Mysterium
Soulwards
7
Germany's Mysterium play an intriguing style of dark metal that borrows a little from the melodic death genre and adds it into a gothic framework. There's also a slight touch of My Dying Bride-style doom mixed in. Soulwards is drenched in keyboards, both the atmospheric type and piano. Vocally, they hit the big 3 in modern metal: a harsh scream, a clean male voice(both provided by guitarist Peter Domma), and a soothing female voice, provided by Sabine Tiefensee, who also plays the always-essential flute. The general mood of the album is one of dreariness. A somber atmosphere is created, with occasional forays into aggressiveness, but always returning to its original state. Mysterium made a strange choice for the album opener, by leading off with the instrumental, piano/synthesizer track Ambivalentika. While the track sets an ominous mood, it's much longer than a usual intro and doesn't do much to draw the listener in. A simple push of the fast-forward button brings us to the much heavier Within Tempted Moon. Vicious drum-led verses lead into dreary choruses that evoke the My Dying Bride comparisons. Intricate buried guitar lines add a sense of depth to their music. TheSe Mirrored 1's is a trippy, dreamy track with the female vox playing over a soft, clean guitar. The doomy overtones return in Spiral Mystery, at times sounding like doom/death band Daylight Dies. Depressing clean vocals lay on top of depressing guitar lines, adding to the dreary overtones set by the songs before it. I like it. Closing track Spherelight is a long journey through their many influences, from Gardenian-like melodeath early on, into eerie goth metal, then into the doom/death sound just mentioned, and then into a symphonic-black sound similar to a band I reviewed a while back, Destinity. Soulwards doesn't have any quick and easy songs, so attention must be paid when listening. I find that I have to be in a certain mood (relaxed and reflective) to enjoy listening to this, but it is good for what it is: a dark metal ride of depth and dreariness.
