Mgła – With Hearts Toward None

February 28, 2012 • Northern Heritage Records

Black metal has been interesting in recent years. We've had the proliferation of atmospheric black metal (the United States west coast stuff), the blackgaze movement, and the like. But apparently there is still a market for garden-variety '90s-style stuff. I can't complain, it's a good style that I enjoy, but even when it's done well it can still be tiresome. With Hearts Toward None is exactly that.

The album has a relatively typical black metal sound—loads of tremolo guitars, blastbeats, reverbed vocals, and no bass—although with a bit of a modern twist, including things such as more melodic sections and a mild punk influence (end of "IV", beginning of "VI"). It's still 99% good old black metal, even if it's not all blasting and there are some bits with slower, more atmospheric drumming ("II") and crunchy guitar riffs ("I"). It's done pretty well; the drumming is very proficient and manages to stay interesting even during the slow parts, though the guitars tend to stick to tremolo riffs a bit much.

However I'm finding this album notoriously difficult to review beyond simply describing it. Even after several listens, I haven't found much of anything to distinguish it from the hundreds of other black metal albums out there. Were someone to ask me if I thought it was any good, the best I could muster would probably be a shrug and "I guess...?" It hasn't done much to get any more of an exciting reaction out of me. It isn't particularly brutal, it isn't particularly original, it's just yet-another-black-metal-album.

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