Mind Prisoner - 3:33 - Song Review - Ambient Black Metal from Portland, USA
The day after sleepless nights usually makes life very complicated. Another Saturday evening here in the Helsinki prison, I am writing about a song that has the right climate for the reality around. Mind Prisoner, an orchestration of a mysterious duo from Portland, explores the depths of ambient, atmospheric black metal soundscapes with glory. The song playing in my ears is their most recent single, "3:33," released only yesterday, April 5th, 2024.
Mind Prisoner - 3:33 - Official Video. Video produced by @crippledxwings. "Mind Prisoner is an American duo born in 2020 in Portland, OR, delivering a haunting kind of blackened doom blended with some industrial touches and keyboards, the classiness of post-punk and DSBM, with the aggressiveness of death metal, gazing post-black and the heaviness of sludge. A unique and immersive sound capturing lyrical themes such as misery, isolation, melancholy…"
Although Mind Prisoner has been releasing music only since 2022, they most certainly distinguish themselves with their established preferences in this song. From my perspective, it is the foundational work that makes the Mind Prisoner concept special among many other fantastic qualities.
Musically, "3:33" is progressive to an extent that it also qualifies the song as progressive metal, along with doom metal influences, while the main focus maintains the early black metal soundscapes, supporting the idea with all the vintageness in the sound design and production. First and foremost, I am having a great experience listening to the detailed work, such as the dialogues and atmospheric elements, capturing my attention every single time the dialogue of that charismatic voice appears. In my argument, the song qualifies itself as a promising one in the vintage black metal world yet with an open-minded perspective. As mentioned earlier, Mind Prisoner has an established sound that brought back memories from the early Burzum records with its understanding of ambient music.
Additionally, the song has a dynamic climate that doesn’t necessarily move away from dark climates, yet varies greatly with its story well represented by the music. You hear sections from doom, technical, black, as well as progressive, atmospheric, and death metal territories incorporated altogether, yet this time in various tempos. The collective, in this way, even though the music belongs to just two minds, shows impressive potential, together with their perspective, a flawless representation of great-sounding vintage black metal to me, deserving credit for its depth of layered work.
Technically, I think the music was well balanced in a way that I personally enjoy listening to the most from the black metal world. It has all the old-school early black metal eeriness in it, representing all the necessary evilness and darkness, on the other hand, supporting the idea by keeping vocals not as the highlighted element, which reminded me of "Filosofem." The entire concept was given life by another artist sitting in the engineer/producer's chair who knows what he is doing.
On the other side of the coin, I do not have anything in mind to share. I liked listening to their sound, progressive composition, powerful instrumentation, sound character, as well as their visuals and artworks, drawing a band image you'd want to wear their merchandise.
In conclusion, my discovery of Mind Prisoner has been a great pleasure, most certainly a hot prospect from Portland, Oregon. A progressive journey in contemporary ambient black metal soundscapes with all the vintageness in its character; one of the contender sounds from their dark world. Thank you for reading.
Mind Prisoner on the Web:
Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 12, 2022
