Time Signature Symphonic visions of madness...

Genre: symphonic Gothic metal / melodic black metal

Formed in 2000, the Finnish act Mirzadeh probably qualify as veterans now. Desired Mythic Pride is their third full-length effort, and they also have a number of underground releases under their belt. Desired Mythic Pride lyrically deals with life and reality (and myth) of ancient Finland, which is definitely a concept that is intriguing in its own right.

Musically, the album falls somewhere between melodic black metal, Gothic metal, and symphonic metal. The record is teeming with melody, and virtually every song contains layers of keyboards on top of the more traditional metal instrumentation, and this adds a symphonic and epic effect which definitely suits the lyrical theme of the album. While there are elements of black metal in the form of some well-timed blastbeat-and-tremolo sections, the music on Desired Mythic Pride - bar the symphonic element – actually has more in common with dark power metal than both black metal and "standard" Gothic metal. A good example of this is 'Myrkkymieli'. In fact, the primary black metal aspect of this album is Mirox's screechy vocals. The album is neatly concluded with 'Rise with Norther Witchcraft', which pretty much summarizes all the stylistic elements on the album.

The production is crisp and pristine, as it should be. A kvlt lo-fi production simply would not suit this kind of music. The musicianship is also quite impressive in terms of its tightness and precision. As mentioned Mirox provides your typical harsh black metal screeched, and these are combined with growls and clean singing. I really like his clean singing voice, which reminds me of a more powerful version of a Danish singer-songwriter called C.V. Jørgensen.

Despite all its attractive points, this album is, at the end of the day, not quite my cup of tea. I acknowledge Mirzadeh's impeccable musicianship and songwriting skills, but the epic and symphonic elements just do not work for me, and I can think of artists, such as Dimmu Borgir, and Carach Angren, that are much more successful at combining black metal and Gothic metal with the symphonic approach. I think that this album would probably have been more up my alley, had the keyboards been completely absent and had Mirox stuck to his clean singing voice.

Still, if you like melodic black metal and Gothic metal with epic and symphonic elements, then I definitely recommend that you give Desired Mythic Pride a listen; it does have a lot of good things to offer, and the competent musicianship and professionalism of Mirzadeh cannot be overestimated.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)