Mental Cruelty – Zwielicht (Century Media)
Monday, 19th June 2023
Mental Cruelty really went into a stronger direction with their last album, 2021’s A Hill to Die Upon. It greatly improved their deathcore formula by adding in more black metal influences, allowing them to keep the brutal deathcore slamming in play but not be overly reliant up it. With symphonic black metal as well, there’s only so many ways you can play it, in keeping the album from being too synth-driven and losing that metallic component. As Mental Cruelty increases their blackened quotient for Zwielicht (their first for Century Media), they deftly handle both the blackened and deathcore elements and provide an excellent sense of balance, all while expanding upon their successful shift in formula and continuing to enhance it.
The songs of Zwielicht hit with just the right amount of different elements to keep things feeling fresh as the album progresses. “Obsessis A Daemonio” leans hard into the black metal elements at the onset, but the track then spans through elements of death metal, gentler spoken word, and even some eerie sections leading to some slams. It’s this approach that keeps the symphonic elements from draining the band of their ‘heavy side,’ which sometimes plagues bands of this style. They are able to weave in plenty of atmospheric and cinematic melodies with both the synths and guitars, such as on “Nordlys,” but the band never loses sight of being able to deliver some immediate aggression as a counter. On the more melodic end, “Symphony of a Dying Star” brings an almost bombastic and uplifting feeling to the band, but throttling breakdowns midway through provide a tonal shift that surprisingly works wonders without feeling disjointed. All of this is encompassed on the closing track, “A Tale of Salt and Light,” which seems to wrap up all of the melodic elements and epic arrangements that the band has honed, and merges them with some piledriving death metal brutality to leave the album on a definite high mark.
After defining their mission with their last effort, Mental Cruelty have shown that they can continue to develop a sound that brings the immediate excitement and energy of deathcore and successfully wrap it around a symphonic black metal base that keeps things epic and thundering. Zwielicht showcases the strongest efforts of the band to date, and should see even more eyes looking in their direction if listeners are seeking a visceral yet melodic onslaught.
