In Disgust We Most Certainly Trust!
Mistress, hailing from Birmingham have received much praise from UK magazines recently, one in particular describing as 'a 300 pound hillbilly about to smash your head in with a crowbar': they were not wrong.
'II: The Chronovisor' starts off with a brutal track entitled 'Rat Piss' greeting us with a wonderful doom metal riff accompanied by some pounding drumming, a fine opener. 'Psychic One Inch Punch' is much faster and heading more towards the grindcore side of things rather than doom. 'Goatboy' is more similar to the opening track however. This album is, basically, brutality recorded onto cd and neatly packaged! This album is what it would be like to be tortured in hell for fifty minutes (in the writer's opinion, this is a good thing), there are no moments where the band decided to stop and slow down for a bit apart from the amazing track I haven't mentioned, a thirteen minute doom epic entitled '38', this song is great, check this out if you are a fan of Raging Speedhorn, otherwise this is like being hit against a wall all the way through. There are also two bonus covers on this album, 'In the Shadow of the Horns', originally by Darkthrone and 'Like Broken Glass' originally by Crowbar; the band serves them extremely well.
Mistress are slowly gathering a name up for themselves in the UK, having recently supported underground legends such as Electric Wizard, Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death and more recently, black metal legends Mayhem, one day, maybe some of the bands just mentioned may even be supporting them, but who knows what the future holds for this band as two of the members are often busy with their other band, Anaal Nathrakh.
The production is what you would expect for typical doom, sorry to sound harsh, but it sounds as dirty as fuck! And the band aren't too bad themselves, they have enough talent to recreate the awesome sound that is doom/sludge to say the very least.
If you like downright, dirty, no-thrills doom/sludge/grind metal then 'II : The Chronovisor' is almost certainly the album for you, this is a prime, modern example of the genre Mistress represent, a must for fans of Raging Speedhorn, Crowbar and Electric Wizard.