Customer Reviews

Misere Mortem

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Few bands accomplish mixing choir arrangements and heavy metal. The usual outcome is very cheesy and over the top to a point where the music becomes annoying after a few listens. Morten Veland shows that simplicity over technicality can often pay off. The overall sound is mid-paced Gothic Metal with deep to high Black/Death Metal growling contrasted by a well arranged Choir.

The guitars lead the charge with hard hitting metal riffs and well executed solo's. There are moments on Misere Mortem that the guitars speed up and remind me of Melodic Death a bit. The bass is featured well throughout the album using a very deep and thick tone adding to the dark nature of the album. The percussion end tends to stay fairly simple and to the point however there are a few more complex fills tossed in here and there. Overall Morten shows he has excellent command of all the fore mentioned instruments.

The choir seems mostly male though on occasion a higher pitch is heard on a couple of the faster tracks. Morten's vocals are on point whether it be his barrage of deep growls or sinister higher pitch yells they are audible and mix well with both the music and the choir. Overall it's the vocals that give this album it's originality factor, mainly the contrast of the growling/screaming vs the clean choir and it is pulled off flawlessly.

My personal favorite tracks are "The Pain Infernal The Fall Eternal" for the drastic contrast of choir vs Morten feel. "The Wheel Of Fire" shows some truly impressive drum work and "The New Desire" for a having a sound that is reminiscent of the Epic Metal style. All in all I highly recommend fans of the Goth/Dark Metal styles to get this and fans of Black/Death and all extreme styles of metal at least give it a listen. Overall a 4.5 out of 5 simply cause though the music is great it doesn't have to much technicality. Thanks for reading.

On a whim I found a Tristania CD (Widows Weeds) in the imports section of a local CD store about 10 years ago and was floored when I listened to a few tracks. Music in the US has been so jaded over the last two decades and this was a really refreshing breakthrough for me. Through later releases by Tristania and then his moving on to create Sirenia, I have found that Morten's style made each one of those bands great. I rarely listen to anything that comes from mainstream US artists anymore thanks to artists like these from across the pond. I'm still listening to this new work as I write the review. Excellent work! I hope he and others like him continue to evolve and make great music for many more years.

Being a long time fan of both Tristania and Sirenia, I decided to pick Misere Mortem. Honestly, there is only a couple songs worth listening too. The New Desire and The Vile bringer of self destructive thoughts are the only ones I don't mind listening too.

My problem with this is that it's Morten rehashing the same but without the female vocals. It pretty much sounds like all these songs could've been left overs from Sirenia's previous albums and Morten simply removed the female vocals and maybe did a little tweaking to make them sound original.

If you're a fan of Morten and all of his works then pick this up, if you're looking for something new from him then move along, nothing to see here.

Some riffs r cool. But seems to lack inspiration. Songs just get repetitive and lack soul after the first.
Download "the one who i once was", bc its tough. the rest...aint really missin much.

such display of melancholic music, so strong is not to be missed.
you'll have more than 40 minutes to dive into the intense rythm of Misere Mortem.