Mgła - Mdłości

 

MGŁA - Mdłości (UNDER THE SIGN OF GARAZEL - EP 2006)

Mgła (fog!) is sort of a band, which doesn’t appear in the press often, but which gained a lot of recognition and support from the black metal maniacs and all that thanks to the incredible music, which this project has recorded on their several materials. Although the band has debuted with a split titled “Crushing the Holy Trinity (Holy Spirit)” and then with the 7”EP “Presence”, personally I got to know them thanks to their second 7”EP single titled “Mdłości”. Ha, ha, try to pronounce it correctly, I bet no one outside of Poland can do that properly… but let me just say that this title means “nausea”, which certainly is not a feeling I have for the music of Mgła, as it is one of the very finest black metal pieces I’ve heard from the Polish land, but also from the whole black metal scene in general. Even if we consider what was going on in this genre in the early 90’s Mgła do not find many bands, which could rival them.

Mgła’s music is undeniably rotted in the Scandinavian black metal of the 90’s. But it is so well composed and executed that not even for a single moment I had a feeling of dealing with yet another primitive, useless carbon copy of the masters of the genre. Mgła is much above the scene’s mediocrity and here, on this EP the band presents two excellent songs and trust me, they’re just killer. “Mdłości I” begins with an amazing melodic theme, which is just haunting and possesses instantly. Luckily the production is good enough to fully get involved into the atmosphere of the music and when it speeds up into the furious neckbreaking speed, the feeling of chaos is not dominating over the melodic and atmospheric aspect of this song. In this one single track Mgła evokes the best traditions of the Norwegian black metal and if you’re into the “Under the Funeral Moon” LP for instance (and who’s not??), then I bet “Mdłości I” will freeze blood in your veins, especially that the main theme in this track is surprisingly catchy and epic in some sorts. Meanwhile “Mdłości II” from side B sounds like someone took it from “Transilvanian Hunger” and it’s just fuckin blast in the face! Again the song is very fast, but it slows down when the distorted vocals start, again the main riff in it is just haunting and again (!!!!!!!!) I feel absolutely amazed by the greatness of this recording. The song itself isn’t much complicated, but it’s not primitive neither, it is just based on two or three repetitive riffs, of which the main one can be played at either incredibly fast pace or totally slower one, but how well it works and how great the atmosphere is in this song! My only complaint towards “Mdłości II” would go for the fact that it seems to stop very rapidly, like it wasn’t fully finished and that “Mdłości I” was a bit better track. But who cares?

To resume – what a great listening experience “Mdłości” is. The EP was limited just to 500 copies, so you can’t expect to get it easily and cheap, but trust me, it is worth to have in the collection. And if you can’t find the EP, you can always get the CD version, which includes also “Further Down the Nest” EP.

Final rate: 95/100