Mgła

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Mgła
Mgła Logo.png
Mgła at the Dark Troll Festival in Bornstedt, Germany, 2019.
Mgła at the Dark Troll Festival in Bornstedt , Germany , 2019.
General information
origin Krakow , Poland
Genre (s) Black metal
founding 2000
Website official homepage
Current occupation
Mikołaj "M." Żentara
Maciej "Darkside" Kowalski
former members
Daren
Live and session members
ShellShocked (since 2012)
Lead guitar , background vocals
 EVT (since 2015)
Lead guitar, background vocals
 Silencer (2012-2015)

Mgła is a black metal band from Kraków that was founded in 2000 .

history

Mgła play at Party.San , 2016.

Mgła was founded in 2000 by the two musicians Mikolaj "M." Žentara and Maciej "Darkside" Kowalski in the Polish city ​​of Krakow . The first two EPs Presence and Mdłości were only released six years after the band was founded. A year later followed the release of the third EP entitled Further Down the Nest , before the debut album Groza ( pol .: Furcht , Grauen ) was released in 2008 via Northern Heritage Records .

The group did not give their first live concerts until 2012, shortly after the second album With Hearts Toward None was released. In support of this, the musicians ShellShocked on electric bass and silencer on lead guitar were added to the live line-up. Over time, the band completed several festival appearances in Europe , including the Inferno Festival , the Brutal Assault , the Metaldays and the Hellfest . In 2015 Mgła released their third album Exercises in Futility on Northern Heritage Records, which gave the band their first breakthrough. The album was voted 10th best Black Metal album of 2015 by Metal Hammer and received a nomination in the Up and Coming category at the Metal Hammer Awards the following year . The band toured the United States for the first time in November 2015 , followed by a European tour in December.

In autumn 2016, Mgła were the opening act for Secrets of the Moon and Behemoth on the second section of the Europe Blasphemia Tour , which led through Germany , France , Portugal , Spain and Switzerland . Originally the start of the tour was supposed to take place in the slaughterhouse in Wiesbaden , but the entire concert was canceled after a shitstorm on social media about the unloading of Mgła.

Together with Polish genre colleague Deus Mortem , Mgła can be seen as the opening act for the black metal band Revenge on their European tour, which will take place between April 28 and May 17, 2019. At the beginning of September, Age of Excuse, the musicians' fourth studio album, was released under their own label No Solace and on Miko Aspas Northern Heritage Records .

Suspicion of right-wing extremism

Both texts and interviews by Mgła, just like those of their previous band, Kriegsmaschine , are free of any political, racist or nationalist remarks . Also, the band does not use any symbols on CD covers or band shirts that are associated with right-wing extremism .

However, the band members are suspected of at least tolerating right-wing extremist ideas. Reasons for the allegations include Darkside's involvement in the band MasseMord , whose singer, Namtar, did not clearly distance himself from the NSBM in interviews despite ongoing allegations. Singer M was also involved in earlier album productions by the Polish band Infernal War and released an album called Judenfrei in 2000 with his power electronic project Leichenhalle . It features songs like Jerusalem in Flames , Judenfrei , China Scum and Holy Leader , among others . The fact that the band is under contract with the Finnish label Northern Heritage Records , the owner of which has already publicly acknowledged racism and fascism several times and has signed some openly right-wing extremist bands, has already caused conflict in the metal scene.

After the band was unloaded on October 20, 2016 because of the suspicions of a concert in the Schlachthof in Wiesbaden , which was to take place as part of the Europe Blasphemia Tour with Behemoth and Secrets of the Moon , this drew massive criticism in the social media against the owners the concert hall, so that the concert had to be canceled entirely. At the end of April 2019, the Backstage in Munich came under fire because on May 1, 2019, with Deus Mortem and Mgła, she wanted to have two bands perform that should at least have contacts in the right-wing extremist music scene. The alliance against anti-Semitism asked the operators in an open letter to cancel the event. They later announced that they wanted to examine the allegations against the two bands. In the meantime, the operators of the Backstage in Munich, the Columbia Theater in Berlin and an unknown promoter in Brno announced that the concerts would be canceled due to the allegations in the room. There were also protests against the concert in Vienna , so the organizers decided not to let Deus Mortem perform and not to cancel the Mgła concert. The musicians have since announced that they will take legal action.

