Full Album Premiere & Review: Mythosphere, Pathological
[Click play above to stream Mythosphere’s Pathological in full. Album is out Nov. 18 on Cruz Del Sur Music with preorders here.]
If Mythosphere‘s Pathological is Maryland doom — and it’s definitely that, at least in part — then it’s among the finest debut albums that venerable scene has produced. But then, of course, the band is new but the players are more familiar. Fronted by guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt, formerly of Beelzefuzz, then Righteous Bloom, then Beelzefuzz again, then also Pale Divine, the band features drummer Darin McCloskey — who co-founded Pale Divine and has his own pedigree, but made the Beelzefuzz journey as well — bassist Ron “Fezz” McGinnis, known for his work in Admiral Browning, Thonian Horde, Bailjack, and others including also Pale Divine, and guitarist Victor Arduini.
The latter comprises the non-Chesapeake Region contingent of Mythosphere, as he’s based in Connecticut, and has a CV going back to the start of Fates Warning circa 1984, including more recently his work in Entierro and Arduini/Balich, and his solo parts are distinguished in class and the sharp-edged metallic traditionalism of his shred, while the punch he seems to bring to rhythm tracks adds impact to what one might expect from Ortt‘s riffing as well given his prior outfit, which ended up with two guitars by the time they were done too (it was Pale Divine‘s Greg Diener in Beelzefuzz‘s final incarnation, as if another connection was needed to make the point).
So is Mythosphere a new band or a continuation of the same voyage on a different path? It’s not the first time I’ve asked this question this year, and it doesn’t seem impossible that the covid-19 pandemic played a role on some level in the reshuffling, the starting of a new project born out of the old, and so on. Ortt offers a tour de force performance on vocals throughout Pathological‘s eight-track/35-minute run, with his voice soaring and theatrical in a way that is both classic metal and cult rock, controlled in its delivery but able to jump up to a higher note at the end of a word or phrase in a way that is exciting and demonstrates how little is actually out of his reach as a singer.
He and Arduini complement each other surprisingly well in the recording/mix by Noel Mueller at Tiny Castle Studios (also Grimoire Records, which one assumes isn’t releasing Mythosphere because of these players’ prior association with Cruz Del Sur), with differentiation between them that is in songs like “Walk in Darkness” or the earlier single “King’s Call to Arms” the difference between electric and acoustic guitar; the latter which is used to emphasize a folkish strum highlighting the lyrical storytelling, a kind of medievalism in theme that feels born out of the music itself rather than laid on top of it.
The album begins with “Ashen Throne,” and acoustic is immediately a part of the fray along with an electric rhythm track and a lead track over the so-solid-they-should-make-construction-company-style-t-shirts-as-a-rhythm-section — ‘groove you can rely on’ comes to mind as a slogan (a political campaign-style shirt would also work) — efforts of McCloskey/McGinnis, the latter of whom emerges in a final salvo of the three shorter tracks “Star Crossed,” “No Halo” and “Through the Night” with essential tonal punch. A fluid blending of these elements, bolstered by (some of) the players’ prior experience together and further strengthened by the depth of craft in the songwriting.
One does not need to know the output of Beelzefuzz, or Pale Divine, or Entierro, or any of the members’ other various units to understand where Mythosphere are coming from, in part because the approach the new band takes is so individualized. But it doesn’t hurt, either. From “Ashen Throne” through the sleek chugging of “For No Other Eye,” a mellow-heavy roll that leaves plenty of open space for both the lead guitar and the vocal melodies to fill, which they do, and into the more urgent jabs of and solo angularity of the title-track, Pathological is in some ways the record that Beelzefuzz were always working toward but never had the chance to manifest, and thinking of it as the manifestation of more than a decade’s worth of reshuffling and development since that band got their start around 2011, the maturity and the sureness with which Mythosphere offer these songs makes sense.
But it’s not like “King’s Call to Arms” is too inward to bring the listener along as it marches off to who knows what battle, or like the hook of “Star Crossed” won’t resonate its classic metal vibe if you don’t know Arduini‘s prior work and where all that ripping soloing is coming from — Ortt also adds leads, Arduini also plays rhythm tracks; it is not quite as stark a division of duties as you-do-this and you-do-that — but you can hear when that extra layer of a guitar solo enters in “Walk in Darkness” or the amid the NWOBHM gallop in the penultimate “No Halo,” though admittedly in the latter, the lead guitar is more of a constant than something that comes and goes (not a complaint, considering). Mythosphere manage to be their own thing, a project and the beginning of a progression separate from its own past but not entirely ignoring it.
A key difference is in dynamic. The guitar-as-organ tonality that’s a signature of Ortt‘s methods as much as his soaring vocals is present here, as well as the kind of bouncing style of riff in “King’s Call to Arms,” “Walk in Darkness,” etc., but like the acoustic guitar (and it feels like less than the acoustic, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I spare myself plotting out percentages), it is used for flourish more than foundation. A thread of guitar chug — and really, in focusing so much on the guitar, one isn’t trying to detract from what McGinnis and McCloskey do on bass and drums; they hold it down and it’s just never a question; relax they’ll take care of it — shows up as “Ashen Throne” smooths out from its noodlier beginning, and becomes a recurring theme, and even as “Through the Night” rounds out with what feels like a daring and perhaps subliminal nod to ’80s-era Dio, part of what ties it to the rest of Pathological before it, in addition to the acoustics brought back to the forefront of the mix and the fluidity of the groove overall is the capturing of tension in that chug.
Melodically, rhythmically, in its construction and presentation, Mythosphere‘s first full-length — first release of any kind apart from a limited CD sampler that featured some of its tracks sold at Maryland Doom Fest earlier this year — is a triumph of substance and style. It is apart from the current wave of traditionalist metal rising in generational throwback fashion, but relevant to it, and it is of doom without losing the progressive thoughtfulness of its arrangements either of guitar or vocals, or even the level of detail that makes the snare in “Ashen Throne” such a punctuating wake up. One of 2022’s best debuts, if that’s how it’s to be counted, and at the same time it pays off a decade-plus of creative growth for Ortt, it refuses to look anywhere but forward at its own potential to push even further.
Mythosphere, “Pathological” official video
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WOWsers Thank you so much for the kind words JJ love ya bud.
[…] American progressive/psychedelic metal quartet Mythosphere stream their forthcoming debut album »Pathological« in its entirety at The Obelisk! […]