ALBUM REVIEW: Unalive – Mister Misery

Stockholm quartet MISTER MISERY are set to release their debut record Unalive, teaming up with Arising Empire in preparation for the album. The band were founded back in February last year, and are made up of vocalist and guitarist Hayley Vendetta, lead guitarist Alex Nine, drummer Rizzy and bassist Eddie Crow.

The maiden record kicks off with The Blood Waltz; the opening few seconds consist of a gentle keyboard solo, which doesn’t have much chance to build the song up before the vocals and riffs come into play and take the song in a completely new direction. The pace differs throughout, picking up fairly quickly in the opening verse before slowing down almost to a metal ballad. There are definitely more elements that feature which give it a more of a modern sound, almost techno sound.

One of the bands that MISTER MISERY take inspiration from is NIGHTWISH, and there are certainly occasions throughout this record where you can pick up on those influences, some tracks more prominent than the others. One of these tracks is Legion, which crops up towards the middle segment of Unalive. The intro is fast, hard, and heavy with skull crushing riffs at a blistering pace, and even the vocal style of Hayley is reminiscent of NIGHTWISH. However, like The Blood Waltz, while the verses and intro have more of a thrash style to them in terms of pace and structure, when it gets to the chorus the track is almost turned on its head and the tempo slows down considerably, which certainly shows that the band can mix it up between the heavier elements of metal and some of the softer ones.

There’s a number of standout tracks on this record, each one has its own subtle differences which help them stand out from the rest. One that is an absolute highlight though is Rebels Calling. Similarly to Legion, the track starts off with big heavy riffs, not quite matching the tempo but still enough to get you headbanging early on. Hayley’s vocals also take a bit of a twist too and are much deeper compared to some of the other tracks, which echo the likes of ARCH ENEMY.

The basic recipe itself is pretty consistent throughout the record, the band mixing those classic riffs that you’d expect to find in the genre of melodic hard rock, as well as some of the softer elements. The project works well when all the elements are combined together, and there’s enough diversity in the sound to show that the band can push their limits as musicians.

Unalive is an album that has been 18 months in the work since their formation back in February last year, and you can tell listening to the record that each element has been fine tuned before the release to ensure the album sounds as good as it possibly can, and has been well worth the wait – a solid debut record for a band that can only get bigger and better over the next few years.

Rating: 7/10

Unalive is out now via Arising Empire.

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