The Mosaic Window : "Plight of Acceptance"

 

This black metal project out of Los Angeles has been getting a bit of hype in the metal press so I thought I would check it out to see what is up. First off the song writing is pretty solid. Sometimes the vocals are more sung than others which helps things out. The overall sound reminds me of older Satyricon. There is a bit of thrash influence, and some more modern soaring guitar melodies on the second song. The production is crisp in terms of being able to hear what is going on rather than the guitar just being an angry buzz. There is some powerful driven riffing to "Demon" which I can appreciate, though it is pretty straight forward, and the wheel is not really being reinvented here when the big picture is taken into consideration. 

"Furnace" has some thought put into it's chorus to make it catchy enough. Certainly fares better than the more straight forward blasting of  "Spiritual Intoxication" that follows it. "Nails of Holy Origin" blasts off into the expected black metal places with melodies relegated to the background of the blasting. The vocals sometimes take on a more whispered rasp. There is some nuance in the vocal delivery of this album which I appreciate as it gives them a little more purpose. All too often in the more extreme genres of metal vocals are more of an after thought. There are some interesting layers of exotic passages that could often be guitar or synths it gets hard to tell them apart at times as it gets lost in the storm of the song. The atmospheric label is getting thrown around with this like people have forgotten black metal is supposed to have atmosphere, the so called atmospheric black metal bands just take this further, which I do not feel these songs do. 

"Consumed By a Thought" does use samples and introduces more melody to the crunch of the guitar that is more deliberate with this song. After two minutes the song blasts back off, before locking into a more thrashing gallop. I think it is interesting that the samples are off military radio feeds, this gives a sense the message of this project is more grounded in every day human affairs than the esoteric ramblings most black metal bands engage in.  I will give this a 9, placing it above the Blackbraid album that is unfairly getting more accolades when this album reels like it has more to say.