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Misery Signals: Mirrors
Misery Signals - Mirrors - [Ferret Music]

2006-12-06

Misery Signals is probably as heavy as a metalcore band can get while still being catchy and melodic. They attach enough melody and sophistication to their aggressive core to make it digestible, it's still very concentrated and bursts with ideas and riffs, but somehow it still goes down quite smoothly.

While opener "Face Yourself" is not of the strongest cuts on the album, it does make use of the band's strongest points, the excellent guitar playing and dynamic drumming, and new vocalist Karl Schubach's strong screamed vocals.
The band truly begins to shine in the second track, "The Failsafe", which throws into the mix some harmonized clean guitars, manic drumming parts and fantastic breakdowns, it's in this track that the true greatness inherited in the release comes to full view.

That same dynamic movement between clean guitars and heavier distorted segments is put to good use in the short "Migrate", the ethereal guitar line opening the track has a dark contrast with Shubach's screamed vocals, when the guitars roar into action later on, the vocals take on a spoken quality, its quite interesting to listen to.

One thing that the band puts to good use is their considerable playing ability, not being showoffs, they use that in creating sophisticated and quite complex arrangements, "One Day I'll Stay Home" is almost prog in nature, a good use of melodic vocals in the chorus, interchanged with breakdowns and clean guitars.
Another standout track is "Sword Of Eyes", which has some the smartest guitar passages on the album, and some of most complex drumming here as well.

It's all a bit too much to take in first, you'll definitely need to give this a few spins before it makes sense, but after you do, there's quite an impressive album in here. The band has taken the best the metalcore genre has to offer and spiced it up into something which is unique indeed.

Alon Miasnikov



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