Myrath "Tales of The Sand" Review

   

     This is the sound of the sand transcribed into the language of metal. As soon as the first track starts and you hear the melancholic singing of a woman; the synths come and and finally the guitars transport you to a world of traditional power metal combined with Arabian atmosphere. When the rest of the album wraps around you like a dust storm in the desert you are hooked. This album is fun, it's progressive and it's simply good. Take the music of Symphony X or Kamelot, change the theme and you get Myrath's Tales of The Sand.

     Myrath is a progressive power metal band from Magreb, a region located in north Africa to the northwest of Egypt. The band was formed in 2001 under the name Xtasy when the founder and lead guitarist, Malek Ben Arbia, was only 13 years old. They honed their skills by playing Death and Symphony X covers for years before they finally released their debut album “Hope” under the name Myrath in September of 2007. The music that they play is a blend of traditional power metal in the vein of Symphony X embodied in Arabian atmosphere.

     The songs are sung by Zeher in a mixture of Arabic and English, adding a lot of diversity to the vocal delivery. Zeher himself has a really wide range, able to caress the highest notes with ease and using his accent to add another layer of Arabian atmosphere. The subject matter is a mix of myth and legend; there are songs about pirates, love, anger, and self-loathing. The song “Merciless Times” is about self-loathing and waiting too long to accomplish what you want to do in life. It's also the first single and one of the strongest tracks on the album along with “Sour Sigh” “Wide Shut” and “Beyond The Stars.” If your looking for a track to listen to before making a purchasing decision I would choose “Wide Shut” as I think it shows most of what makes the band so special.

     The best aspects of the album are the way that they integrate traditional Arabic oriental sounds with modern power metal riffs; the sparingly but excellent use of synth's and strings; and the lead singers varied and beautiful vocals. These three aspects really work together in concert to create what makes this band so unique and special. There are other bands based around similar material such as Ophaned Land, but Myrath take the sound in a much different direction. Preferring fun and fantasy to the Elegance that Orphand Land provides.

     The only fault that I can really provide is that at times things get a bit too traditional and they lose their grip on what makes them really stand out. It doesn't happen often enough to really become much of a bother but it's still worth mentioning. There are also moments, particulary on the final song “Time to Grow,” that veer dangerously close the Bon-Jovi like metal of groups like Solution 45. Other than those few minor complaints I cannot find much else to fualt. Every song has something unique and interesting and while it might not push the genre forward the band does a great job intigrating their influences and Arabian sound.  

Obsidian Kingdom 3:11

Obsidian Kingdoms 3:11 is all about atmosphere. Each of the songs evokes it's own creepy little world where bass guitars and pounding drums hide in our closets and under our beds, ready to leap out and pounce on unsuspecting metal heads with their own brand of thematic progressive blackened metal. That is a lot of descriptors all at once. A better and easier description would be that it takes the heavy atmosphere of doom metal acts similar to Daylight Dies and injects some progressive and death metal elements. They are not doing anything particularly new, but it doesn't matter. What is here is loud, creepy, epic, and a perfect reminder of things to come from this band in the future.

The best parts about the album are when all of the different elements actually combine together using some type of black magic that instills in them a power that can be hard to describe. The drums pick up, the guitars are screeching, the vocalist is screaming, and there you were bobbing your head and thinking that this was all going a different direction. It's terrifying and at times a very beautiful thing.

The album is not trying to be a constant massacre however, it's all about art and atmosphere; which, as I have praised an incredible amount by now, is the bands greatest strength. There are times when all you can hear is the drums mimicking a heartbeat while the guitar gently weeps in the background or when they all come together in a suffocating mix that you just cannot seem to get away from.

All of the lyrics revolve around events of which this character that they are narrating for seems to have little chance of escape. The first song “Prey” is pretty self explanitory. There is something chasing you, it wants you, but you cannot get away no matter how hard you try. “Maze,” my favorite of the three, seems to be about a person that cannot escape himself, lose in a maze of self loathing and resentment. He doesn't know who he is or what he wants. “Solitude” seems to continue on from Maze in some way and is about this person that willing lives inside of himself. He doesn't know how to escape but he wants to escape this solitude that he has place himself in.

“I’m trapped inside
With my thoughts behind glass walls
I can only hear
The sound of my own voice
Why did I sow
the dark seeds of solitude?
I never want
To harvest its strange flowers”

The lyrics themselves are very well done, I love the Lovecraftian and Allen Poe imagery that is all over the place on every song. They are full of objective meaning and imagery that people will be able to relate to in different ways. They are always about loss and loneliness, the things that people do to themselves to hurt themselves and the situations that we place ourselves in.

I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed this EP. I cannot help but listen to over and over. The songs are paced nearly perfect with proper buildup in all of the right places. The vocalist does both singing and screaming although I honestly prefer the screaming because his accent is sometimes laughable but he's not terrible. I'm sure that in time he will gather a better singing voice that will be able to fit right along with the atmosphere.

