Miseration - Your Demons-Their Angels

Published Jan. 19 2007

*=Staff's pick	Thrones* Perfection Destroyed* Seven Are The Sins World Lethality The End Designed* Chain-Work Soul Noctivagant* Foal Invective Scattering The Few

Genre	Death Metal	Christian Älvestam	Vocals
Tracks	9	Jani Stefanovic	Guitar
Runningtime	41 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Rivel Records	Jani Stefanovic	Bass
Release	10 Jan. 2007	Jani Stefanovic	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Bloodbath, Hypocrisy

Swedish Miseration are a fairly new acquaintance to me. Perhaps it has its explanation in the fact that Your Demons-Their Angels is the first work from this duo. Miseration dwells under the banner of the Swedish label Rivel Records. Jani Stefanovic, all guitars, drums and bass and Christian Älvestam, vocals are the forces behind this kind of technical death metal squad.

I don't really know where to start but Your Demons-Their Angels could best be filed under the same label as Hypocrisy and Luciferion. Add a bit technical patterns a'la Meshuggah and then some patented melancholy from Opeth and what you get is a high quality metal meltdown. Miseration strikes me from the start and convinces me with their kind of intellectual form of death metal. That sounds a bit boring, I know, but luckily the music ain't. The musical knowledge that is heard through the songs is quite exceptional, good song writing and of course a shown skill that I would say are way above average. A interesting aspect of Miseration's music is that they show a wide spectre of death metal. The parallels I drew earlier aren't the only ones, basically it's a scandinavian sound but there are also both American and Polish aggression put into this album.

Your Demons-Their Angels is mostly a walk upon razor blades and has a very suitable aggressive and melancholic touch. Furious whirlwinds of rage together with more laidback and nice sections of harmony are presented as if it was written under gun point. The dark growls from Christian Älvestam feel like an angrier form of Peter Tägtren and Mikael Åkerfelt blended together. Bloodbath as a comparition is never far away... I don't think I have to dig deeper into that subject. Despite all my parallels to bands and musicians, Miseration has a very own identity and soul. At their best times it shows a really ugly and twisted face. At worst it tends to be a bit to much polished Gothenburg sound over it. Melodies, scales and tunes wandering around without any destination in a modest tempo. That I can surely live without.

Miseration has managed to come up with a quite fine violent work of art. Highlights must be Thrones, Perfection Destroyed and the mighty The End Designed. To sum this one up, I would say that Your Demons-Their Angels seems to be a nice acquaintance on the Swedish night sky.