Age of Excuse

Change is always risk and chance. The better your current status is, the higher is the risk. Considering these self-evident facts, it is not surprising that "Age of Excuse" continues the line of the stupendous "Exercises in Futility". Only those strange people who confuse staying true to one's roots with stagnation find that stupid. Mgła, on the other hand, write continuity in huge letters across the complete work from 2019. The artwork, the booklet and even the back cover shares the design of its predecessor, we get the same number of songs and even the playtime is almost identical. Thus, the comparable musical content just adds the final brick.

Nevertheless, the Polish duo does not choose a despondent approach. It goes without saying that the six tracks present new nuances within the given stylistic frame. The aggressive and outstanding “III”, for example, delivers some shrill tones that lend the song a quite hysteric touch and the average velocity of the pieces seems to be a bit higher than before. But the defining elements remain unchanged. There are, not only in the opening “I”, still relatively hypnotic parts, the vocalist still sounds like someone who does not tolerate contradiction and the guitars have not stopped to create endlessly flowing lines. Even the production lies in close proximity to “Exercises in Futiliy”. It’s a professional, dense, more or less well-balanced mix. It captures the essence of the sinister music in a good manner and adds value to the full-length.

The album’s title is almost ironic and flirtatious, because Mgła do not need any excuses. Once again, no weak track has crept in and, as a matter of course, the homogeneity of the album is once again striking. Moreover, the band operates far away from all clichés. The opener starts with slowly plodding sequences instead of exploding in your ear immediately. Another big factor are the melodies that the duo presents. They are neither extremely morbid nor do they breathe the spirit of utter cruelty, but they cannot be blamed for softness or inappropriateness as well. They are an important tool to convey the dark spiritualism that characterizes the music of the two protagonists. The same goes for the lyrics which seem to deal with existential questions exclusively. Of course, black metal is not known for its exuberant humour, but Mgła contribute an extra portion of seriousness. In other words: it would be completely stupid, to release this album on red, yellow or orange vinyl. Only black is appropriate here.

“III” is not the only track that bursts out of the speakers in a pretty violent manner. “IV” is another fast-paced celebration of cold obscurity. That’s why I appreciate the centre of the album the most, but, as already said before, I am able to enjoy all tracks and the full-length offers many swift sections. On the other hand, the despair of part “V” of “Exercises in Futility” remains unrivalled here. Nevertheless, “Age of Excuse” manifests the flawless reputation of a band that does not lack individuality. No need to change, just go on this exciting way.

The last full length from Polish black metal legends Mgła was delivered in 2019, below is my review.

They set off with eerie sampling before emanating bleak and cold riffs over pummelling drum fills. Immediately there is a captivating nature to their recognisable brand of dissonant atmospherics. The savage vocals quickly join to add to the darkened soundscape, truly hitting hard. Phenomenally pristine guitar riffs soon drive out a tranquil and ritualistic ambience that has the truly marvellous off-kilter feel of the bands previous material, akin to the Icelandic scene. While there is an abundantly melancholic and disturbing tranquillity, we also compelled by the gorgeously driven and piercing aggression that cascades bittersweet waves of utterly brilliant despair forth. For me this record has a clear sense of direction that is certainly respectable with its balance of ferocity and sorrowful nuance, showing that Mgła is not just simplistic Black Metal but an artistic journey of utmost prowess.

Deafened by the concoctions of guitar depravity, it is clear that they also possess one of the most hypnotically talented drummers with a huge array of interesting fills that enhance the well-drive experience of the music to a whole new plane. I adore the way the blissfully discordant guitars ring out with such a dystopian feel to them, truly unhinging and twisted in their execution. Bellowing a diverse array of catatonically mesmerising musicianship, this new record is a fantastic addition to the already remarkable discography of Mgła, delivering another encapsulation of magnificent material that must be heard by all fans of Black Metal, putting away any doubts of the genre being anything other than alive and kicking. Not only are the song structures beautifully varied but we see a fabulous diversity in style too, balancing mournful bleakness, thundering assaults and some dancing melodies that twinkle stunningly among the repugnantly harsh blasphemy of their uniquely crafted extremities.