The band themselves did not immediately comment clearly on the allegations; in an interview published in Deaf Forever , however, a clear position was taken against authoritarian ideologies. In general, the band gives rather few interviews, and social media activities are limited to the bare minimum.

Music and performance

Mgła play at the Throne Fest in Kuurne , Belgium , 2014.

Mgła belong next to the band Kriegsmaschine to the most important representatives of the second generation of Polish Black Metal , which is based on the Norwegian Black Metal of the early 1990s. The band plays a classic and raw Black Metal, which is kept melodious compared to other groups of this music genre. Playing the drums is also varied and technically more demanding compared to other representatives of Black Metal. Also typical of Mgła's music are concise minor guitar leads.

The texts are based on personal experiences and are largely nihilistic and misanthropic and include references from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Bukowski . This creates an extremely dense and gloomy atmosphere. This is reflected in several reviews: The music on Metal.de has been called " nihilism set to music "; the album Exercises in Futility described by Stormbringer.at as a "depressive-mad monolith". According to Welt Online , the group makes it clear that Satanism can be used as a rebellion in both Catholic and Protestant majority societies. Pitchfork Media named Dissection as a musical reference , which M. partially confirmed in an interview with Metalnerd.de . However, he sees Mgła influenced by Burzum and Darkthrone .

A trademark of Mgła are the minimalist live performances. In contrast to many other bands, the band does without stage effects, such as pyrotechnics or fake blood. Movements on the stage are reduced to a minimum, so that the group's concerts are perceived as "static". The musicians also refrain from wearing accessories that are typical of the scene, such as rivet jewelry, cartridge belts or pentagrams; Instead, the musicians limit their outfit to completely black clothing, black cloths and hoods that cover their faces. This is to prevent a personality cult as the group wants to pay attention to their music.

Discography

Nominations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Massimo Introvigne : Satanism: A Social History . Brill Academic Pub , Leiden 2016, ISBN 978-90-04-24496-2 , Satan the Musician: Black Metal and Satanism, pp. 494 (English).
  2. ↑ Metal Hammer : The Best Black Metal Albums 2015!
  3. ↑ Jason Oberuc: Pure Grain Audio : MGLA Announce Fall 2015 US and European Tour and Festival Dates
  4. ↑ Frontview Magazine : Behemoth kick off European tour today!
  5. ↑ Nuclear Blast : BEHEMOTH - thank you fans for a successful tour, announce tour for autumn 2016!
  6. ↑ a b Alexandra Michels: Rock Hard : Behemoth: Wiesbaden concert canceled after NSBM allegations against MGLA
  7. ↑ Nana: REVENGE announce European tour with MGLA. Burnyourears.de, December 5, 2018, accessed April 26, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Mirko Pidde: Mgła release new album "Age Of Excuse". Metal.de , September 3, 2019, accessed September 6, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Metal1.info : Interview: MasseMord
  10. ↑ Lords of the Nightrealm : Interview: Infernal War
  11. ↑ Keefy: Ghost Cult Mag : Infernal War Streaming “Transfigure”
  12. ↑ skug | MUSIC CULTURE | Brown gray area. May 5, 2019, accessed on August 29, 2019 (German).
  13. ↑ Marc S .: Time for Metal : Hell Over Hammaburg 2016 on March 4th / 5th, 2016 in the Markthalle, Hamburg
  14. ↑ Martin Bernstein: "Xenophobia and historical revisionism have gained a foothold". Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 26, 2019, accessed on April 26, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b right-wing extremist? Mgła gigs canceled due to supporting act Deus Mortem. Metal Hammer , April 29, 2019, accessed April 29, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Accusations of anti-Semitism: Excitement before metal concert in Greller Forelle. DerStandard.de , April 29, 2019, accessed on April 29, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Mgła - "Don't be an asshole" . In: Götz Kühnemund, Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann (ed.): Deaf Forever . No. 32 . In Dubio Pro Metal Verlags- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Dortmund, S. 22-24 .
  18. ↑ a b c Froewe, Cosmogonos: Metalnews.de : INTERVIEW - M. von Mgla ( Memento from March 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ^ Stephan Möller: Metal.de : Mgła - Exercises in Futility Critique
  20. ↑ Alex M .: Stormbringer.at : Mgła - Exercises in Futility Critique
  21. ↑ Ulf Poschardt: Welt Online : Negative Dialektik: Why Black Metal is the sound of the hour
  22. ^ Andy O'Connor: Pitchfork Media : Mgła - Exercises in Futility Critique