Ethereal can our devotions be to another life, and equally so are Missouri's own Mirrorcell. Formed in 2022, the nu-metal & grunge-infused band is a newer prospect in the modern music world, inspired by late 90s and modern metal bands such as Deftones, Loathe, and Code Orange — they're as self-reflective as their name (a "mirror cell" being an enclosed space containing a mirror, i.e., a bathroom, dressing room, or personal space). Releasing their newest song, "Otherside" ft. Moodring (Atlanta-based nu-alternative band), the track is dreamlike and heavy and pays homage to the genre's predecessors with a modern edge.
From the start, we're blasted with these heavily down-tuned guitars and bouncing drums, paired with stylized natural harmonic notes — the riff then does a catch and release of itself before slamming it into you again. As a guitar player, I'm ecstatic to find nu-metal-inspired guitar parts that aren't just basic power chords and have intricate note choices. I'm already impressed, and the vocals haven't even come in yet. The track quietens, and in this soul search, filled with dampened drums and electronics, we hear the voice and frontman of the band, Nate Cell, who delivers soft-sung verses of human connection in lucid form. Hitting an impressive and catchy chorus demonstrates he came strapped with an effective vocal toolkit — the man can damn sure sing and plays around with his range with fluidity. The group made me think immediately if New Orleans' metalcore act Cane Hill had Chino Moreno (Deftones/Crosses †††) as a vocalist and frontman. In my opinion, an artist' effectiveness is gauged by how immersed the audience becomes when exposed to their work, and Mirrorcell aims to weave our soul into theirs. I personally tend to lean into the more bleak and harsher-filled worlds of music, but some bands like this brush against the more tender veins of oneself.
"I Want To Go Where / I Have Been Searching / All My Life"
In this first half, "Otherside" is shown as vivid and loose before becoming visceral and demanding. The track hits this effect-layered guitar solo that feels like the musical equivalent of finally letting go of something; it feels like the climax and highlight of the track, the revelation, before it turns on its head. Oh yeah, this baby gets heavy! Lashing out with harsh vocals and a killer beatdown riff and drums, my head mentally snapped from a sense of soul longing to a sense of assaulting the nearest person next to me in a venue. I attempt to keep my articles purely objective and cerebral, but I was surprised to have been shown such well-articulated and constructed vocal melodies and instrumentals and then to be shoved into the proving grounds. These guys have this versatility and capability to create several soundscapes within a singular track, and that's a unique feat in itself. There's an edge to it that doesn't sound like it's copying older nu-metal and grunge but rather choosing to recalibrate it.
On the release of the new single, Nate Cell comments:
"'Otherside' opens the soul and threads it back together, asking the question, 'Would you follow me into the dark?' I wanted to create a throwback to early 90’s-00’s nu-metal, grunge, and rock."
Mirrorcell has a theme of vintage, gritty, and filmic imagery—shown alongside the "Otherside" music video. Starting with a television with an old-school Game Boy-inspired load-up screen of their band name (if you don't know what that looks like, you kids just had to be there) before taking us through a car ride and performance blurred in green-themed distortion.
The group, within three short years, has already amassed a following with a catalogue of tracks, an EP, a collaboration track with anonymous member Cyber Metal group DarkNet (a personal favorite group of mine), and also was signed to Invogue Records. These guys skipped the band crawl phase and are sprinting. Nate, alongside co-writers Caleb Freihaut (The Funeral Portrait) and Ben McGuiness (Landon Towers, Emarosa, and Waterparks), has constructed a sound that's vivid in its imagery, lucid in its longing, and weighted in its introspection while making callbacks to late 90's and 2000's predecessors.
Catch Mirrorcell live on August 23rd in Kansas City, MO, alongside Legalize Homicide, Billy, Cauterized, Siilk, and God Talk:
@mirrorcell.tv
