There were a number of reasons why I really wanted to get hold of this debut album from Maryland doom / true metal outfit Mythosphere. Not only do they feature an ex-member of cult classic band Fates Warning on guitar (Victor Arduini, from 1984-1992), but also Darin McCloskey (drums),Dana Ortt (guitar and vocals) and Ron McGinnis from a personal favourite band of mine, Pale Divine. With three quarters of Pale Divine in the band, you may be expecting…erm… an album that sounds like that excellent band.
Well, yes and no. Of course, it’d be pretty hard for the musicians not to sound like that excellent outfit. The superb rhythm section has that locked down, rock steady and fuzzy sound we’ve come to expect, but this really isn’t just another doom rehash. In fact, it’s really a throwback in many ways to the halcyon days of heavy rock and heavy metal, around the early eighties when the music wasn’t quite so easily placed into sub genres and endlessly codified. It’s a clean vocalled, organic journey for the listener. This isn’t going to make you bang your head or feel like stage diving for sure, but it’s a fairly free and easy listening experience with roots in the very foundations of metal.
Tracks like “King’s Call to Arms” could easily be culled from a Saxon album; dependably, honest slabs of rock with a confidence and flourish alongside the tasty guitar flourishes. Dana’s voice really does bring to mind the classics of American heavy metal, having an almost James Rivera (Helstar et.al) tone and timbre. At times, they venture into an almost Saint Vitus kind of sound, as with the title track “Pathological”, which has that heavy-blues take on doom, before launching into a good-old-fashioned gallop. This is an album that really goes where the song dictates it, without feeling like it has to fit into any particular “box” or style.
There’s a really warm production to the collection too, with a slight emphasis on the fuzz and rumble of the bottom end, but allowing the tasty axe work to breathe and slice its way across. The vocals are given plenty of prominence too, but there are long and expansive instrumental sections too, which really gives the whole thing a kind of expressive progressive feel to proceedings. So is this Pale Divine Mark 2? No, it really isn’t. This is its own thing, and probably the better for it. For scholars of true-blue American heavy metal, this is a neat release.
(7/10 Chris Davison)
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