Miseration - Tragedy Has Spoken

Miseration had somehow managed to elude these ears until now so with the band being labelled as death metal the expectations of what would emerge from the band’s new album “Tragedy Has Spoken” was far different from what actually exited and ignited the senses. With a heavy intense core of death metal the band and album explores and draws on an ever evolving feast of ideas, sounds, and technical creativity. The result is an album of unpredictable and distinctive imagination, a release as brutal and intrusive as they come but with a breath of pure diversity and ingenuity.

“Tragedy Has Spoken” is the third album from Miseration following up predecessors “Your Demons, Their Angels” (2008) and “The Mirroring Shadow” (2009). Based on the theme of major tragedies from mankind’s history and the premise of an imaginary all powerful designer behind the nature of such events the album finds the band stretching beyond the borders of its base genre. The songs bring the addition of elements never before given a home such as the Indian harp Esraj, the Persian hammered dulcimer Santur, and other ethnic folk orientated instruments and sounds. They are not just added but as the excellent opener ‘Stepping Stone Agenda’ eagerly shows, it is with inspired and imaginative manipulation. Taking this song as an example the music pulsates and writhes with an exotic yet venomous creative energy within the thunderous consumption. This makes songs and album a deep and rewarding experience, testing at first but persistently offering more and more with each intrusion.

From the ever devastating and impressive diverse vocals of Christian Alvestam (ex-Scar Symmetry), the guitars of Jani Stefanovic and Marcus Bertilsson, to the disorientating rhythms of Oscar Nilsson, the release is as mesmeric and mouth watering as it is destructive and vicious. Highlights which ignite the most ferocious fires include best track ‘Ciniphes’, ‘Hill of the Poison Tree’, and ‘On Wings of Brimstone’. The first is a rampaging infestation of disruptive melodies and bone crumbling intensity, its stuttering rhythmic jabs and thick bilious noise hypnotic. The other two are deceptively less violent though soon one is on knees beneath a storm of fury and a building crescendo of searing harmonics and merciless energy, with the latter a glorious fusion of light and dark.

“Tragedy Has Spoken” is outstanding, a revelation for a belated introduction to Miseration and the best death metal release so far this year. (8.5/10)

Pete RingMaster

Band info: www.facebook.com/miseration.official

Label info: www.lifeforcerecords.com