BY MIKEY MIGO
Sometimes there are bands out there that you just miss out on. With the "First Impression" series I explore all the studio albums of bands that fit that mold. Sometimes it's a band that I've never heard, but heard of and sometimes it's a band that I've only heard one or two songs of. There is always that chance that once I get a song or two into a band's three to six album discographies that I'll regret and cringe at the hours of listening ahead of me. Then there's times where my mind is blown and I have a new band or at least a few new songs to add to my music listening spectrum.
None the less, forming an honest opinion and giving a band an open mind is a pretty cool experience. This time I'm going to listen to a band I've really only seen the name of. This band is "Mnemic". I've seen their names on tons of tour line ups, reviews, and just around here and there. I couldn't tell you one song by them and until doing a little preliminary research I didn't even know what genre they fit in.
Come to find out "Mnemic" is a Danish industrial metal band. They're often compared to Fear Factory, Meshugga, and a few others who fit in the industrial metal/math metal categories. With that in mind, let's listen to their four studio album catalog and see how they fare.
Album:Mechanical Spin Phenomena
Year: 2003
Duration: 54:26
"Liquid" kicks off their 2003 full length debut. The programmed sounds of electronic chaos kicks off what will seemingly be a heavy album. I can't help but head banging along to this. Solid and very well layered. I can't believe I missed this single. "Blood Stained" is next and slowly builds to a middle of the road hard song. The guitar breakdowns in this beast are very cool. At 6:19 in duration, it's a bit of a long song. This would have made a really tight four or even five minute track. The third single is the third song on the album, "Ghost". The opening break is familiar and then it goes into some verse work of what I could best describe as what would happen if Layne Staley in on vocals for a White Zombie session; the chorus, not so much. "DB'XX'D" (non-texty translation: "double crossed") has an odd title, but is an early pick for my favorite track on the album. Yeah, its eight minutes long, but it provides a damn near perfect balance of groove and head banging metal. "Tattoos" kind of bothers me. It's a hard edge madhouse and then cuts to a more melodic and down tempo chorus. Both as individual segments are solid, but doesn't blend together as good as well as I think they could. "The Naked And The Dead" has my favorite vocal work of the album so far. "Closed Eyes", while not horrible, lost me until the break down towards the end. The title track, "Mechanical Spin Phenomenon" should have been a single off this. It has a bizarre arrangement of harmonious vocals and tight metal music. I'm not big on the chorus, but in 2003 it would have been popular as fuck. "Zero Gravity" is the 9th of 10 songs, but is really the end of the album. It slowly builds towards something. Normally in a track like this, it's kind of lame, but here it's so well done that over two and half minutes pass before it actually breaks into something. It ends up being a slower track with droning vocals kind of buried under the sound. I'm definitely a fan of hard metal (sans growler bullshits), but I find "Zero Gravity" as the best track on the album. It's one of those songs that paint a picture with music. This will be added to mix CDs in the future for sure. If this was, it would have been a great closer to the album. But it's not the end. The last track of this album is a remix of "Blood Stained" by the awesome Rhys Fulber. It sounds like a pseudo-dance remix made a few years too late for the "Blade" soundtrack. The bad ass guitar breakdowns from the original lose their luster in this atmosphere. In fairness, it's not a bad remix, but it shouldn't have been on the actual album. For its genre, or multiple related genres for that matter, this is a great debut album. If I had to nitpick, there are only two points that I didn't really get into. The vocals are a bit rough at times, but are far from the worst I've heard of this genre. The music though, puts this seemingly typical industrial metal on a new page. The musicianship here is leaps and bounds better than those in the same game. The other only bad things I can say about this are that some of the chorus's are a bit less inspired compared to the rest of the compositions. They stand out as different from the rest of the songs and in some cases it takes you out of the rhythm.
