Tmina

The Slavic scene is with no doubt a quite rich one in terms of quality, if we speak about extreme metal bands, and particularly if we focus our interest on the black metal scene. Serbia is, curiously, a scene I don´t know profoundly and apart from a few interesting acts, all of them not related to the most extreme sounds, I am pretty novel with black metal related projects. May Result, a veteran project founded in Belgrade around 1995, is for this reason a good chance to discover something new in this country. Currently, the project seems to be on hold, so this was a good excuse to carve a little bit in its discography. This time we will focus our attention on the sophomore effort of this project, that has released a total of five albums.

‘Tmina’ is the name of May Result’s second album. The second effort of almost every project is usually a key moment of the band´s career, as it is when the band has gained some experience and show its full potential. May Result plays melodic black metal with certain atmospheric touches. Lyrically, the band finds some inspiration in Slavic tradition, though the lyrics has a strong warlike touch. May Result’s compositions have a raw and aggressive nature, that is intelligently combined with some keys, achieving a melodic tone, that I personally like. The production is for this purpose, rough but correctly balanced, leaving space for both the drums, guitars, and the vocals. Just take a look and listen to the album opener ‘Oгањ / My Martyred Soul’. After a key leaded intro, the rest of the instruments appear abruptly with a notorious ferocity. The vocals are aggressive, and Glad’s screams are solidly performed. The structure of the song itself has a straightforward nature, like a punch in your face, but it contains several tempo-changes, that enrich it and make the song a very entertaining one. Furthermore, the keys are used as a balance between aggression and melody, and they do their job perfectly well, I personally like that they are very audible and not buried in the mix. If you have keys use them, let the people hear them, it sounds as a like obvious idea, but not a few bands fail in this aspect. Keyboards are, as you will notice as you listen to the whole thing, an important element as they are generously used in the different songs contained in this album. The melodies played by Milan are very good, and they manage to create around the pure pagan black metal compositions an enthralling atmosphere with some great melodies. I especially like the third song entitled ‘Stars Hysteria’ with contains some awesome melodies. This song also includes some clean vocals in the form of a heroic choir, which fits perfectly well with the concept behind May Result’s music. The guitar work is also a highlight in this album, although the band is defined as black metal, the rough, vibrant, and energetic riffs remind me those pagan metal bands with a barbaric nature in its music. These riffs, though being raw, have a melodic undertone, which combined with the sometimes-epic keys create compositions which would lead you to a battle, believe me. The aforementioned ingredients are used with an appropriate balance through whole album, creating vibrant songs. Only in the final part of the album we will find a slightly greater room for calmer moments, as the last two song are way longer, but it won´t take too much until the already recognizable fury comes back. In any case, these elements are necessary if you want to compose longer songs, without turning out to be predictable.

May Result’s ‘Tmina’ makes me feel the necessity of checking out the rest of the band’s discography, as this album is quality stuff and very fun to listen. As a key lover the generous usage of this instrument makes me happy, but it never overshadows the present aggression commanded by the guitars, rhythmic base, and the savage screams. As the balance is perfectly achieved, this album will satisfy any fan of pagan and black metal.