talented, exciting and irresistible bands. In a year of incredible records, it was going to take something special to be an obvious choice for end-of-year lists. Diorama delivers in spades, and stands heads, shoulders, knees and toes above the competition. This is an album that will be talked about through to the end of the decade. An instant classic.
Rating: 10/10
Diorama is set for release on November 5th via Nuclear Blast Records.
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