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By Tom O’Dell (Dwarrowdelf)
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I love black metal, I do. But, as anyone who saw my edition of Listcrush 2020 can attest, I also love heavy and power metal. Why am I mentioning this? Well, interplay between subgenres is no new thing; bands like Anaal Nathrakh have made careers out of blending the barriers to create unique forms of metal. When styles are merged successfully and skilfully, the results can be phenomenally enjoyable and truly exciting to behold – and, during my first listen to MIASMATA’s stunning debut album, Unlight: Songs of Earth and Atrophy, excitement was indeed the feeling created by the realisation that this is black metal played by someone who clearly loves Blind Guardian.
That’s not to say that this is radio-friendly power metal – it isn’t. This is aggressive black metal beyond doubt: the vocals snarl, the drums are insane, and the rhythm guitars thrash relentlessly. But atop this pile of monster riffs, the leads and harmonies soar, adding a huge sense of scale to the ferocious assault. There’s a great sense of diversity in the songwriting that betrays the variety of influences at play here; there’s no rehashing of tired melodic black metal motifs or stock dual harmonies. With every listen, I found myself more and more curious as to the secrets behind such an album… and so the only course of action was to invite multi-instrumentalist and Miasmata mastermind Mike Wilson to BMD Towers for a chat about the project! Read on, and check the blistering single ‘Caverns of Malachite’ in the embed below.
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Welcome to Black Metal Daily! Thanks for sitting down with us; could you quickly introduce yourself and the project?
– My name is Mike Wilson and I’m a musician from Dunedin, New Zealand. Miasmata is my solo project, I would describe it as black metal primarily but with numerous influences from other genres woven through – classic heavy metal, speed metal, melodic hardcore, that kinda thing. Anything guitar-focused, intense and high energy has helped form Miasmata.
It makes sense to start at the beginning – how long has Miasmata been in the works? Was it founded out of any particular stylistic desires?
– I guess the current form of Miasmata came to be around 3 or 4 years ago when I started focusing on writing some new songs in the style, but some of the songs or riffs go back to the late 2000s in one form or another, when I was in my late teens/early twenties. My main instrument is the guitar but I’ve played a lot of bass over the years so a lot of the desire for Miasmata is to write riff and lead-heavy music that touches upon my favourite styles to play as a guitarist.
Of course, you’re no stranger to the recording process, having released several full lengths with Lysithea and Sojourner over the years. How did the journey of Unlight differ to those previous experiences? Did you find that it being a solo project afforded you more creative freedom?
– It was a fairly similar experience in that it was just me writing and recording on my own, but to know that Unlight didn’t need to adhere to any particular sound or style (particularly as a debut record) definitely lead to a sense of freedom and fun that was different to other records I’ve been involved in over the last few years. Having a clean slate with no pre-existing sound is quite liberating when writing music, for sure!
The style of the music also allowed me to test my playing abilities a bit. I didn’t want this coming across as yet another one-man atmospheric type project and I really wanted to capture a more energetic and intense feel, more like what you might get from a full band or a live act. I tried to record as much of the album in as few takes as possible to keep a more human feel to it all so a fair chunk of the rhythm guitars, bass and vocals were recorded as one continuous take each, starting over from the beginning when I fucked up which was definitely a challenge at times!
The project has been branded as a kind of black metal meets heavy metal hybrid, which I for one am absolutely here for! For me, one place that the heavy influence really comes out is in some of the gorgeous dual leads and harmonies that adorn the blackened landscape of the album. Can you tell us any more about the influences on both sides of the spectrum that have gone to this monster combination?
– I’ve always been huge on melody and guitar harmonies and anyone who knows me well knows how much I love the more traditional styles of metal! This is an influence that tends to rear its head in anything I write, but I definitely put more emphasis on it here for sure. Formative influences like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and particularly Blind Guardian are all over Unlight. Andre Olbrich’s leadwork has been huge for me since I was young, the way he doubles so many of his melodies is something I often find myself doing as well.
