Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Gromka / Ljubljana
Concert date: 08.06.2018
The sun gives life. Thanks to it we can even walk this planet, and in Plato’s allegory of the cave it stands for the light of knowledge and enlightenment. But the sun can also take life away, which makes it, as the antipode of darkness, a fitting antagonist to everything that reeks of gloom and moves in the shadows. So it’s only fitting that Mist from Ljubljana, the only doom metal act we’ve got here, want to break free of the sun’s shackles on their debut. Free Me of the Sun, their long-awaited full-length first album, was born in darkness and dusk last Saturday at Metelkova in Ljubljana.
For the release party of their debut, Mist invited some genre colleagues, the Rijeka doom masters Old Night, who released their own full-length debut Pale Cold Irrelevance last year. The fitting opener doesn’t swim in quite such occult waters as Mist, sticking instead to more traditional doom moves, a la My Dying Bride and Solitude Aeternus. Old Night mostly build an atmosphere of despair, sorrow and loss, and they pull it off brilliantly, first and foremost thanks to the massive wall of riffs from no fewer than three guitars and the powerful, convincing vocals of Matej Hanžek, occasionally backed up by the brutal growl of his brother Ivan. Despite the unbearable heat, Old Night wrapped Gromka in the cool of doom metal and showed off their debut in a great light.
The brand-new studio debut Free Me of the Sun, which came out two weeks ago on Soulseller, was then presented by the main act of the night: four witches and one warlock going by the name Mist. Since their beginnings back in 2012, the band has kept to the right tracks, which, via a demo and the EP Inan’, finally led to the full-length debut. Along the way came a pretty successful breakthrough abroad, which took them to renowned festival stages like Italy’s Doom Fest, Malta Doom Festival and the legendary Hammer of Doom. Still, Free Me of the Sun got its official launch on home turf, where four gals and one beard nicely filled a sweltering Gromka last Saturday. After classic doom beginnings that strongly recalled Pentagram and Black Sabbath on the demo, Mist added a strong occult note to their doom, which peaked on the debut. That was obvious from one look at the stage too – a banner with Luciferian-looking symbols, incense, red light, fog. The atmosphere suited the music, and the performance was just as top-notch. The riffs of the Babošek/Tanšek duo were heavy, slow and monolithic, and any monotony was broken up here and there by Tanšek’s solos, which ranged from typically doomy to downright hippie-psychedelic. The rhythm section shook our guts, while the main driver of the occult atmosphere was the siren-like, ominous voice of Nina Spruk, who did a great job. From what I heard, Mist have moved away from sounding too much like Pentagram and reached for influences that bring in even The Devil’s Blood and the psychedelia of the likes of Jefferson Airplane. The only misstep was the dance performance by a member of the Tribal Bizarre collective (if I’m not mistaken), which felt totally out of place and didn’t hit the mark; otherwise Mist presented their long-awaited debut in a splendid light.
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