Review: MIGHT ‘Might’
The weird thing about sticking a load of reverb on a recording is that while the effect is to try and create space sonically, the emotional impact on the listener is often to create a sense of intimacy. It’s like someone whispering in your ear. Hannover duo MIGHT are likely aware of this little audio trick and aren’t afraid to use it to their own ends on their debut self titled album.
From the get go bassist and vocalist Ana Muhi uses just the right amount, of the effect in question, to make it feel like she’s sidled up to tell you something she wants you to listen closely to, but that it might just leave you feeling on edge: ‘it’s you and me and our return to dust’ she intones on Pollution Of Mind, a track that early on sticks out with a propulsive charge, like a heartbeat, where the guitars and drums lock in to one giant pulse. It’s the sound of a getaway car barrelling along a back road late at night with Muhi in the passenger seat calmly navigating.
Muhi and multi instrumentalist Sven Missulis have assembled a very compelling debut collection, one that leads down some unexpected alleys throughout. Through a combination of those aforementioned cascading drums and down tuned guitars that have just the right amount of grit, they’ve imbued their sound with a late-night feel. It’s undeniably heavy too; witness the straight up doom workout of Possession and the unexpected flurries of thrashing rage in Weirdo Waltz (A song which starts like Bölzer and ends up sounding like Thalia Zedek covering Mars Red Sky) and Zero if you just want sheer power. A bluesy heaviness is at the heart of their sound, but certainly not the extent of their motivation.
A dark nocturnal gem of a debut that reeks of cigarette smoke and fading headlights, a kind of Rock Noir if you will…
No , what makes MIGHT such an interesting proposition, what leaves the listener with a sense that they’ll be worth continuing to keep on the radar, is their willingness to paint with various shades of dark colour. To have an album where those moments of heft sit comfortably next to the cinematic melancholy of the windswept (literally) Flight Of Fancy or the dread inducing moan of Mrs. Poise without it sounding disjointed is no mean feat. This band know that a sense of calm can be just as chilling as a blood curdling screams, and in many ways there’s a feeling that something is about to bubble up to the surface and swallow you – but that they aren’t quite willing to let the demons inside get out just yet.
There are different textures and moods throughout. An air of gloom permeates them all admittedly, but there’s a sense that MIGHT have already developed a knack for articulacy in their music. This is not a band that are going to beat us to death with the same fucking Sabbath riff over and over again for the next few years, it’s the groundwork for what will no doubt be an interesting and thorny path.
A dark nocturnal gem of a debut that reeks of cigarette smoke and fading headlights, a kind of Rock Noir if you will. Perhaps too tense for the stoner crowd, too bluesy for fans of the sludge crowd, and too heavy for the shoegazing goth types, MIGHT have put themselves in a singular dark corner of the musical map. But it’s one that’s well worth exploring.
Label: Exile On Mainstream Records
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp
Scribed by: Jamie Grimes
