Review Summary: Pain Remains, done better
Mental Cruelty is just another name on the list of deathcore bands who had a member with allegations against them that ended up stepping away as a result. In 2022, weeks before signing with Century Media, former vocalist Lucca Schmerler was dismissed due to his allegations of misconduct. In his place comes a guy named Lukas Nicolai. I can’t speak on Lucca’s quality as a vocalist, but after listening to
Zwielicht, I think it’s fair to at the very least say that Lukas is a fine enough replacement unless somehow Lucca was on levels no other deathcore vocalist has hit.
See, this band plays a very symphonically focused brand of deathcore, not unlike the likes of Lorna Shore. It’s an easy comparison to make - Lukas here isn’t far off from the Will Ramos school of vocal gymnastics, and there’s a lot of moments here that invoke vibes similar to
Pain Remains. A lot of the positives from that album can be applied equally here; the symphonic blackened elements on tracks like “Nordlys” and “Forgotten Kings” are on full display, bearing similarities to songs like “Soulless Existence” off last year’s offering from Lorna. It’s not quite as vast in its scope and grandiose as that album, but what it lacks in the overall “epic-ness” it makes up for in its focused feeling and higher attention to structure. It feels less deathcore and more symphonic black metal, and if you just muddy up the production a bit and reduce the breakdown count, it probably wouldn’t feel too out of place being, say, a Panopticon album instead.
Another thing that stands out is the sparse use of clean vocals, which add an extra element of variety to the album.
Zwielicht is at its best at its most melodic; lead single “Symphony of a Dying Star” was maligned in some circles for the singing, but it was that song that struck my initial interest in giving this band a go finally. There’s not a lot of it here, so if you’re not a fan of Lukas’ tone or the idea of clean singing in deathcore in general, you’ll only need to worry about the lead single and “Obsessis a Daemonio” really. His harsh vocals are great, and they shine best on tracks like “The Arrogance of Agony” and the second half of “Pest” where he strays away from the vocal gymnastics and just does what serves the song.
Unfortunately, some of the issues that marred
Pain Remains are present here, albeit not as strongly. “Pest” in particular has this really out of place breakdown that kills all the momentum in the first half, only for it to recover rather gracefully towards the end. Breakdowns aren’t a bad thing, but the completely jarring nature of some of them can really drive a nail into the fast pace in which
Zwielicht thrives. It’s thankfully nowhere near as ever-present here, but it’s something worth mentioning that holds the album back from being as great as it could be. In a way it feels like it’s
almost there.
The second half is undoubtedly stronger than the first; everything “Nordlys” onwards feels like a fully-realized version of the concept Lorna Shore was going for, but just simply better. Closer “A Tale of Salt and Light” is epic in the way the three-parter “Pain Remains” wanted to be, only truly being let down by the abrupt ending. “The Arrogance of Agony” has some of Lukas’ best vocals. The guitar work and drumming is superb throughout, and if they would just tighten up a little bit more, Mental Cruelty could easily be the band to watch out for.
Overall,
Zwielicht impressed me. While there’s definitely some structural issues, mostly in the first half, the second half truly is as grandiose as it wants to be. The production is slick, the riffs are solid, the symphonics are well-put together, and the clean vocals, while not as prominent as I may have hoped, are a great break from the all-out chaos in other parts of the album. In no uncertain terms, this is essentially
Pain Remains, done better than
Pain Remains.
