To judge by what I’ve read on blogs and forums around the web, a good percentage of the expectations held for the new Misery Signals album stems from their decision to work with arch-randomist and metal legend Devin Townsend as producer. While Townsend has undeniably left his stamp on Controller, the raw material he had to work with is strong stuff in its own right.
This is Misery Signals‘ second outing with Townsend; he also produced their début album Of Malice and the Magnum Heart. Perhaps that familiarity enhanced the coherence of Controller, an album whose heaviness is never in dispute but which also partakes in some truly epic hooks with the hair-raising qualities that make Townsend’s work so unique.
Despite the darkly nihilistic vocals – which mark the name Misery Signals well chosen – Controller displays a hidden heart of pop aesthetics. Change the instrumentation and the delivery style, and you’d have a surprisingly accessible album on your hands. “Parallels” boasts soaring melodies, while “Coma” and “Reset” feature delicate and subtle clean arpeggios, doubled up on the latter track with distant glassy chimes. Misery Signals evidently have a thoughtful side to balance their dark fury.
That said, Controller is still very much a metal album; it just does more with its guitars than the standard prescription of chugging chords and screaming solos. Misery Signals have stolen a few moves from the progressive and post-hardcore playbooks and thrown them into the mix, resulting in unmuted open chords and looping half-scale riffs making regular appearances. Other bands should take note – it’s amazing how much more engaging a heavy album can be when it has some textural variety, and Townsend’s trademark cascading delays really bring the brighter passages to life at the same time as throwing the darker sections deeper into shadow.
It’s also a great relief to step away from the tired lyrical clichés of hell, demons and violence that are par for the course in the more extreme ends of the genre. In many respects,the lyrics on Controller wouldn’t feel out of place in tracks by one of the more mature post-hardcore outfits; introspective, bleak and much preoccupied with personal relationships, there’s a notable lack of chest-thumping histrionics in Misery Signals‘ material.
Despite a relatively short career, Misery Signals seem to have struck upon a distinctive style of their own; while it’s a great thing to see metal thriving as a genre, the corollary is that there’s a lot of cookie-cutter clones on the market. While the influence of Devin Townsend cannot (and shouldn’t) be separated from Controller’s quality, the greatest producer in the world can’t make a masterpiece out of shoddy songs and poor musicianship. Misery Signals make metalcore for people who are bored of metalcore, and I can only hope that more bands will sit up and take notice of the difference that comes from walking the path less travelled.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Controller, Devin Townsend, metal, metalcore, Misery Signals