While I think “Exercises In Futility” will remain my favourite by the band, this is still an undeniably good album that hits so many satisfyingly dark points while keeping things really listenable with a crystal clear production style that still retains the raw spirit of the music and is by no means polished. Certainly a thoroughly enjoyable and entrancing listen from start to end that is gorgeously written. Let the ethereal glow beckon you.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com

Mgła have proven themselves to be the current flag bearers of the Polish black metal scene and have taken the underground by storm, their trademark style of melodic and gritty black metal have made them stand out and they have returned with their fourth full length album, “Age of Excuse”.

In “Age of Excuse”, Mgła continue where they left off on “Exercises in Futility”, the album that catapulted them into the black metal spotlight with a new sense of refinement and even some progressive elements. Indeed, this new LP is very reminiscent of its predecessor, however the band have added more flair and complexity to the music, the compositions are much more dynamic and there’s a stronger focus on creating an ominous atmosphere with moments of aggression as opposed to the direct approach from their previous records, the influence from the band’s other project, Kriegsmaschine is very apparent, that band’s last album was a blackened progressive outing with complex and dynamic music and M. and Darkside seems to have carried some of that musicality into “Age of Excuse” as a sort of seasoning, hence the aforementioned refined style of the music, but make no mistake, this is still very much a Mgła album and everything of what fans want is still present, the cold riffs, complex drumming and sense of dread that only the Polish fog can do.

Drummer Darkside continues to be the main standout of the band, his drumming is as layered and complicated as ever but there’s much more panache and focus added to Darkside’s near robotic precision, he makes full use of the drum kit and gives and every song a distinct rhythm that makes them unique aside from his expertly executed blast beats and double bass drumming. But no talk of Mgła would be complete without founder and mastermind M. who once again handles the lion share of the job by handling vocals and strings, the first thing to notice is the vocals and M.’s unique take on shrieking vocals which on this album take a much more controlled approach, the vocals sound as menacing as ever but there’s a sense of holding the rage inside, in a weird way the vocals sound as if they’re being restrained but you can still sense all the frustration and rage, like a rabid dog that’s collared and trying to get up, which complement the subject matter of the lyrics perfectly, describing a world gone to ruin wherein its inhabitants accept to live in the squalor while a select few try to break away from being drowned in the filth, a fitting and topical concept for our current times. The guitar and bass work continue to be as impressive as ever, the refinement I already mentioned is most present in the string sections, a droning wall of sound to maintain the fast pace which is then broken into dynamic and complex riffs to carry the rest of the song, the grimness and dread of the music lives and breathes on M.’s riffs and masterful tremolo picking. And all of this is accompanied and brought together by the excellent production quality, which only Mgła succeeds in balancing the grit of any good black metal album with the right amount of polish to make it sound great, and as such you get the best of both worlds.

However while this album continues Mgła’s stride of exceptional black metal, it’s major shortcoming is the main problem of all black metal bands, which is the repetitiveness, this is a Mgła album through and through but beyond the added progressive elements and refined musicianship, this album doesn’t stand out that much from either “Exercises in Futility” or “With Hearts Toward None”. Make no mistake, this album is a quality black metal album and it does feel like this is the last hurrah of this era of Mgła but it also has the death rattles of the end of an era, so to speak. Overall Mgła does what they do best but if by the next album they still retain the same sound of the last 3 albums, then most people will move on to the next big black metal band, for sure.