Album:The Audio Injected Soul
Year: 2004
Duration: 45:26
The second album starts off with a intro track of sorts, which also serves as the title track in "The Audio Injection". We hear ominous tones, footsteps, a drill, and a voice saying "Let's inject the venom". This takes us into "Dreamstate Emergency". It kicks in hard and already sounds more polished than anything on the first album. The guitars and programming here is pretty tight, but the typical song format is lame enough to roll your eyes at. That's exactly what I did once I heard the song break from being a hard pounding metal track to an overly produced harmonious chorus. That's probably my least favorite feature of modern metal music. It's just lame. I like songs that have variation, but songs like this sound like they cut and sloppily pasted down a chorus from a different song. If this is what I'm in for, this just turned from interesting to dreadful. "Door 2.12" does have that a little, but it's less of a drastic change and is blended together better. "Illuminate" is hard metal at its best and doesn't go emo-metal whine-chorus at all. "Deathbox" starts with enthralling as fuck programming. This song kills. By FAR the best track of the band so far. It's accessible, hard as hell and comes together tautly. "Sane vs. Normal" is solid, but almost lost me. The gimmicky female voice at the beginning and odd lyric delivery works here thanks solely to the insane guitar work. I almost forgot to even cover "Jack Vegas". By this point in the album, I find myself so caught up in it that I just got lost in it. "Mindsaver" does the same thing to me. I get lost in the penetrating grove UNTIL it cuts into a clean harmonious chorus. I know people like this style of metal, but to me it's like watching a good show on TV only for a commercial to break up the action. "Overdose in the Hall of Fame" had a lot of promise from the opening programming, but then never does much. It's technical and tight, but doesn't do much for itself in standing out from the rest of the album. "The Silver Drop" is another track that's bad ass until the vocals get all "look at me, I can REALLY sing". Maybe it's just my personal ear, but that style, not the music here AT ALL, just reminds me of screamo. That's not what I want in my metal. The album ends with a cover of Duran Duran's "Wild Boys". It's pretty bizarre upon listening to this for the first time. I normally like odd and end covers like this, but this one sorta falls flat. The vocals on it are borderline AFI. I don't hate on AFI at all, but this is not their genre at all. Like the "Blood Stained" remix from the first album, this last track seems just "there" and doesn't add anything to the theme of the album. This album was the first ever to have used binaural recording technology. It's basically a hybrid of surround sound and 3D audio. The band themselves actually developed this technology. That's pretty bad ass and deserves plenty of respect. But really how many people will have the special headsets needed to hear it in its glory? Especially in 2004? This time could have been spent more on the album. This time for some trimming and reworking of a few songs would have made this one of the best metal albums of the decade. That high praise is mainly thanks to how spectacular "Deathbox" is. Seriously!
Album:Passenger
Year: 2007
Duration: 52:33
At this point, I read that the band brought in a new vocalist. This could make a world of difference in a band so I'm a bit curious. The third album kicks off with "Humanaut". It's builds with what sounds like a jet taking off into loud screams and ranting back vocals. I get to hear the new vocalist more in "In The Nothingness Black" and I really like his voice more than the last guy. The song is on par with the older stuff, but programming and vocals stand out much more. "Meaningless" hits hard, but loses me on the verse work. It's on the generic side of nu-metal. Almost Linkin Park generic. The bridge is what saves it though. The greatly titled "Psykorgasm" had some really interesting guitar work at the beginning that they manage to make work in this head bang educing track. "Pigfuck" opens with a down pouring assault of insane drumming. If that's not programmed then I'm pretty amazed. The vocals here have an electro-metal thing going for it. This can often be overdone with some bands within the industry but on this song it's done just right. The mosh pit in my head weeps for this song. It'd of been one of the best tracks on the album if the chorus didn't shirt to a drastic contrast of harmony vocals. The song would have been perfect without that change up. "In Control" is paint by numbers hard nu-metal track. Hopefully it's the worst on the album because it's probably my least favorite track of the band so far. "Electric I'd Hypocrisy" starts hard and slightly redeems the album after not being into the last track. The kick ass guitar work from the first two albums is hidden in this one. "Stuck Here" is one of the strongest tracks on the album, but the word "rape" appears often so I'm sure it'd of not flown as a single. Its guitars make it a bad ass headphone song for sure. The album continues to pick up as "What's Left" is another solid metal track. "Shape of the Formless" is a balls out metal track and only goes into "Hoobastank mode" as I'll call it for a small segment. The rest of this beast is a pit rocker. At 7:30 long, "The Eye On Your Back" is musically masterful, but does still take a bit of time. We fade out to a about a minute and a half worth of slightly thundering a rainstorm. Then that fades out completely. Romantic. The band maintains their edge while seemingly going more commercial at the same time. It's definitely harder, but the arrangements seem more commercial based. I wouldn't consider it a "sell out" type of thing, but more of a maturity thing… pretty much the "Mudvayne story". The vocals on this album made this album easier and less challenging to listen to. I'm not sure if I mean that in a positive way either. Most of these songs start off great, but lose me before it's over. The musicianship is still there, the vocals are a bit better, but this wasn't as an interesting listen as the first two albums. I'm wondering how "Deathbox" sounds with this new vocalist. Giving the band a little time to meld with the new vocalist I'm curious about the most recent release.
