Monumental - The Temple of Twilight

The debut album from the Finnish outfit known as The Mist from the Mountains – if the name didn’t already drop any hints – is one of those releases that makes me re-examine that phrase: guilty pleasure. ‘Monumental – The Temple of Twilight’ is a sugar-coated slab of melodic black metal bordering on symphonic. It is so free of risk, so pleasingly entertaining, whilst retaining a degree of sombre restraint as if to certify its legitimacy that I cannot help but go along for the ride. It’s a greasy tray of chips to the sickly sweet, iced cakes of Dimmu Borgir.

As a dedicated Cyndi Lauper fan with an extreme metal blog, I should probably clarify why this album would be considered a “guilty pleasure”. On closer examination the best I can come up with is the fact that – for fans of bracing, polished black metal with plenty of NWOBHM melodicism and subtle folk flourishes – this album gives us exactly what we want. We are invited to gorge ourselves on these well-worn features of the black metal landscape and indulge in them free of shame.

The problem with The Mist from the Mountain is that they are just too adept at this style to allow for any resistance from the intellect. I come across about ten releases a month in a similar vein to ‘Monumental – The Temple of Twilight’ and most of them get ignored as derivative, dull, or simply too close to sonic iced buns for my liking. But The Mist from the Mountains present a mixture broad enough and focused enough to keep us wanting more.

Fast and mid-paced melodic black metal via riffs with a strongly defined character is rendered through a panoramic approach to composition, and some welcome folk and proggy flourishes along the way (see the track ‘Thus Spake the Tongueless Serpent’ for example, which had the audacity to offer an Opeth-esque acoustic breakdown alongside haunting female vocals to supplement the full-frontal attack of riffs).

Alongside the usual sheen of rich guitar tones, earthy, full-bodied drums, and vocals placed just on the right side of passionate, The Mist from the Mountains deploy subtle keyboard textures, strings, jaw harps, acoustic guitars, and an array of instrumentation worked in modestly alongside the metallic centrepieces. The key to this is the fact they have harnessed this in subtle and understated ways, alongside music that – for all its bombast – reins in the most excessive trappings of this style for the sake of retaining a degree of artistic legitimacy.

So despite my best efforts to avoid making this review sound like a convoluted justification for eating comfort food, that’s precisely what this amounts to. ‘Monumental – The Temple of Twilight’ is a shameless celebration of black metal at its most escapist, soothing, and downright fun. None of these things should detract from it as a serious work of art. The musicianship, composition, and mixing are all executed flawlessly. But I would throw out nine other releases that sound like this for the sake of one ‘Monumental – The Temple of Twilight’ for simple reason that it works as a celebration of well-worn traditions, and for fans of the style we simply cannot help but get caught up in its pageantry, and dispense with the serious pursuit of ground breaking music for a moment of innocent joy that this album brings.

Originally published at Hate Meditations