Misanthropia

After releasing a debut LP five years ago, Hungarian one-man band Jégzivatar has a new EP out, proudly touted as atmospheric black metal done without a keyboard. Adrian Penzes gets away with this by careful production, judicious dubbing-in of sound effects, and some especially moody guitar work. It's got some demo-ish roughness to the sound, but it's a good listen. The overall atmosphere recalls dripping woods more than frozen plains. Punctuated by somber clean plucking, the tracks' black metal riffs are turned down in the mix and mixed with the bass in such a way that they turn into a black syrup of sound whenever they're not clean. Lelkek ösvényén has the guitars groaning in agony, layered on top of an abrasive distortion on top of what is likely a drum machine; Penzes is a guitarist first and foremost, and though he's willing to sacrifice his clearly strong technical abilities at times for the sake of atmosphere, he'll also rip out a solo on a few of the tracks as well. There's an energetic undercurrent on a few of the songs, such as the title track, but overall, this is an introspective set of songs. Reminding me of some of the early demo work of Mithotyn, Misanthropia makes for a good listen on a rainy day.