Album Review: Une Misère – Sermon

Mum’s Gone To Iceland!

Not quite my friends, just watching patiently to see an awe-inspiring natural event emerge from the Icelandic hinterlands and into my humble inner-city abode. Take a pew folks and bow down to the new gods for the damaged and the despondent. Even the tour sounds positively scrumptious, ‘commiserate with us’  I mean yes please! There are twelve verses in this chapter, and each one deeper, darker than the one before. 

It is a ‘Sermon’ for the converted and the perverted, it has a smash and grab thrash attitude, with timely subtle interludes that hold your hand as if to rescue you but in fact mercilessly drop you into the abyss. Tales of sorrow and woe are the central themes here, but there is a beauty in the bleakness. The single bloom that awakens a barren wilderness, A peculiar warmth envelopes you, as you stand alone on the windswept hills; shiver a little but it’s nothing ominous. Une Misère are troubled, but we care, so we share the ‘Sin & Guilt’ and dive headfirst into this cavernous concoction. Brings back memories of early Slipknot, a violent, aggressive outing that is powerfully arranged and executed, but there is a light flickering in the gloom.

An angelic, poetic introduction belies the suffering therein, maybe why the song is called ‘Overlooked-Disregarded’ as it is too painful an experience to recall and pollute your already broken mind. We are ‘Burdened-Suffering’ yet still accept an invitation to ‘sink into darkness’, why wouldn’t we? That’s where all the fun is, and it is also where the Damien dog latches on at 1.17 in ‘Fallen Eyes’ and mauls you into the next century.

Our ‘Failures’ are condensed into a painfully exquisite 2.49 and we are repulsed at ‘the fucking sight of you’ only to experience further distress. We are ‘Beaten’ into a ‘Grave’- all 36 seconds of it-  that is not of our making, our pitiful ‘Offering’ would never suffice and we ‘Spiral’ out of control, out of sorts and out of our minds.

The pounding drums on ‘Beaten’ allow for a more anxiety driven and anxiety ridden overture, as if we haven’t been tested enough.

Life, by its very nature, gives us despair and hardship living cheek by jowl with grace and prepossession, so this record delivers the best of both worlds. 

And through it all, in spite of it all I remain ‘Voiceless’. 


Une Misère – Sermon out now via Nuclear Blast Records