Would you ever imagine a French band sounding more American than MacDonald's? No? Neither did I, but in our case MISTAKEN ELEMENT proves that there are some French guys that haven't got any hesitation to use England's mother tongue. But before our French readers get pissed off and start talking about my mother's tongue, it's better to get this started.
MISTAKEN ELEMENT started back in 1998-99 (known as SCARR back then) but it was not until 2006 they got the chance to release their debut, Engraved In Memory which was a nice Death Metalcore piece with some prog hints, or as the band liked to call it surgical modern Death. Now the band has returned with their second effort, Mind Over Matter. The band tries on this one to move a step further adding to their music a progressive approach but also somehow darker and more atmospheric.
Yes, it is more chaotic than Death Metal driven. Their brutal side is here with tracks like Lost, Mind Over Matter and Duality. On the other hand we have this chaotic/atmospheric side with more technical songs with lots of changes like My Chapter Ends, Soul For Sale and Mass Machine.
My favourite from this one is The Chosen One, a heavy mid-tempo tune with ultra-fast outbursts. The guitar work is really nice but the vocals are a little bit strange. I think Yann Ligner should sound more brutal instead of the demonic nephew of Lemmy!
Even the band is tight, even the production is quite good and heavy, able to set free all their technical abilities, the result isn't as expected. The structure of the songs is more complex than it should making it difficult to attract your attention. It's like a compilation of so many ideas the band tried to put together but didn't succeed to make them as solid as it should.
Hmm...no, this is not a bad effort...in fact if you like progressive tech-metalcore you may find it enjoyable...but the band has a lot of work ahead of them to represent something less incomplete.