MÚR – Múr

vote
7.0

• Bands:
  MUR
• Duration: 00:54:28
• Available from: 11/22/2024
• Label:

• Century Media Records

Misþyrming, their first cousins ​​Naðra, Auðn and now Múr: volcanic like the territory in which some Norse god gave birth to them, the actors of the Icelandic metal scene don't take breaks, and continue undaunted to sing their personal vision of apocalypse.
In this case we have five musicians from classical and jazz studies, led by keyboardist/vocalist Kári Haraldsson (already the author of soundtracks for films and TV series) who burst in at the end of this 2024 to make autumn colder with their debut of the same name, sponsored by Century Media Records.
The music contained in the seven tracks of “Múr” can be generically classified as post-metal, albeit with some necessary distinctions, given the progressive sensitivity (similar to that of the Devin Townsend Project and Ihsahn) that the quintet instills with its background to the pieces, a sensitivity that finds its peak in the initial “Eldhalf”, a clear, hymnodic and majestic song that bears the signs of devoted listening to “Mariner” by Julie Christmas & Cult Of Luna.
Don't be afraid if you're looking for harshness, because the album is well-stocked with it: songs like “Múr” (complex, if you look beyond its apparent brutality), a “Frelsari” with dry, almost thrash guitar strains, and the The obsessive “Messa” (where Haraldsson shows that he has carefully followed the work of Jørgen Munkeby of the Norwegian Shining on keyboards) has in fact as its sole objective eardrums and the stomach of the unfortunate listener.
In any case, it is in the broader pieces that all the instrumental expertise of the band is revealed, both in the initial “Eldhalf” which was talked about a few lines ago, and at the end of the album, with “Heimsslit”, where a long introduction of synthesizers à la Vangelis precedes a song that could easily be mistaken for an outtake of “The Long Road North” by Cult Of Luna; or in the ten minutes of “Holskefla”, a pure distillation of the Oranssi Pazuzu sound ennobled by a magnificent keyboard solo, at the end, in a mix of energy and elegance that makes us wonder how good the three bands that preceded them must have been in the rankings at the 2022 Wacken Metal Battle (also thanks to which they made themselves known).
Whatever happened then, Múr today make a convincing debut, and if they succeed in declaring their influences with less naivety, they will soon sound like yet another successful bet for Icelandic extreme metal.