Vehemency On their second full-length offering Mithra, French Caldera delivers rather intriguing, repetitive, murky doom metal that meets with the climaxes of post-metal progressions, and all this wholly instrumental. The album consists of two tracks that run for over 15 minutes a piece, creating a fitting total playing time for a style that could easily turn into boredom.

But luckily Mithra is far from anything tiresome, though it does require an acquired taste. If you can’t handle chorus-free music without constant twists, Mithra is a dead end. But for me, a lover of repetition - thanks to many hypnotizing black metal albums - and purely instrumental music - thanks to a bunch of great post-rock albums - this record is a great listen. Starting calmfully with ”Lithogenitvs”, the song soon after builds up to simple yet addictive distorted guitar lines with steady drum beats behind, and after a while I’m surprised the song already fades out. ”Sacrificivm” continues then, with a tad more discordance in the melody department, at times reminding me of the lunacy of Deathspell Omega, yet never being technically challenging or fast at all.

Mithra is, all in all, a mesmerizing album that might not be entirely original, but a very fine album that requires close attention; otherwise it could turn into worthless background noise. The production here is full sounding, all instruments well in the picture. Good running time with adventurous music and no annoying features whatsoever makes an album that doesn’t change my life but what will receive listens from me fairly frequently now. Mithra is a recommended piece for post-metal fans who enjoy slow tempos and doomy sound.