Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Mydgard: Decay of Thy Gods Review

Mydgard was a little-known band from Spain. After the band’s split, members went on to form the atmospheric black metal band Dantalion. Mydgard is obviously influenced heavily by bands like Dissection. They wear these influences on their sleeve, playing a brand of melodic black metal with some death metal influences.

This is a short EP with only five songs and is the band’s second recorded output after one demo. The band broke up after this release and members went their separate ways although several of them formed Dantalion as previously mentioned.

The recording quality is not very good. The guitars are up way too high in the mix effectively drowning everything else out, including the vocals. The bass cannot be heard at all and the drums are fairly low in the mix.

The music is very similar to early Dissection. Tremolo guitar riffs weave around the rhythm section. The leads are reasonably well-done and catchy. They definitely would not have sounded out of place on The Somberlain. Keyboards show up occasionally in slower portions to add a little more of a gothic feel. The drums are almost constant blast beats coupled with hits on the high hat.

Vocals are done in the typical mid 90's black metal style. They mostly consist of two pitches of rasp: a higher pitched one and a deeper death-metal type growling rasp. Occasionally they are layered giving a more evil, fuller sound. The vocals could stand to be a little higher in the mix. The lyrics are focused on Satanism and anti-Christian themes.

All in all, there is nothing original here. The band is another Dissection clone with some Emperor keyboard parts thrown in. If you enjoy Dissection, they make a reasonable approximation of the band’s sound, but if you want something new and original, go somewhere else.

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