Mizmor’s utterly monumental new album Cairn packs a musical journey to the underworld in whose entirety the air hangs heavy with a toxic, oppressive smoke and a sense of light only barely peeks through. With this project mastermind’s careful combination of devastatingly pummeling sludge metal riffs and creeping, choking doom metal atmosphere, the pain that this new album encapsulates feels decidedly human, even while packed full of mind-bending, otherworldly streaks of chaos. This new album captures a journey of oppressive mourning, and the sounds within it feel like the products of losing all metaphysical tie-downs one might have previously had. The concept of “God” has been thrown aside, and so, notably enough, has the option of suicide, which Mizmor’s lyrics explore. In the middle of the drifting oppression sparked by the first break, and the struggling sonic hurricane of the second closer to home one — there’s just you.
As the album gets underway, after a brief gentle introduction, Mizmor launches into grim sonic majesty deserving of some kind of choir from hell that only sinks further down the longer they perform. These sonic senses quickly turn only more pummeling, with musical expressions of encountering volatile metaphysical beasts slowly but surely emerging through the haze.
Saying that ultimately there’s some kind of “hope” here feels wrong considering how (fittingly) overbearingly grim that the music packed in here proves. However, a path forward does establish itself towards the conclusion of the record. As the lyrics turn to a resolution to create and ascribe color to the “void” instead of clinging to either “God” or suicide, Cairn‘s music shifts towards a heavy “march” feeling. Maybe, that choir that fell through the muck-filled abyss earlier in the album has now reached some kind of level ground and begun marching forward.
In the midst of the unending, blisteringly bleak cacophony of Cairn, a stunning musical journey emerges. Mizmor has given the streaks of deathly emotional cold that he has captured on this record some kind of greater meaning. He’s probed their depths and situated them into an immensely compelling, enveloping story that will help define your path. There may not be an overwhelming light up ahead, but there is something, as Mizmor zeroes in on via Cairn‘s steadily progressing, brutally heavy atmospheric musical oppression.
5/5 Stars
Check some out below. The whole album will be available September 6 via Gilead Media