ALBUM REVIEW: Unalterable – Mist Of Misery

Sweden’s MIST OF MISERY have, over the last couple of years, begun to make minor waves in the underground extreme metal scene, with their Absence album taking the band to new heights and seeing a marked increase in the quality of musicianship and songwriting within the band. The blend of symphonic and atmospheric black metal, DSBM and even classical music have set MIST OF MISERY apart from may bands in the black metal genre, giving them a sound that is very much their own and much harder to imitate. Their third album, Unalterable, is the most ambitious yet from MIST OF MISERY, spanning just shy of an hour and fifty minutes from the first song to the last. However, despite its length, Unalterable is arguably the most musically lean, inventive and eclectic they have put out to date, meaning that there is very little, if any, filler on here.

Opening track A Window Into Nothingness is a short piece of music that does a great job of building anticipation. With powerful, haunting keyboards which have the air of a choir about them, and a few violin like melodies, this is a minimalist, yet memorable, instrumental that sets the tone for the next thirteen songs and gets the listener excited for what’s to come. Halls Of Emptiness opens with a sharp, ethereal guitar line that sets a dark and foreboding tone straight away, layering on the atmosphere and acting as a great base upon which to build the rest of the music. When the drums, bass and vocals finally make an appearance, they possess the same bleak feel as the songs initial motif, with a crisp production that helps to really accentuate the intricacy of the music. It’s a mid paced track, with lots of epic, soaring lead guitars and shrill, caustic vocals, and has plenty of melodic flourishes within it that really help to keep the song interesting. Some sparse but powerful orchestral pieces add another dimension to the sound, providing a glorious, classical feel that complements the more fierce black metal edge incredibly well. As the song reaches its closing moments, it becomes imbued with a new, more urgent intensity that really makes the music come alive and grab the listeners attention even more, without losing any of its finesse or solid, melancholic sound. It’s a very strong start to the album proper, and sets a lofty bar for the next twelve songs to overcome.

Heir Of Misfortune makes great use of haunting keyboard sections that are evocative of DSBM bands like XASTHUR, having a fuzzy and hazy sound whilst still remaining grandiose. The music which accompanies these heady and emotive keyboards is a far more speed driven, aggressive slab of melodic black metal, with razor sharp guitars, tight and intricate drumming and acidic, bellicose vocals, and the contrast works very well on here. The keyboards are a constant presence on this song, cloaking the whole track in a thick and ambient atmosphere that provides a ton of depth to the sound. A few cleaner, almost spoken word vocal passages throw another element into the sound which helps to take the listener on a journey as the song progresses, but doesn’t get use enough to make its use feel contrived or forced. This is a ferocious, yet sublime, offering with plenty of fantastic musicianship, which makes this another engaging and catchy song that sticks long in the memory.

Red Snow is a brilliant cover of the famous COLDWORLD song. MIST OF MISERY do a great job of sticking true to the sound and emotive weight of the original version, but notably makes use of a far more polished and crisp production, with the keyboards sounding more prominent in the mix and the music itself sounding far tighter, with a less muddy sound overall. Even the vocals, when they come into the mix, seem to possess a little more energy and venom than they did on the COLDWORLD version, with the harsh, shrill vocals soaring over the rest of the sound incredibly well, making their presence known, but not domineering over everything else. It’s a great cover of a DSBM classic, which adds the band’s tighter and more masterful sound to a fantastic song, but otherwise doesn’t stray too far from what the original version did so well. Bleak Autumn closes out the first half of the record in a great way; starting off with glorious sounding acoustic guitars that eventually give way to measured, melody driven black metal with a few subtle symphonic and classical flourishes thrown in. The vocals definitely take a backseat here, and allow the music to really carry the song, with the excellent classical and symphonic edge that is much more prevalent on this song blending well with the black metal to create a song that is monolithic in its musical scope, length and musicality. It’s hard to find a single fault with this particular track, with the band making full use of every second to make sure that no one point of the song is dull or forgettable in any way. It’s got a solid, lean sound with lots of bombastic moments, ensuring that it sticks in the listeners memory long after the first listen.

