Two man project Mystic Winter bring their diy ethic to bear on the ep Tergiversating Blasphemies
Mystic Winter arose from the ashes of the band Haloed Patriots in the woods of Indiana and the early material sprang from two band members realizing material they had did not fit the previous band’s identity. In March of 2018, Mystic Winter released the single “Withered”, with Tergiversating Blasphemies coming in 2019. With musical influences including black metal icons like Antestor, Crimson Moonlight, Horde, and Vials of Wrath, one might expect a project filled with black metal and explorations into the ambient side of the genre.
The ep opens with “Exordium” a haunting mostly ambient, keyboard and horror movie sound effect laden track with some deep, growled spoken word over the top. Suprisingly, the next track “Nomadic Tumor” also starts out with the atmospheric keyboard intro, instead of the usual explosion of riffs and blastbeats common to the genre. Unfortunately, while the keyboards sound as if they were recorded normally, once the rest of the music comes in it sounds more like it was recorded in metal box a ways away from the microphones. The songs is muffled echo-driven noise separated by cleanly recorded keyboard sections. Ambient black metal noise seems a fitting description.
The title track is the one on the ep that is most like a traditional song, and starts out with a guitar riff that gets lost in the mix to the overpowering drums for the most part. Blast beast and the black metal riffs drive much of the song and the guitars to come back in the mix. Vocals are undecipherable as one might expect and the complete lack of bass guitar becomes really apparent in this track and it abruptly ends as if the power was cut during recording. As for songs with vocals, “Self-Immolation” is the last such track on the album and while it opens with a somewhat muffled jackhammer guitar riff, the song quickly devolves largely into ambient black metal noise. The instrumental “Coda” closes out the ep with some nice solo guitar work in the beginning providing the only sounds until nearly halfway through when the muffled backing instruments come in for a while until the song ends with about a minute and a half of sound effects and noise.
Rating: 5/10
Written by John Jackson
Tracklist
1. Exordium
2. Nomadic Tumor
3. Tergiversating Blasphemies
4. Self-Immolation
5. Coda
Band Members
Asaph – Vocals, Drums
Asher – Guitars
Release Date: March 15th. 2019
Record Label: Blackened Label Records and The Bearded Dragon Productions, 2019
