Misanthur – Ephemeris Review

I’m always on about albums that take me away. All I want is an album that sweeps me off my feet away from the world into the safety and shadow of someone else’s creation—by whatever means necessary. There are so many ways to go about it, so when an album hits that sweet spot, it’s hard to forget—and I don’t want to forget. I want to remember how Mizmor (מזמור)’s Yodh shielded my soul with black wings of scorched desolation, how the mammoth waves of Slow’s V – Oceans swallowed me whole, how the smoggy and filthy streets of Giles Corey’s self-titled granted bleak serenity in a world with no volume knob, or how I disappeared into the folds of noise and pummel in Full of Hell & Merzbow’s collaboration. Diverse in genres, evocation knows no stylistic boundaries. Does Misanthur’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach offer the same comforts?

Misanthur was listed as “trance ambient noise” in the cold boundaries of the promo dump and just plain black metal on other sites. Truthfully, both are true. What this Polish duo offers is a hyper-atmospheric breed of black metal with heavy electronic and industrial flourishes, not unlike a blackened version of C R O W N’s latest, The End of All Things. Opener “Enter the Void” provides a snapshot, utilizing shoegaze-y baritone drawls punctuated by post-metal dirges, Aaron Turner-esque barks and blackened shrieks, avant-garde melodics, and dense tremolo/blastbeat passages. While Ephemeris is rough around the edges—with plenty of filler and plenty of questionable stylistic decisions—Misanthur proves a group to watch, with a patiently haunting use of sprawling soundscapes and a tantalizing meditative quality.

Much of Ephemeris revolves around refractory stylistic decisions that are given freedom thanks to its proclivity for sprawl. Whether it be the frantically blackened “Black Clouds & No Silver Linings,” the trip-hop-friendly “On the Heights of Despair,” the doom-inclined title track, the gloomy prog of “Essence,” or the aforementioned post-y “Enter the Void,” the trance-inducing atmospherics and sustained melodies that pervade every fiber of Misanthur’s songwriting keep things surprisingly tight and professional. It’s a cold world cloaked in fog, its movements the mechanical gears in the unforgiving machine, the vocals the indistinct conversations of passersby on a frigid winter’s night. Ephemeris strikes an odd balance, as its modus operandi changes moment to moment, but it doesn’t feel inconsistent or scatterbrained. The cold and loneliness are all that remain when all else fades to silence. In this right, if it’s evocation you’re after, Misanthur will satisfy mightily. Bolstered by its dense production, tasty guitar tone, and tangible bass, each element has a voice in this icy chorus of misery.

For as much potential as these Poles boast, Ephemeris is nonetheless hindered by rookie mistakes. For instance, no track settles below six minutes except for “Dense Mental Trace,” which ends up being a melodic extension of “Enter the Void” anyway, calling into question its purpose. Tracks “Essence” and “Black Clouds & No Silver Linings” begin extremely solid and mesmerizing in their nearly Amenra-esque use of repetition, but melodic overuse and over-repetition leads to jagged dissociation by their respective conclusions. Similarly, the central riff of “The Serpent Crawls” isn’t sure of itself and has difficulty carrying Ephemeris’ longest track while its spoken word feels overdramatic and unnecessary; the free-jazz freakout in “Enter the Void” ends up being well-meaning but its reach exceeds its grasp; and the title track’s ominous concluding passage is jarringly different from its beautifully subtle buildup. It feels as though Misanthur aspires to the fluid organicity of industrial black greats such as Dodecahedron or free jazz-abusers Painkiller, but songwriting chops are still a work in progress.

You can’t blame Misanthur for being young. Their fresh energy is tangible on Ephemeris, and it’s frankly amazing that so many influences align in such an enjoyable way: Katatonia’s eternal gloom, Amenra’s haunting repetition, 3TEETH’s industrial haze and ominous beats, Isis’ colossal riffs, Dkharmakhaoz’s dense guitar tone, Coldworld’s frostbitten fury, and Type O Negative’s burly vocal attack all have a part to play. While impressive, the result is slightly less so because of rookie missteps, namely in the songwriting. Simply put, Misanthur could easily lop off a good twenty minutes of fluff that is gathered at the end of its tracks and tighten up their songwriting. However, it’s hard to match this level of evocation.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label:  Season of Mist Records
Websites: misanthur.bandcamp.com | misanthur.com | facebook.com/misanthur
Releases Worldwide: October 15th, 2021