A Hollow Promise with it’s great opening piano motif, quickly incorporates some awesome guitar harmonies that bring to mind bands like PARADISE LOST in their sheer emotion and impact, giving this song more of a Gothic feel than what we’ve heard up until this point, although it’s still firmly rooted in symphonic and melodic black metal. The leads are backed up with some thunderous, sprawling rhythm sections and huge keyboard sections. It’s a much more fluid track, with the guitars being far more prominent in the mix, and treating the listener to some of the most imaginative and catchy hooks on the whole album, and ultimately stands head and shoulders above many of the tracks that come before or after it. Embracing Ruin continues the Gothic atmosphere with reverb drenched, cleaner guitar sounds informing the initial guitars that start this song off. These guitars work very well alongside the keyboards, creating a dense and impenetrable ambience that draws the listener in, with the drums, bass and rhythm guitars setting a sombre, funereal pace behind all of this. The track does become more and more aggressive as it progresses, ebbing and flowing between slower, lighter moments and far more blistering, visceral ones with ease, without eschewing any of the grandiose elements that make this album so great. It’s a powerful and expansive piece of music that further asserts to the bands talents and musical prowess, taking the listener through peaks and troughs from the first note to the very last.

Stormblast, another cover, this time of the title track of DIMMU BORGIR‘s fantastic second album, again sticks true to the original formula of the song, adding a little more depth and grandiosity to the keyboards and making use of a more flawless production, without sacrificing the dirty edge that made DIMMU BORGIR‘s version so exceptional. The sound, in particular the guitars and vocals, sound sharper and more focused, bringing to the fore various aspects of the song that aren’t immediately obvious when giving the original a cursory listen. Once again, it’s a great rendition of a symphonic black metal classic, and does a brilliant job of doing the original version justice, whilst still adding the MIST OF MISERY stamp to it. The Dying Light, with its jarring, discordant opening motif, is a bleak, grating and beautiful slab of airy black metal, which weaves elements of both DSBM and traditional symphonic and atmospheric black metal together to create a song that it’s hard not to love from the first listen. With the caustic guitar tone contrasting excellently with the more ethereal and sublime approach of the keyboards, there’s an eclectic mix of different sounds and styles on offer here, with a borderline psychedelic, Hammond Organ style keyboard sound creeping into the mix towards the songs closing moments, adding yet another element to the band’s already heady and varied sound which ends up working incredibly well, even though it is only used fleetingly.

Unalterable, the albums penultimate, titular track, begins with some powerful, church organ-esque keyboards, which sound massive and give this song a vary powerful sound right out of the gate. The music itself is a slow, doom-laden affair, with slow, steady drumming and dense, full guitar chords building a robust and palpable wall of noise that gives this whole song a very bombastic feel. The vocals, rabid and feral as always, provide plenty of venom, and cut through the angelic sound perfectly, giving a great counterpoint to the more morose, slick sound of the rest of the music. Cleaner guitars tones begin to creep into the sound again, making for a more eclectic feel that strips away much of the viciousness that has been present in many earlier points on the record, allowing for the more atmospheric side of MIST OF MISERY to come to the fore fully. It’s a truly brilliant, soaring piece of music that adds a climactic note to this album, and sets the listener up extremely well for the fourteenth and final track on the album. Eternal Bereavement is one final instrumental track which does a great job of closing the album out on a high note. Made up of a sparse, yet effective, piano piece, and a few keyboard sections peppered liberally throughout, it’s one last blast of atmosphere that not only sounds great, but also brings this record full circle, being very reminiscent of the opening of A Hollow Promise, and finishing on a very similar note to the way that this album began almost two hours prior. It may be brief, and not drowning in riffs, distortion and technicality, but it does an amazing job of ending this album perfectly.

It’s no mean feat for a band to make nearly two hours worth of music thoroughly engaging and eclectic; some bands struggle to maintain an audiences attention for ten minutes, let alone a hundred and ten. But for MIST OF MISERY, their ambitious approach to Unalterable certainly pays off in a big way. There are one or two songs that rely a bit too much on repetitive motifs to carry them to their conclusion, but overall, Unalterable is fantastic from start to finish. All the songs do a great job of not just standing out in their own right, but adding to the sound of the record as a whole, making sure that this is not just one lengthy album made up of a dozen songs that are interchangeable and almost identical. Both of the covers on here work incredibly well too, and, if nothing else, give the listener a good excuse to revisit COLDWORLD and early DIMMU BORGIR. This is an amazing album from start to finish, and with any luck, whatever they do next will be equally as diverse, interesting and ambitious.

Rating: 9/10

Unalterable is out now via Black Lion Records. 

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