Mysteria Mortis – Nashe Vremya

[schema type=”review” name=”Mysteria Mortis – Nashe Vremya” description=”Label: Morehate prod.” author=”Juho Karila” pubdate=”2016-04-18″ ]

Mysteria Mortis is  a Russian folk metal band, founded in 2013 and this is their second album.

Mysteria Mortis, is an intresting band and I had completely been oblivious to Russian folk metal scene until I discovered they were touring in Finland. Sadly I missed the chance to see them in Helsinki but they were nice enough to let me review their album: Nashe Vremya, which is all about heavy and dark melodies with lots of groove and folk elements.

The album is kicked in by Yarost’i gnev that whips you around like a heaviest of winterstorms. It’s dark and one of the heaviest tracks of the album, right off the bat, and less melodic one but it doesn’t lack excitement and groove. Annette Ignis‘ voice chills your blood and interludes flirting with black metal vividly reminds of Moonsorrow or later Finntroll. Towards the end, the song pauses for an acoustic part but it’s only deceiving until the song hits you again with force before fading out completely.

Then we’ve been given the folk elements, nicely in the forms of very melodic guitar leads like early Ensiferum but the title track, Nashe Vremya is nothing like the finnish peers of this hunting party. The song grooves once again forward really nicely and shows us what the band is capable of at very best. Being more focused on the melodies and less on the heavy sound, while still utilizing the very versatile vocal range and prominent songwriting skills, this has to be one of the greatest songs of the album.

Third track is called Celtic Land and much like the previous one, it’s all about melodic leads and groovy rhythm riffs. However it uses a flute instead of guitar as a lead instrument, kind of reminiscent of Eluveitie. However Mysteria Mortis knows their stuff and only manages to prove their prowess in shapeshifting and giving us very different songs that are tightly and professionally woven together by the unrelenting tight groove their rhythm section refuses to compromise.
Like the name suggests, this song is sung in English, making it lose part of its charm as the Russian language adds a layer of mysticism and harshness to their favor.

The English language is easy to forgive after the atmospheric intro of Pod Starim Trollem turns into polka, complete with accordion and all! This point I wasn’t sure anymore what I was listening to and its short length (2:41) hints that this was only a filler. Nevertheless, it’s a miss and the biggest one of this album.

The rest of the songs are more or less revolving around those familiar themes without giving much surprises and it’s perfectly fine because there are no more odd ones to break the consistency through the album. From here and there you can hear that Mysteria Mortis is a fairly new band but with the will to conquer the world and wrestle with mightiest of bears, they don’t lack the skills to do so.

This album is recommended for fans of groovy metal with folk and black metal influences who don’t mind having a few rough corners here and there. I for one, will be looking forward to see and hear more from them.

Tracklist: 1. Intro 2. Yarost’ i Gnev 3. Nashe Vremya 4. Celtic Land 5. Pod Starim Trollem 6. Put’ Severnogo Vetra 7. Until I Have a Chance 8. Skaz o Zimnei Deve pt. I 9. Skaz o Zimnei Deve pt. II 10. Outro

Lineup:
Annette Ignis – Vocals
Nikita Tetetin – Guitars
Dmitry Kupriyanov – Bass
Roman Knyazev – Drums
Semyon Risyev – Synths

Links:

Facebook
Official