See Them Dying

When I see an one man band with three full length releases in a year, I become a little skeptical and cautious, as the majority of those bands do not worth any attention. So, when I received the latest album of Alone in the Mist from Russia called “See Them Dying”, I hesitated at first. However, after listening the first few minutes, I understood that this is not a case like the aforementioned, but is it a good one? The album was released by More Hate Productions in 30^th of November of 2018, following “Thunder of Doom” and “Useless” which were release the same year and it contains six tracks of about thirty minutes of overall duration. Although, you can’t get a hint about the music by the beautiful cover, as it could refer to a Death Metal release, in “See Them Dying” you will listen to atmospheric, gloomy, dark and surely depressive Black Metal.

The music here is really emotional, setting up the scenery from the beginning, placing the listener into a grey, dark and depressing state, like wandering in the city shown in the cover. The destruction, the rotten corpses and generally the abandoned scenery, sets the listener into a desperate and hopeless state. The band combines various of their influences such as Paradise Lost, classic DSBM like Xasthur or the more romantic Nocturnal Depression, slow Doom, you will even recognize some early Cure references. The ideas presented here are not anything new or unique but they are interesting, very expressing and emotional. Although, the tracks are not that long, as they last from five to seven minutes, the exceedingly repeating riffing and the monotonous structure from time to time, make the listener balance between interesting and boring.

Regarding the instruments’ performance, everything is presented at a high level. The guitar, which is the leading instrument, has a clean but dark sound and its performance is flawless and very emotional, presenting all feelings and images vividly. The lines of the bass are not audible enough to understand them completely, but the sound is deep and bassy enough. The drums are basic and I would guess that they are programmed but nothing is mentioned in the cd. Despite that, they are stable and they sound quite good. The vocals are deep, dark Death/Black ones, monotonous and melancholic, they fit to the compositions perfectly. The production is bassy and dirty, it is like the listener is walking into a misty, dark scenery. The mixture is balanced highlighting the guitars and giving a suitable result to the tracks and generally the style of the album. The lyrics are a very nice representation of what the music is about. They speak about death, destruction, personal feelings, despair and suicide, they are written in English and they are contained in the booklet.

In conclusion, I feel quite divided by this album. There are some interesting ideas, the scenery is nicely set, the feelings and images are presented nicely. However, the repetition in some parts, some boring passages and a few quite uninspired moments, decrease the quality of the album. I think that if they work their compositions more and give some time to let their ideas grow and evolve, they will offer a very good album. Until then, I won’t suggest you this album, unless you are a hardcore fan of DSBM.