Best tracks: Age of Excuse II, Age of Excuse IV, Age of Excuse VI

Written for www.metalbite.com

Save the bone-drying ‘classic’ methods of the formative ‘Presence’ (2006) EP fresh off of the exposure granted by their involvement in the lauded ‘Crushing the Holy Trinity’ split, the greater blood supply of ever-grandiose Polish semi-melodic black metal act Mgła has traditionally hemorrhaged open within the heart of each album. Nihilistic, and to the greater public anonymously so, this Krakow based masked entity are as known for their grimly scribed rejection of humanity as they are for their potently accessible form of straight-forward atmospheric (yet often highly melodious) black metal. This has long been a pleasurable point of disconnect between music that clearly lives, breathes and feels a deeply sensitive connection with black metal performance yet slits the throat of all meaning in devotion to the genre and the truest forms of its elite culture. Polish black metal itself has an imposing host of personalities and deeply innovative historical importance so, to have made a name in this ruthlessly brutal environment does eventually account for that perceived conflict feeling versus duty. The angered and rescinded narrative of Mgła‘s fourth full-length, ‘Age of Excuse’, arrives by surprise release here in the late summer months striking like lightning intended for foes rather than at the hearts of those thirstily seeking catharsis these last four years. The hand is no longer extended to be held in the dark but, pulled back with bolt in hand and still bleeding from poisoned bite marks on the other. This amount of poise can only produce scars among the deepest divided.

To gnash like a horde of vicious animal while mistreating music artists around the globe is perhaps the easiest, most cowardly action in the hands of the most recent 1-2 generations who’d been taught to devalue every bit of independent culture for the sake of inadvertently empowering corporations. Without delving into the politics of basic freedoms afforded by idealistic ‘just’ societies it becomes a bitter potion of irony to see large groups perpetually policing the creative lives of others for sport. Acting as the Orwellian eye of Ingsoc, enforcers of this ‘big brother’ internet lifestyle is against every tenet of black metal, and so it seems all are guilty under the umbrella of ‘black metal’. What does this have to do with Mgła? Little. Guilt by association allows not only the damnation of the artist but the fandom as well, and this can only lead to further ailing health for outsider music. Art is more often than not a shelter intended to bestow power to the alternative, the singular, the insular, and the outsider who’d be (or have been) crushed by the majority otherwise. Again, the point? I believe the awkward attempts to silence black metal artists who are suspected ‘right-wing’ political proponents (even if only in private) only serve to fuel their greatest works. It is a point of thought, but this is not a political column, and I have no alliance with either side of conflict. From my perspective the black metal artist is traditionally weakened by consensus and strengthened by isolation [by damnation] and to be sure, a quick-acting/slow-thinking consensus is plainly visible after a handful of years: Persecution of the artist can only solidify their resolve to craft, they’ve been given no other option than to press on since all but their very fingertips and throats are slashed away. There the actual point lies: ‘Age of Excuse’ is a steeling of Mgła‘s already powerful resolve and the result is a contemporary bout of somewhat intellectually demanding prose set atop a very appropriate follow-up to one of the bands most celebrated works to date, ‘Exercises in Futility’ (2015).

The sound of teeth gnawing on bone, or perhaps wood, that kicks off “Age of Excuse I” was truly horrendous and affecting no matter if it were the fifth or the twentieth listen. At some point in my time with ‘Age of Excuse’ I’d found myself anticipating this moment and fast-forwarding past it just to avoid the visceral reaction it’d create… until I began to feel like this moment of agony is the perfect way to convey the unsettling tone of the record. Beyond that point much of the production sound, technique, and general movement that follows sources the atmospheric strengths of ‘Exercises in Futility’, expanding upon that musical language into a variety of variations on a theme where parts I and II more or less set the bandwidth of the experience and later pieces (IV, VI) expand in some less expected directions. This comes without the scope of the record necessarily going ‘out on a limb’ like we’d seen in comparable records from Misþyrming or Barshasketh. It appears Mgła‘s intent is to show strength, to focus on established constructs and put forth the best version of the project without changing drastically. The well indoctrinated fan of this band won’t be surprised by any one moment on the record but I do believe the intrepid fandom will recognize the well-guarded, fortified tone of the performances here. There is a flatly expressed anger, not frustration or desperation, providing a stoic teeth-clenching bark upon the impudence of the modern day follower. I admire this attitude in terms of representing true black metal in spirit while maintaining the gentler melodic black metal values characteristic of Mgła‘s past discography but, I won’t say that I was thrilled by the prospect of the easily felt rigidity of ‘Age of Excuse’.

