Mgla - Exercises in Futility

Finally getting around to some albums I've been hearing about but been too busy to bury myself in properly. This is the biggest - Polish depressive black metallers Mgla (how the fuck do you pronounce that btw?) getting pretty unanimous praise from across the black metal 'community', something that almost never happens. Having not heard a single bad word uttered about this album, I naturally went in with pretty high expectations, and while I wasn't disappointed, I wasn't quite as blown away as I hoped I would be.

The music is about what one would expect, fairly straightforward harsh black metal with some nice melodies. The production hits a pretty sweet spot for me; harsh and noisy without burying anything so deep that it's inaudible, with the unfortunate exception of the bass, which is nowhere to be found. There's a lot to admire in the drumming, which manages to be somewhat technical while remaining stately. Think little cymbal flourishes rather than big obnoxious tom fills. In fact, the drumming is what drives this album along to a large extent, as many of the (all untitled!) songs are built around dissonant, arpeggiated guitar chords rather than proper riffs. Normally, this could potentially be a recipe for boring, but intelligent drumming manages to propel the songs forward by alternating sparse sections with blastbeats and double bass, changing things up just enough to keep it interesting.

I don't normally care much about lyrics, but I do have to give the band kudos for writing depressive lyrics that aren't eye-roll worthy. Actually, they come out with some pretty profound shit, revolving around the interestingly specific theme of futility. Overall, I can't think of any criticisms to really make of this album, other than maybe that the songs sound a bit samey (which may just be a psychological side-effect of them not having titles!). It's just solid black metal, and I really can't praise it enough; so why am I left feeling just the tiniest bit let down? I guess it's just the natural result of getting even somewhat excited about something; I should know better, I'm still recovering from my Myrkur experience. Talk about an exercise in futility...

 The pretty unanimous praise for this album has gotten me thinking about why, and I suppose it's because it's a pretty generally likeable black metal album; it's got enough melody for the people who want that, while having enough riffage and raw production values for the trve. I guess you could even call it 'atmospheric' to a certain extent? All in all, there is plenty to like here for any type of black metal fan, and while it isn't anything groundbreaking, I would certainly highly recommend it to anyone who even says they like black metal.

4 BLESSED BE's out of 5.