Although this album is not perfect, it's close enough that I feel comfortable giving it as high a praise as I can and telling you guys that you must download this as soon as possible. It's free on their band camp page, just like their original release. So there is no excuse if your into black or doom

Arcturus The Sham Mirrors Review

Arcturus was a lightning strike on the metal world. It his, there massive and unique sound rumbled forth, and then they were gone having left their mark on the world. The sad truth is that we will likely never see another band like them again because the world of music seems to have a thing against individuality. These were my thoughts while sitting here and writing this review. Sham Mirrors was my first Arcturus album, it grabbed and pushed me to look further into their discography and continues to this day to remind me of why Arcturus was such a beast in the metal world.

Arcturus's music has always been of a diverse sort. With each new release they seem to take sounds and styles from all over and incorporate them into their own music to create something that is at times familiar but also entirely there own. The one thing that stands out with this release when compared with their others is the shift in focus to a more progressive sound with a sci-fi theme wrapped around it that helps to create some entirely unique soundscapes where you will never hear the same thing twice.

The one thing that I stress is that, as with every other release by the band, you need to come into it with an open mind. This is not a group that is content with one specific sound and they are more then willing to switch it up between styles to fit whatever mood that they are trying to create. Examples of this are the songs Radical cut which shows evidence of symphonic black metal that hearkens back to their first full length as well as bits of electronica and progressive. It is also the only track to feature screaming because of there now almost complete focus on clean vocals. Then there are songs like Ab Absurden which is almost strictly Avant Gard with bits of progressive thrown in for good measure. You never know what you are going to get with this album and I'm not going to spoil it for you. If you like how things sound so far I recommend grabbing this immediately.

The diversity in the songs brings me to another bit about this release that I really enjoy. Every song feels like it's own tightly made experience with it's own ups and downs. You never get that feeling that you have heard this before and you always know exactly what song you are listening to. The only time you will be lost is when you are being mesmerized by an amazing solo, check out "For To End Again, or when you are mentally swimming through a haunting atmospheric section as in "Nightmare Heaven" but then, it's a very good thing to be. As long as you are open to many different types of metal and music period, you will always be having a good time.

If you want a few tracks to listen to to see if The Sham Mirrors is worth your cash here are a few I recommend; "Kinetic" because of the excellent opening and it's general showcase of the huge scope and sound that the band brings to the table. I also recommend Nightmare Heaven because of the great atmosphere that it creates and "For To End Again" for basically giving you a bit of everything that makes this album a joy to listen to again and again.

There you have it, if you are a fan of many different types of metal or are just a metal fan period you owe it to yourself to at least give this a chance to sink in. It is a fun and varied listen that will give you back much more then you will have to give. I found absolutely no fault in it and really do think that in time this will be seen as a classic. Download it, buy it, borrow it, the fact is is that if you are a metal fan then you need to sit down, shut up, and listen.

(so what did you think of my first review? I haven't written one in a long time and want to become a music journalist so it would be really helpful if someone could give me some tips.)

The First Metal Post

This is my first Metal blog so that makes this my first official "Metal" post so I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 23 years old, I'm not a college student(yet), I don't have a car, and I still live with my parents. I guess if you squint your eyes a little bit I could be the most metal dude under 23 whom ever lived. I didn't get into metal until I was about 18 and it was mostly because of a Drowning Pool video and my dads hatred for the Genre. He would rather me live out my whole life not knowing the black devilish music that is metal and have kept me from being the totally hip metal dudster that I am today.

In all honestly though, I'm not here to talk about daddy issues, I'm here to talk about metal. After my run in with the now admittedly terrible Drowning Pool I began my search for something a bit rougher around the edges until I finally came upon my first true metal band in a record store, In Flames. As I listened through the dirty, probably shouldn't be using, and probably lice infested which totally makes them metal, record store headphones, the sounds poured over and in that moment my musical Identity would be forever changed. After years of listening to punk and alternative music like Bad Religion (still one of my favorite bands by the way) and Breaking Benjamin(awful, awful music by the way), I finally found what I knew was missing in my life. The power of metal!

So after that probably skipped over story about how I discovered metal you are probably sitting there thinking, "Is this dude the real deal or some poser who only thinks he gets metal?", and I wouldn't blame you. I guess the only way I'm going to show some of you is by posting and talking about metal that is actually....good? Hopefully giving some of the people who might read this some decent if not totally metal recommendations? Yes I will also be using the word metal a lot to make the posts a lot more metal and hopefully every time you hear the word you will think of me just a little bit...maybe?....No? I guess we will see.

Like pretty much every other lame metal blogger I'm going to start off with a Metal of the month article, If I can keep myself from forgetting to do it. I'm a little bit of a procrastinator you see. In the next few days I'll try to tell you all about the album that's really been getting me off lately so you can judge and see if I am up to snuff in the metal world. Don't worry, it's not Avenged Sevenfold or that other group of eyeliner wearing douches that every non-metal lover totally thinks is metal, oh wait, they are one and the same. See, I can be funny too!!