Mnemic - The Audio Injected Soul

Band: Mnemic

Album: The Audio Injected Soul

Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Release: 2004

Length: 45 minutes

Tracks: 11

Country of Origin: Denmark

                             

I briefly mentioned Mnemic in my previous review on Soilwork’s masterpiece “Figure Number Five” so I felt the need to make my next review all about them, since they are sometimes left out of the list of great melodic death metal bands, and I feel that needs to be corrected.

Mnemic is a Danish Melodeath band founded in the early nineties, but didn’t get their full debut album, Mechanical Spin Phenomena, released until late 2003.  A year later, the band released this, their second album and last with singer Michael Bøgballe, whom I will from now on refer to as Michael because Bøgballe is a pain to continuously copy-and-paste and I frankly am not sure how to even pronounce his name correctly.  After this album, Michael left the band and went on to sing with lesser-known hard rock band Smaxone, whom I recommend to anyone that likes any hard rock, particularly their song “Go Back.”  New singer Guillaume Bideau joined Mnemic not long after and has so far sung on three full albums for the band, including their latest release earlier this year.  It is a common debate with fans of bands that are in Mnemic’s position about who is the best Mnemic singer.  I myself came into Mnemic after Michael had already left and went back after getting more into them to see what they used to sound like, and honestly, not much is different.  Michael and Bideau have very similar singing styles but they are different enough that it is easy to tell one from another, unlike Scar Symmetry who lost Christian Alvestam and replaced him with two singers that sound exactly like him (even though I am a giant fan of the band to this day, I must be honest).  The real difference lies in how experienced one they sound.  When I first listened to Passenger (an album with Bideau singing), I could’ve sworn that the band was relatively new, since the singer sounded like he was new to the scream & clean combo that is a staple of the genre.  When I go back to MSP, the actual debut for both Mnemic and Michael, Michael makes it sound like he had been doing this for many years, that it comes natural for him, kind of like Anders in In Flames.  So when I am asked the question as to what Mnemic is the best, it is a hard decision but I usually go for Michael-era Mnemic, just for the intensity and natural feel of MSP, and to a lesser degree, this album.

Enough about Michael, the real consistency Mnemic had through all of their albums lied in the stings of the dual guitarists, Rune and Mircea.  These two RULED the stages they played and the albums they played on, ensuring no song went without significant contribution from their end.  This is why I am also not much a fan of their latest release, the first without Rune.  Even though a new guitarist, Victor, took his place, it just didn’t have the same feel as the two men who started and built the band from nothing, most of the beats relied on Bideau and the new Bassist, Simone.  If you haven’t noticed, I have been dancing around the issue a bit, and that is the fact that this album fell from the heights Mnemic set with MSP.

I do enjoy this album, very much in fact, but differently than any other Mnemic album because it seems that Michael changed from a Melodeath man to an entirely different type of monster, one that combined bits of Mushroomhead, Ill Nino, and L.D. 50-era Mudvayne to create the new Mnemic sound.  This is very apparent on the songs “Sane VS Normal,” “Illuminate” and “Overdose in the Hall of Fame.”  In these, Michael will switch between the deep growl-type speaking reminiscent of some Mushroomhead songs, the clear singing which sounds exactly like a lot of Ill Nino’s hits and the screaming of Mudvayne, particularly that found in “Dig” and “Severed.”  In the previous album, and particularly their single “Ghost,” Michael had his own sound that I honestly cannot compare because itr is so different and so styalistically his it would be ignorant to try to compare it to anything outside of Melodeath bands who built their sound on MSP.  Michael also strangely focused on the clean parts of his singing for this album as well, a stark contrast to the scream-focused singing in MSP and most of Mnemic’s work to follow.  In essence, this seemed like a straight commercial release, one that followed on the coattails of successful Melodeath bands who were changing their ways like Soilwork and In Flames, who went more Melodic a couple years prior.  There are enjoyable parts of this album though, especially since this is the first album in the WORLD (yes, this is a true fact) to be recorded using Bonaural recording technology, which makes the listener actually feel as though the sound is coming from all around them when listening to it through speakers, stereos or headphones instead of from just one or two sources.  They only used this on two tracks, “The Audio Injection” and “Deathbox,” but it really is a fantastic experience and makes the tracks even more explosive when pumped up to 11.  For those fans of Duran Duran, first: why are you here? And second: they have an obligatory inclusion of a cover version of Wild Boys, which is very well done and I believe surpasses the original, but then again, we are talking about comparing Mnemic and Duran Duran.  A little difficult to compare.  Other enjoyable tracks include “Dreamstate Emergency” (my favorite), “Door 2.12” and “Mindsaver,” all of which encapsulate their new sound very well, which may be a plus or minus for you, depending on what you are looking for.

All in all, The Audio Injected Soul is a very good album, however it has its downisdes and I cannot honestly say that Mnemic progressed when releasing this only a year after MSP, which I consider to be their best album to date.  This does explain a little as to why Michael now sings for a hard rock band instead of a Melodeath band, but I will still miss his distincting yelling and screaming yelps found in most of the Mnemic songs he sang on.

My Rating: 3.9/5

Review by Diesel