Album:Sons of the System
Year: 2010
Duration: 52:50
Just released is the fourth album. The title track "Sons of the System" kicks this one off into high gear. The guitar work is almost hypnotizing and the vocals get my approval until the "Hoobastank mode" portion. The album kicks off much stronger than the last one for sure. I could see this one actually being a single. The first single is the second track in "Diesel Uterus". This one is bad ass. The drums never give up, the weird sonic bee sounding stuff in the sync and vocals all complement each other nicely. "Mnightmare" is like two songs in one. One is an energetic metal song and the other is something that sounds like a commercial ballad. You can guess which part I liked. "The Erasing" opens epically, but doesn't do much to maintain my interest. The vocals just take me out of what I can easily hear is a really tight arrangement. "Climbing Towards Stars" is more of the same. The music is very well done, but there are points in the vocals where it goes from Spider of "PM5K" to something almost reminiscent of "Sum 41" mixed with "Jane's Addiction". Not a good combo at all. What the hell is going on with "March of the Tripods"? It's almost 7 minutes and sounds like an emo band covering "Disturbed". This is really disappointing. "Fate" isn't anything much better. It's almost a harder "Avenged Sevenfold" song, only a little harder and with better programming. "Hero(in)" is possibly the best track of the album. It's not even that great, but nothing about it irks me enough to be annoyed by it. And the "coolest song title of the album award" goes to "Elongated Sporadic Bursts". This one isn't horrible either. I think by this point my expectations are lower and I'm accepting this is not the same potential having Mnemic that I listened to a few short hours ago. The opening drones of "Within" are easily the most interesting thing about this entire album. It's one of the stronger tracks of the album. Too bad it came so late. The opening dialogue of "Orbiting" is very cool and stand out like a sore thumb. The song is more of the same, but the music and the opening make it a reasonably decent listen. The songs here are formulaic and run together. Most of what I just heard went in one ear and out the other. I'm almost positive that in a week I won't remember much of any detail about this album. Let down.
THE VERDICT
Artist: Mnemic
Total Duration: 3 Hours/42 Minutes
I read tons of comparisons to Meshuggah and Fear Factory and I can clearly hear that. Still, they do have their own thing going on as the albums pass. They don't really evolve all that much. There's a little bit of maturity added around album three, but it just sounds way more commercial. The problems I had in the first two albums weren't corrected on the next two and added more on top of it. The bad ass metal that goes into trite harmonious choruses bothers the shit out of me. It takes me out of the moment almost completely. There's a lot of that here, but the good still outweighs the bad. It's just a little too Killswitch or 100 other bands that sound like this. I'd of enjoyed less that and more Static-X(only Mnemic is about 30 times harder). The vocal change of metal screams to harmony runs MUCH smoother once Mnemic switched vocalists. It made a world of difference for me. I was a fan of the music and arrangements of the first two albums, but the vocals were a low point. With the switch, it became less of a problem for me. I just don't like a Hoobastank sounding chorus planting in the middle of my metal. That's me. A lot of their stuff is "industrial metal", but has a big ol wad of "nu-metal" splooge all over it. It's WAY better than 95% of that specific style, but the breaks and style remind me of "wrestling music". Good, but still. Being a fan of that stuff at times, I'm into this until most choruses' hit. For a band of this nature, it's common for songs to bleed together and have a similar/same sound. That happens here as well, but not as bad as it could have been. There are points in the early albums where a track will fade out and then the next track just starts. Nothing cohesive at all and I like it. If it was, it would be one hour long songs. This at least helps to inform you that it's a new song. Come time for the vocalist switch, this problem became reoccurring and the band just flat out lost me. Overall, I appreciate what Mnemic is doing, but they seemed to of lost their way. They're definitely nothing to sleep on for a metal fan, but something I'll nap on until their next release.
|
