Review Summary: Mutant is not a unique band but they have taken black metal to a different territory and managed to create a special blend of their own technical black metal.
Mutant was a side-project by two members from one of Sweden’s few technical death metal bands, namely
Theory In Practice. The difference between these bands is that
Mutant is a black metal band, and it sounds good too. You can definitely hear that this side-project has similarities to
Theory In Practice, especially in the guitar style which is like a controlled state of riffing chaos. But the guys have managed to distance themselves from their death metal band with this project. They have somewhat turned down the technical aspects in the guitar work and added more tremolo picking patterns, straight black metal rasps are the vocals of choice and the drumming has been programmed. Even keyboards are used to create a good atmospheric back ground sound that melts in nicely with the intense and dynamic music. Unfortunately, this project happened to be a one-shot deal. They made one album and after that the ace-guitarist Peter Lake has moved on to lend his skills to bands like the thrash metal act
Mekong Delta while
Theory In Practice has been put on hold, but for how long no-one knows.
The Aeonic Majesty is their only album and it has the signature riffing from Peter Lake. I would actually say that this is technical black metal because I have never heard a black metal band that has incorporated this much diversity and skilful guitar work into their music. Almost every song here has its own structure and character that makes them quite memorable, not all but most of them. Let’s take a track like
Abduct To Mutate. This track has a very heavy sound and it has a quite interesting staccato pace that can be compared to
Meshuggah’s type of music. These staccato moments are later mixed with flowing and intriguing riff lines and fast picked whacky solos.
Immemorial Lunacy takes on a slightly more aggressive and melodic approach with blast-beat and double bass rattling fury and fast crazy riffing. This track definitely has some memorable riff lines.
The Aeonic Majesty will be my last song example. Many of the tracks has a fast pace but the title track is the complete opposite. This track here is probably the slowest track of the album and this is way more melodic and atmospheric than the other tracks. It also has these quiet ’’royal’’ piano tunes that gives the track a small majestic touch, it is nothing spectacular or so but it keeps the listener interested. All the other tracks sounds similar to those I described, some tracks are slower than the rest; some are more melodic and so on. The only things that the tracks have in common are the vocals and the guitar work.
I will not write any more because I think that I have made it clear to most of you that this album doesn’t contain your average black metal music. You will get your blast-beats, raspy vocals and fast picking tremolo riffing patterns that black metal usually contains. But this time more technical guitar work has been used and the track variety (and overall sound) is strengthened by the use of guitar and keyboard melodies. The only possible flaws that I can think of would be that the music sometimes to transcends into the era of
Theory In Practice, which means that the actual black metal sound and atmosphere sometimes disappears thanks to Peter Lake’s fanatical riffing. I would also point out that the vocals are stiff and one-dimensional, but still, the blackish rasps sounds so much better than the death grunts that the guy used in
Theory In Practice. People who like any kind black metal should check this out, and fans of
Theory In Practice should also check this out. And if you happen to like technical metal music regardless of the genre then you should give this a shot.
Mutant is not a unique band but they have taken black metal to a different territory and managed to create a special blend of their own technical black metal.
Positives
+ Splendid technical guitar work
+ Great use of melodies
+ Energetic music with lots of tempo changes
+ Great dynamics and song diversity
Negatives
- The vocal performance is far from impressive
- The music tends to sound like Theory In Practice
Recommended Tracks
I suggest that you get the whole album.
Final rating: A solid 4/5
