‘Of Malice And The Magnum Heart,’ the debut album by Misery Signals, has enjoyed a dramatic reputation enhancement since its release in 2004. When it first dropped in the music world’s lap, it received decent reviews and had some moderate success, but take a look online nowadays and the general consensus is that it’s an overlooked classic. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it does indeed stand up. It’s a well-crafted record that’s stood the test of time and it’s not surprising its stature has grown.
The band themselves have recognized this. In 2014 they welcomed original singer Jesse Zaraska back into the line-up and played it in full on an anniversary tour, introducing it to a lot of fans who missed out on the original run. The promise of new material has hung over them since, but it’s taken a full six years for ‘Ultraviolet’ to take shape, the band refusing to rush in and fart out a subpar legacy-breaker. It’s been a long time coming and expectations are high to say the least, so is it any good?
Mercifully, it is and goes some way towards demonstrating why Misery Signals deserve more recognition. Their brand of metalcore isn’t your standard screamed verse/sung chorus template and they seem to have been influenced by the likes of Far and Quicksand as much as The Cro-Mags and Earth Crisis. This is off-kilter and jarring metal, made by people who are happy to push genre conventions and see no reason to stick hooks in every track. Songs like ‘Old Ghosts’ are sledgehammers of macho rage, but the breakdowns are accompanied by odd rhythmic time signatures. Older fans who long for the glory days of Trustkill and Ferret records will be delighted, this is raw and nuanced melodic hardcore that requires repeat listens to truly explore the depths.
‘River King’ for instance is reminiscent of Poison The Well, thanks to its unconventional structure and slamming pit fodder, while ‘Redemption Key’ sounds exactly like what would happen if metalcore got lost in the desert with the Deftones for a week. ‘Cascade Locks’ starts off with a riff that has a distinct emo vibe, then delivers some utterly crushing guitar work and a strained, passionate vocal performance from Zaraska. After years out of the limelight, his voice-box wrecking delivery adds a tremendous emotive weight to these songs. It’s almost as if he’s fuelled by a desire to show the upstart kiddies how it’s done and why only wimps let the guitarist sing the melodic bits.
Closer ‘Some Dreams’ though is the best of the bunch. Saving the strongest cut to the end of the record can be a gamble, but it pays off here. ‘Ultraviolet’ ends on a massive gut-punch, triumphant and uplifting one minute, then bruising and violent the next. It’s a throwback to the early 2000s when music like this hadn’t quite settled on a clearly defined playbook and bands were willing to test the limits of how to set circle pits off.
In other words, ‘Ultraviolet’ absolutely lives up to expectations. You need to pay close attention in order to get the most out of it, this is not a record that works as background noise to a late night Playstation binge, but if earnest and enthusiastic melodic hardcore is your thing, it’s pretty much unmissable. It recalls their classic first record and while it’s too soon to say if it’ll escape its shadow, it’s a worthy and enjoyable counterpart to ‘Of Malice And The Magnum Heart.’
- ‘Ultraviolet’ is released tomorrow (Friday 7 August). You can get your copy HERE.
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