Meet your new favourite gloomy Icelandic metallers, UNE MISÈRE.
This guttural, groove metal racket was forged in the barren wastelands of one of the world’s most metal countries. We were always going to get on with them
RAISED FROM THE barren landscapes of east Iceland, gloomy metallers Une Misère unleashed their debut album, Sermon, earlier this month. After a chance meeting at Iceland’s Eistnaflug metal festival, the genre-bending outfit joined forces to create a niche to suit their varied tastes.
“I’m very much into blackened hardcore and Hatebreed,” frontman and vocalist Jón Már Ásbjörnsson tells Hammer. “Our drummer’s into techno and electronic music, another’s into jazz now and there’s another into lo-fi hip hop. We bring that all together while we write because genres don’t matter to us if the music is cool and the riff is good. I’ve never understood the elitism of sticking to a genre; look at Slipknot, doing everything and still super-relevant.”
Reflected in the bleak atmosphere of their music, the isolation of their home island has dictated the band’s struggle to gain momentum as an outfit based outside mainland Europe.
“You can’t tour in Iceland; the venues are becoming fewer and fewer because the tourism industry is taking over,”
Jón reveals. “We only get 10-20 people per show if we’re lucky. If we could pack our bags today and move to Germany, things would happen for us more often and it would be much cheaper.”
Une Misère’s collective personal struggles, including addiction and suicide attempts, have created an unbreakable bond between the five members, whose band name was chosen to further express their emotional roots.
“It wasn’t until we decided this would be our escape, our catharsis, that we figured out a lot about each other,” says Jón. “I learned so much about my bandmates’ troubles, past and present, and we’ve worked through them together using music as a finalising move in getting rid of the bad feelings. It’s created a family bond as I know they have my back now and I have theirs.”
Written progressively over the last three years, Sermon is a crafted collection of singles released as music videos over time, giving each track its own identity and room to grow for both listeners and the band alike.
The video for the title track gives an honest, stark portrayal of their home country relatively unexplored by the metal world.
“We’ve become quite a visual band because music is moving away from just audio into the audio-visual,” explains their vocalist. “A lot of bands come to Iceland to film the scenery, the waterfalls and rivers, everything that’s beautiful. Nobody films the sulphur hills or desolate places we’ve found. We found a rope that had been fixed into a noose knot just lying around – somebody made it and left it there and that’s scary as shit.”
For Une Misère, the lasting impact of hearing an album is a key motivation and constant reminder of their music’s power to stop listeners in their tracks.
“Once we got the final masters of Sermon back, I listened to it non-stop while I was at the gym and it was exhilarating and empowering to say the least,” Jón beams. “All in all, that’s what I want music to give me – some sort of power or emotion, I want it to move me. When I start lifting heavier, I knew it was a good album!”
Seeping its new material into their live set, which is due to reach UK shores in January supporting Darkest Hour, the quintet’s first album is not forged for the casual metal listener but instead for those seeking an unsettling audiovisual experience.
“When people pick up Sermon, I want them to feel anxious – that’s one of the hardest feelings in the world but it’s so beautiful,” Jón explains. “You can make what you want of it and let the music speak for itself, but that feeling of not knowing might go away and it also might not.”
In the process of putting together their debut full-length, the youthful quintet learned eye-opening personal lessons that allowed them to avoid conflicts between each other and focus on the authenticity of their output.
“Honesty and the will to compromise are two of the most important things a person can carry,” says Jón. “If you don’t, you’re a stubborn liar and that doesn’t translate well into what you want to be doing for the rest of your life.
If I were to write lyrics that have nothing to do with me or my life experiences, just writing what I think people want to hear, I’ve got to chew those words into someone’s ear for the rest of my life, so that won’t create a good album. The listener always knows!”
Their rising prominence in the scene, having already shared the stage with the likes of Arch Enemy and Lamb Of God, has afforded Une Misère invaluable experiences with metal bands that inspired their sound.
“I’m still getting over the fact I went to our dressing room after our show with Lamb Of God and Randy Blythe was stood in our room holding a nonalcoholic beer,” Jón laughs. “He broke into our dressing room to say hi because we’re labelmates on Nuclear Blast. He looked at me and said, ‘Hey man, I heard what you said about being sober. Nine years over here!’ Not only is my idol standing in front of me but he’s sober like me. I was stood side-stage for the Lamb Of God set and he gave us a nice shout-out! I started crying!”
“I CRIED WHEN RANDY BLYTHE SHOUTED US OUT!”
SERMON IS OUT NOW VIA NUCLEAR BLAST