The Mist from the Mountains is a Finnish black metal formation that released its debut album on January 29th, 2022. The music itself harkens to the melodic style of the nineties era, with a modern production ensuring a smooth build of the songs. “Monumental – The Temple of Twilight” finds ways to convince the listener with catchy synth segments and acoustic guitar passages. Spanning for thirty-eight minutes, the six tracks in sound resemble bands such as Gehenna and Old Man’s Child, where the music ventures into towering black metal vocals and swirling guitars.

Showing aggression and energetic tempo shifts, The Mist from the Twilight carves familiar patterns of melodies. The album begins with “Empyrean Fields”, which starts with an acoustic folk intro when the guitars provide a catchy tremolo riffing. Sounding all modern and energetic, the Finnish band shows how to forge brilliant songs. The drums deliver blast beats and the soaring keyboards add the wintry patterns to the music. However, one can surely be overwhelmed by the sheer aggression. The following track “A Paean to Fire” repeats the same trick as the focus becomes more on the tremolo riffing, the powerful guitar tone shifts to a fast energetic pace. While the melodies are infused to fill the tempos with mesmerizing aura, the keyboards and piano chords swell in the background.

The vocals are ravenous and accompanied by powerful drum thrusts, while each song on the debut has its moment, the guitar offers some excessive melodies. Unlike most of the Finnish black metal bands out there, The Mist from the Mountains swagger with prestigious riffs while the drums rampage through the tempos. The creative songwriting resulted in varied songs, making the music lean on a more melodic direction. The modern sound production somehow creates a balance between the furious paces and atmospheric flow. “Thus Spake the Tongueless Serpent” is one of the highlights of the album, with the keyboards streaming a succulent mixture of symphonies, acoustic guitar passages, and female vocals that are also employed to enhance this song. Musically, The Mist from the Mountains has installed pleasing textures for example the lead guitars remind me of Borknagar’s sophomore “The Olden Domain”.

The keyboard segments recall the style of early Amorphis, these diverse elements of the driven synth and acoustic guitars are the vital force of the composition. “With the Sun and the Skies and Birds Above” is infused with emotive tremolos and riffs are perfectly layered, “Monumental – The Temple of Twilight” explores the melodic nature of black metal, and this is to say that the songs are rather unpredictable. Rapid-fire blast beats and melodic black metal riffing create somber moments that become awash with elegant clean guitars. My only remark here is that the catchy moments don’t last long because the music is quite animated, shifting from one tone to another. Despite the remark, the songs are well crafted and textured with catchy hooks, each song features brilliant guitar riffs.

“Monumental – The Temple of Twilight” brings many memories from the nineties wave of black metal though I’d say that the band may have found its trademark sound. The clean guitars and the minimal synth evoke nostalgia as you can grasp some familiar elements from bands like Thy Serpent, And Oceans, and Throes of Dawn. “Master of Wilderness” is another track where clean vocals are used, the semi-symphonic direction of the synthesizer is bolstered by powerful blast beats and remarkable riffing assault but the midsection of the song lessens its charm.

Even the fact that the band flirts with different musical styles, they managed to pull the right melodies and for this reason, I found the debut to be fully inspired by the aforementioned bands. The album closure “After God” brings the fusion of synth and the acoustic guitars with an intro that somehow sounds a bit folkish and melodic. The thundering bellow of the drums erupt and the shrieking black metal growls ebb and flow. The Mist from the Mountains on their debut album exhibits a good quality of music and made use of different styles to make them fit in one song, “Monumental – The Temple of Twilight” has its moments of aggression and reflecting melodies. 

Release Date: January 29th, 2022
Label: Primitive Reaction
Tracklisting:

1. Empyrean Fields
2. A Paen to Fire
3. Thus Spake The Tonguless Serpent
4. With the Sun and the Skies and Birds Above
5. Master of Wilderness
6. After God