Mirror of Deception’s new full length ‘A Smouldering Fire’ is very appropriately titled, given that the band have been quietly churning out epic slabs of warm and earthy true-doom for a good two decades now, and demonstrates that the old coals are still burning strong. The idiosyncrasies of past efforts remain, with the guitars radiating a curious mixture of gentle, glowing sadness and buoyant, upbeat folksiness, though the songs manage to steer clear of both hey-nonny-nonny territory and the cloying mawkishness that blights fellow trad-miserablists While Heaven Wept from time to time, possessing a natural pace and fluidity that sits beautifully alongside the clean-yet-unpolished, soaring vocals.
Fans of Reverend Bizarre and Count Raven alike are well-catered for here, the album sometimes languishing in muted, lurching doldrums of sinking melody and elsewhere riding bursts of crunchy, urgent momentum positively brimming with purpose and direction. Opener ‘Isle of Horror’ works plodding, foreboding riffs and bass, monotone vocals a la Albert Witchfinder around grandiose clean vocal harmonies and a steady, searching, rush-and-retreat of guitar that insists upon images of cascading water draining from weather-beaten rocks in between tidal assaults, before finally gearing up via some gentle pastoral meanderings to an energetic up-tempo conclusion. ‘The Riven Tree’ meanwhile is more urgent, with a single, insistent yet decidedly sullen underpinning groove carrying the song through myriad twists and turns, its bittersweet feel and perversely upbeat tempo dovetailing nicely with the singer’s towering, subtly-wounded intonations.
The appropriately titled ‘Bellwethers in Mist’ takes a very different tack however, employing a stripped down, mid-paced backbone riff of a far colder hue and possessive of the electrifying Celtic starkness of Primordial, the vocals seeming to shed their warmth as well and shifting closer towards Alan Averill’s distinctive stoic lament, combining with the song’s restless, endlessly-traipsing impetus and sorrowful, folk-tinged melodic embellishments to guide the mind’s eye away from the roaring hearth and up onto the barren, windswept moors beyond. Elsewhere, the sprawling ‘Unforeseen’ edges more in the direction of romantic doom territory, with maybe just a hint of Mourning Beloveth’s mournful zeal creeping in here and there alongside the trad-doom elements, the riffs taking time to breathe and tied to some beautifully harmonised vocals that spill over with sadness in their recounting of some suitably grandiose nature-inspired lyrics. Similarly, ‘Walking Through Clouds’ is positively leaden, possessive of a thick, cloying gloom and despondent menace in the vein of My Dying Bride, with a lingering, torturously bleak main riff seemingly borrowed from ‘The Light at the End of The World’ (the song that is) built around a grimy, up-tempo bridge. The clean vocals generally fit in surprisingly well here, although they do grate very slightly in the last few seconds when the singer ups the power for the song’s finale and ends up sounding just a little (uncharacteristically) flat.
‘Lauernder Schmerz’ meanwhile is a far more bouncy and bombastic affair, marching on at a rather brisk tempo and with considerable urgency but still remembering to slow and take in some well-earned, slowly-blossoming, rueful melodies along the way. Oh, and it’s nice to hear the band singing in their native tongue here too. ‘Sojourner’ is very different again, sounding utterly unhurried and relying upon monolithic, vintage-sounding riffs in the style of Reverend Bizarre’s sprawling ‘Harbinger of Metal’ EP, whilst ‘The Flood and the Horses’ possesses a distinct Witchcraft vibe to it both musically and vocally, starting off relatively playfully before sliding into yet more colossal riffing that makes it damn near impossible not to think of Reverend track ‘Strange Horizons’. Final track ‘Voyage Obscure’ is much more straightforward and typical of the band’s core sound, with a gently-insistent procession of downcast, heaving riffs rippling with melancholy warmth and underpinning a beautifully judged chorus in which the vocals suddenly leap towards the heavens before inexorably plunging back to earth. It all sounds both entirely effortless and wholly sincere, and ebbs away gently in such a way as to make for an excellent album closer.
‘A Smouldering Fire’ is both orthodox and unorthodox at the same time, remaining firmly rooted in tradition for the most part on the one hand yet possessive of a unique personality and unafraid to throw in subtly different influences throughout on the other. It all adds up to some masterfully-crafted, unpretentious Teutonic true-doom, yet is varied enough to surprise as well as enthral, earning it a glowing report from me.
http://www.mirrorofdeception.de
http://www.myspace.com/mirrorofdeception
