viseMènn – Begging You Please

By Conor Fynes on October 24, 2015

With the opening notes of “Begging You Please”, I was almost convinced I was hearing another blackgaze band a la Alcest from Norway’s viseMènn. Hazy guitars and a warm organ in the background brought to mind that, and a hundred other comparisons. Were they evoking Pink Floyd or Mew? Were they distilling atmospheric metal to its most mellowed out basics and adding in vocals for good measure? viseMènn haven’t quite been striking onto their own with some trailblazing new sound here, but it only takes hearing one song of theirs to know they really ‘get it.’

viseMènn met one another through a prior group, the improvisational rock band a Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn. While the Floydian threads in the band’s music make sense in the context of their past, I was surprised how focused the band sounds with this song. Keeping in mind a single is usually chosen for its to-the-point qualities and catch-factor, I think “Begging You Please” paints viseMènn as a band that is confident enough in their skills to play within the strict context of a song, rather than needlessly bloating the time with improvising. viseMènn‘s talents are plain to see here, but “Begging You Please” only really serves to highlight the band’s vocals. Frontman Helge Corneliussen has a very modern voice, in key with bands like Mew, Muse, Radiohead– you know the type. The gentle falsetto he hits with the song’s cleverly subdued chorus is surprisingly memorable from the very start.

As a single, viseMènn definitely know how to pick a song that sets them apart. It’s rock at some of its most atmospheric and mellowed. The song snugly matches those categories, and it gives a remarkably clear view of the approach viseMènn want to take with their music. Even so, it’s always great to see a band choosing a single that doesn’t necessarily try to fit the expected mould for a hit. If this is any indicator, we’re bound to hear some great things from the south of Norway sometime soon.