It's been quiet on my metal blog as I've been quite occupied with my other writing project. I'm still totally batshit crazy about Type O Negative and listen to hardly anything else most days. My friend's husband decided it was time to hustle things along and sent me his favourite metal albums. This resulted in an impressive Spotify Playlist of 24 hours and 22 minutes. As a girl has to start somewhere, I picked the band whose name I couldn't pronounce at first: Mgła.
Mgła is a Polish black metal band formed in 2000 by M. (vocalist, bassist, guitarist) and Daren (drums). Daren has been replaced with Darkside on drums in 2006 and since 2012 Mgła also plays live with the support of live musicians. So far, Mgła has released four studio albums. Their best known album to this day is their third album Exercises in Futility (2015).
My expectations were quite high because Mgła had been advertised to me as "one of the best modern black metal bands.: distinct, melodic, haunting."
So I sat down with my headphones and started the first track, simply titled I. And as soon as the first cold guitar riff set in, I was sold. This album is black metal in its purest form. At least for me. Mgła delivers a form of melodic black metal that is both bleak and despairing while also being heart-wrenchingly beautiful and uplifting. Wait, despairing and uplifting at the same time? Yeah, somehow they make it work.
Lyrically the album deals with human mankind as a failure and as I look around what is happening in the world right now, it couldn't be more fitting.
As if the gods were bored
With peace in our hearts
And their fingers are itchy
As if we never broke people
Out of sheer boredom
And slept calmly, among the wastes
M.'s vocals are a harsh kind of growl and he is more talking than singing. His voice is raspy and at no time I found it unpleasant or unsuitable. The songs deliver intricate melodies interchanging with dissonant, cold and very repetitive riffing. If you are not a fan of riffs being squeezed dry, then you might find this annoying. For me, it works and the repetitiveness helps me being immersed in the music. You have mid-pace sections alternating with sudden bursts of fast paced riffing and the varying tempos keep you on your toes. As said - I really enjoy the repeating riffs, but what really stood out to me even during my first spin, is the drumming. Black metal drumming is often just blast beat after blast bleat, a ferocious background to whatever else is happening. I've always been a big fan of cymbals though and Darkside uses them so perfectly. If you listen closely and focus on the drums, it is a real treat. I'd love to see him play live sometime.
What else? The songs are not titled. They are just numbered I - VI. This makes them even harder to distinguish. This album works great as a whole and sucks you into a zone of bleakness, but the individual songs tend to blend into each other. This is nothing that diminishes the album for me though. I am a fan of albums I can listen to from start to beginning without having to skip the songs I don't like. As for favourites - not sure I have a favourite song on this album. I like I a lot. But everytime I settled on this one, the next song comes on and I like this equally. Each song features some really great parts and the album definitely gets better the more often you listen to it.
Mgła - definitely on my replay-list and I will listen to their other albums. Thanks for sharing this gem with me, Flo 🤘
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