On the black metal side of things I tend to go for things that have a slightly looser, rocking vibe – stuff like Darkthrone (mainly their punk/crust influenced stuff), Gospel of the Horns, and more recently, bands like Wode. Their Servants of the Countercosmos record has been on heavy rotation for the last few years! Another band that I should mention is Windir, they encompass the black metal side as well as the highly melodic, lead-heavy influence. Songs like ‘The Spiritlord’ that can change from rocking black metal to majestic leads with epic clean vocals – that kinda thing is always there in the background when I’m writing.
I don’t have any lyrics to hand, but judging from the song titles it seems that the theme of the album revolves around chaos in various forms – have I got anywhere close with that? Does that magnificent artwork tie into the lyrical themes of the record?
– Yeah that’s a fair guess! The songs mainly deal with the end of the world or humankind in various ways. There are some more realistic themes amongst the lyrics – nature taking back the planet due to mistreatment and neglect, human ignorance and refusing to acknowledge issues that will ultimately lead to total destruction etc, but I also couldn’t resist walking the more heavy metal path so there’s a good amount of fantasy and black magic amongst the songs! While Anaïs‘ fantastic artwork wasn’t created based on any particular lyrical themes of the record, I think it ended up influencing some of the lyrics directly. I hadn’t completed the lyrics or recorded vocals at all when she created the artwork, but it fits the themes I was going for so well I think it definitely rubbed off on the lyrics I wrote after I saw it.
So, with an album of killer speed riffs and blackened tremolos written and recorded, the next step was getting it mixed – enter your bandmate from Lysithea and Sojourner, Mike Lamb! Was he the natural choice for mixing Unlight? How did his contribution affect the record?
– Definitely, Mike was always gonna mix this record! We’ve known each other for a long-time and are pretty in tune when it comes to making music. It’s not hard to communicate what I’m going for with Mike so we are often on the same page from the beginning which makes for a smooth process. He’s been honing his production skills over the years and knew he could get Unlight sounding how I envisioned, and I’m really pleased with the result.
To release the album, you’ve teamed up with the ever-excellent Naturmacht Productions. They’re building up quite the diverse portfolio of bands at the moment; were they your first choice for getting Miasmata out into the world? How have they helped bring your vision to life?
– I’ve worked with Naturmacht’s sub-label Rain Without End previously for the release of the last Lysithea album so I already knew Rob and that he is great to work with. He showed his interest in Miasmata from early in the demo stage and I’m really pleased we could team up for the release of the record. In the early stages of making the album I didn’t really know where it would fit label-wise, but as things progressed Naturmacht felt like a great home for it. Rob never questions how you’ve done things, it always remains your album with full creative control, and he also lent his hand by doing the layout for the album which was the final piece.
It feels like an odd question to ask given the state of live performances at the moment, but do you have any plans to take Miasmata to the stage once this is all over? With the energy and riffing on display, I can see it causing some serious mayhem in the pits.
– I don’t have any concrete plans yet but I would love to take Miasmata to a live environment. I love playing live and it has been a long time since I last did, and I think these songs have great potential for a furious live show. I’ve chatted to some close friends about getting involved so we’ll see what happens!
Well Mike, I think all that’s left is to thank you for your time, and to encourage everyone to pick up Unlight: Songs of Earth and Atrophy when it drops on March 14th! Any last words for our readers?
– Thanks to you, Tom, and BMD for the support! And to anyone who takes the time to check out the album, I really appreciate it. Cheers!
Unlight: Songs Of Earth And Atrophy releases March 14th via Naturmacht Productions.
Pre-order Unlight: Songs Of Earth and Atrophy on LP, digipak CD, A5 CD and digital from the Naturmacht Productions Bandcamp HERE and their webstore HERE, or digitally from the Miasmata Bandcamp HERE.
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