There is such weight to the melodic escort that M.‘s (Kriegsmaschine) guitar work brings that it still works beautifully as a 65% majority showcase for the band since the ‘Mdłości’ EP in 2006. Extra layering of the guitars create separate melodic arcs in certain songs (“Age of Excuse IV”, in particular) that begin to sway with the confidence only recognizable as a composer at the suggested peak of their own black metallic ideation. That’d been my concern from the start, as stunning and ‘classic Mgła‘ as “Age of Excuse II” was it’d be fair to worry that this was as far as M. would ever push his collaboration with drummer Darkside (Kriegsmaschine, ex-Massemord). The application of a ‘three act’ experience would eventually dawn upon me and in viewing ‘Age of Excuse’ as one larger piece sliced into digestible-at-your-leisure movements the bigger picture unveiled the greater musical statement. Though track II is the golden child as an introduction to the Sacramentum-esque melodic pouring that we know Mgła are capable of, it was the final movement (“Age of Excuse VI”) that provided sustenance and lifesblood to me, the sort of fan who’d discovered this project through the celebrated ‘With Hearts Towards None’. This comes paired with a reiteration of the general swinging of the prose therein, “And the assassins in rose tinted glasses / At the wrong end of the tunnel of light / Practitioners of paramount scorn / And those who’d rig moral compass rather than bridges.” it becomes clear that this is the heart’s explosion we vampires thirsted for all along and it’d take the very last minutes of ‘Age of Excuse’ for the blood to flow. The section of melodic guitar work from roughly ~2:45-3:45 minutes into that final song is one of the finest moments from the band to date and a golden-glowing light at the end of this tunnel of an album; It pushes on with decreasing waves of beauteous riff ’til the end.

Whatever may cloud your vision of modern black metal today, be it your own hand or otherwise, it becomes more important to consider the emotions and ideologies that have always driven the music– The nature of black metal is nihilistic. The only regretful aspect of an album like ‘Age of Excuse’ is that it gives in at all to the din of distraction with descriptions of the absurdity of our times; In remarking repeatedly that history won’t be kind to fools, fuel is added to an obnoxious firestorm. The traditional mockery of the absurd notion of ‘existence with purpose’ is intact, though, and much of the material here maintains this outlook. Coming off of the most recent Serpent Column record nearby there is no doubt a similar thread of Heidegger‘s existentialism within “Age of Excuse I” at the very least, though from a differently dire perspective.

For my own taste I’ve primarily picked up Mgła releases with the expectation of grand melodic pieces, treating them as ‘guitar albums’ just as I would an old melodic black record from the mid-90’s but with updates that were modern in their atmosphere (see: Uada, Sargeist, Forteresse etc.) In this sense ‘Age of Excuse’ delivers that but does not provide their most immediately gratifying listen because of the stone-faced turmoil it resounds within. With some concerted focus and some closer looks at the lyric sheet I see a ‘tunnel vision’-like bout of iteration that doesn’t feel like enough of an ‘event’. This could be largely confounded by the four year wait between albums. In every sense ‘Age of Excuse’ is unapologetically a follow-up (not a recreation, as some have stated) of ‘Exercises in Futility’. Temper your own expectations accordingly but at least allow the greater subtleties of the work to sink in through whatever immersion can be managed. Moderately high recommendation. For preview purposes I’d suggest starting with “Age of Excuse II” and “Age of Excuse VI” if you’re here for the melodic/memorable side of the project and “Age of Excuse I” if seeking the main seed for the piece expanded upon throughout.

Attribution: https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/09/11/mgla-age-of-excuse-2019-review/