AN NCS PREMIERE: MIST OF MISERY — “BROKEN CHAINS”

 

Last August we premiered a full stream of the second album by the symphonic depressive black metal band Mist of Misery from Stockholm, Sweden. As I wrote then, Absence, is a multi-faceted trip of changing moods and varying energies, managed with a sure hand, “creating a blend of haunting ambience, symphonic power, and blackened ferocity, while repeatedly displaying a knack for driving home their penetrating and memorable melodies as they move among these changing shades of darkness.”

Black Lion Records released Absence, and on August 31st of this year Black Lion will release Mist of Misery’s follow-up recording, an EP named Shackles Of Life. This will be the first of two connected mini-albums, with a second one coming later under the title Fields of Isolation.

Shackles of Life includes seven songs and features guest vocals by Paolo Bruno of Thy Light, as well as cover art by Russian artist Alex Tartsus. Today, we’re helping to premiere a stream of the album’s third track, “Broken Chains“.

 

 

The band has provided this comment about the new music:

“The themes on both EP’s vary quite a lot from our earlier works, but the original concept of Mist Of Misery is still there. Those who have heard our latest release, Absence, will surely find some similarities to both that album and also to our earlier releases.”

The song we bring you today comes in the form of a video, whose imagery provides a fitting complement to the music. The crumbling, abandoned interiors of the structures shown in the video match the desolation conveyed by the song’s heavy, doom-stricken riffs and the torment of the shrieked vocals.

There is considerable beauty in the music as well — but it’s an intense, haunting form of glamor, as tortured as it is mystical. What begins as an atmosphere that’s almost angelic becomes frightening, with the rhythm transforming from a stately pace to blasting and the vocalist crying out in pain. And at the end, this expression of torment sweeps up the listener and transports them away in its mounting grandeur.

 

Shackles of Life was mixed by Mortuz Denatuz and mastered by Ronnie Björnström of Defitory and EAP Mix Room (who has worked with such bands as Bodyfarm, Aeon, and Cut Up). As noted above, Black Lion will release the EP on CD and digital on August 31.

PRE-ORDER:
https://mistofmiseryblacklion.bandcamp.com/album/shackles-of-life

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/MistofMisery
https://www.facebook.com/blacklionrecords666

TRACK LIST:
1. Shackles Of Life
2. Placid Drowning
3. Broken Chains
4. A Dreamless void
5. Dagon
6. Opening Chapter To A Solitary Confinement
7. Closing Chapter