It’s been awhile since we heard anything from Danish industrial metal group Mnemic. After the release of Mnemesis in 2012, the band did some touring around Europe, but then went silent in December 2013. Even the band’s Facebook page was quiet, with the last update taking place on December 27th.
That all changed this morning, when guitarist and sole remaining founding member Mircea Gabriel Eftemie took to Facebook to announce that the band was going on hiatus. After giving some history on the band’s growth and development, the announcement states the following:
…Fact is, people and situations change, and going through multiple line-up changes, not being able to generate an income from music and struggling to survive, so did the vision change.
I will never be bankrupt on creativity but my personal taste in music has also changed over the years. I am not interested in sparkling clean productions and Djenty polyrhythmic one-stringed riffing, flavored with melodic choruses. I have written this type of music for over a decade, and to put it simply, I am sick and tired of it. To be completely honest I really dislike the Djent genre, because no matter how extremely talented these musicians and bands are, no one can write a good song, and they all sound the same – at least to me. I am also pretty sure we have regressed as a band (or musicians), if some do consider us part of the Djent genre?
In conclusive, to everyone I have met, that have been asking, and anyone else wondering, all I can say is that there are no shows planned, no new music or a new album in the making. Why? Because there is no artistic vision any longer, and my heart is no longer into this music. I hunger for raw power, simplicity, and good songs. That is also why I thrive in a new formation called BLOOD EAGLE – check it out, its death metal, it sounds nothing like Mnemic.
It’s a dynamic world and change is the only constant, if you do not continue to innovate or shift out, you will be out of the game. In other words, so is Mnemic, therefore this is either a hiatus or a break-up. Only time will tell if we will get back together with the old or new line-up to make music again.
The update contains the usual thank you’s and other pleasantries as well. You can read the full text of it here.
However, the band might not be unified in this opinion. After Eftemie updated the band’s page with his post, vocalist Guillaume Bideau quickly took to his own Facebook and wrote the following:
What Mircea wrote on the Mnemic FB page belongs to him. The band is on a Hiatus but NOT dead unless the band decides of this which is NOT the case yet. So yes we are on a Hiatus but Mircea, without asking the band’s opinion, just posted something on the Mnemic page that he should have posted on HIS OWN personal FB page. His feelings about music are completely respectable and I sure share some of them but these feelings are HIS OWN feelings and therefore have nothing to do on the band’s page because they might not represent the feeling of the whole band. No bad feelings, we all make mistakes, but it’s just to clear a little things out. So please stop writing me about Mnemic’s death or whatever for now.
While it does suck to have to go on hiatus and to be dissatisfied with the music you’re making, the band needs to get on the same page about this and make a unified decision when the hiatus is over. On the one hand, Eftemie has every right to dislike the direction that the band and metal music are taking, and if he doesn’t want to continue on that road, that’s fine. On the other hand, if the rest of the band wants to continue on with the current direction after their hiatus, they should be given the chance to voice that opinion as well, and possibly continue with Mnemic if they wish.
Regardless, the people behind Mnemic are still actively making music in other forms. Eftemie has his aforementioned project Blood Eagle, and Bideau’s group One-Way Mirror is getting ready to release its third album. So while waiting for updates about Mnemic’s future, you can enjoy these projects. We wish them all the best in whatever they choose to do going forward.
