However you want to take this, I read Mythosphere‘s new lyric video as a reminder to anyone who hasn’t yet checked out their debut album, Pathological (review here), to do so, please and thank you. The offering that brings together guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt (Pale Divine, ex-Beelzefuzz), bassist Ron “Fezz” McGinnis (Pale Divine, Admiral Browning, so many more), drummer Darin McCloskey (Pale Divine, ex-Beelzefuzz) and Connecticut-based lead guitarist Victor Arduini (Fates Warning, Arduini/Balich, etc.) issued Pathological just last week, and though the modern model of release promotion seems to be ‘months of hype beforehand followed by either nothing or touring, depending on the band,’ it’s encouraging to see an act like Mythosphere — who likely won’t be out on the road for months at a time — find a way to get something out to add to the momentum coming off the release.

I’ve been in something of a bind as regards Pathological, and it’s forced my hand in terms of what I consider a debut full-length this year. Three of these guys play together in Pale Divine, and the lineage from Ortt and McCloskey‘s time in Beelzefuzz is writ large in Mythosphere‘s sound — not a complaint, mind you — even with Arduini adding metallic shred to the mix. Given their prior familiarity with each other, is Pathological still a first album, or some kind of extension of what they’ve done before? A branch or a new tree?

To an embarrassing degree, I’ve been back and forth on this question, and really the only reason it can even pretend to matter is thinking of where to place it in terms of 2022’s best debut albums come list-time next month. Because if it is a debut, it’s most definitely high on the list of the year’s finest. But Mythosphere aren’t the only former-members-of band to release a first record in 2022, and if I count them, it wouldn’t be fair to not also include the work of others born from similar circumstance. Ultimately, I’ve decided to err on the side of inclusion — which I think is a decent policy across the board — and if it’s one more chance for someone to catch on to what Pathological has to offer because they saw it here instead of there in a year-end post, so much the better. What are we doing here otherwise?

These are, sadly, the kinds of things that keep me up at night. In any case, I’m glad to have the excuse to post about Pathological again after the release. You’ll find the full album streaming at the bottom of this post — the band played a release show this past weekend in Frederick, Maryland, in the friendly company of Severed Satellites and High Noon Kahuna — for further digging.

Please enjoy:

Mythosphere, “For No Other Eye” lyric video

U.S. Progressive/Psychedelic Metal quartet MYTHOSPHERE – featuring past and present members of Pale Divine, Beezlefuzz and Fates Warning – have released a lyric video for “For No Other Eye,” a track from debut album Pathological. Check it out at youtu.be/TUL8GZsJlf8

Pathological was released November 18 on CD, vinyl, and digital formats via Cruz Del Sur Music. The album can be streamed in its entirety at:
mythosphere.bandcamp.com/album/pathological

Purchase Pathological:
CD: tinyurl.com/2xwr74c5
LIMITED EDITION GOLD VINYL (LMT 100): tinyurl.com/5aa3zb7c
LIMITED EDITION MARBLED VIOLET VINYL (LMT 200): tinyurl.com/b79n5h9d
REGULAR BLACK VINYL: tinyurl.com/bdcunb9u
BANDCAMP: mythosphere.bandcamp.com/releases

Line-up:
Dana Ortt – Vocals/guitar
Victor Arduini – Guitar
Ron McGinnis – Bass
Darin McCloskey – Drums

Mythosphere, Pathological (2022)

Mythosphere, “Pathological” official video

Mythosphere on Facebook

Mythosphere on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music on Facebook

Cruz Del Sur Music on Instagram

Cruz del Sur Music website

[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

Mythosphere on Facebook

Mythosphere on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music on Facebook

Cruz Del Sur Music on Instagram

Cruz del Sur Music website

Couple different angles from which to approach Mythosphere, whether you take them as three-fourths of the current lineup of Cruz Del Sur Music labelmates Pale Divine or half of the band that was Beelzefuzz coming together with guitarist Victor Arduini of Arduini/Balich and Entierro, among others. Any way you go, the trad metal clarity of purpose in the songwriting and guitar and folkish mystique in Dana Ortt‘s vocals makes for a fascinating and immediately individualized blend. The band previously premiered their video for “King’s Call to Arms” here when they announced they’d signed with Cruz Del Sur, and preorders have now launched for their debut full-length, Pathological, ahead of a Nov. 18 release date.

Cool record. Works from familiar pieces but thankfully avoids both “true metal” posturing and sounding like everything else. I assume another song or two will be unveiled before the album itself, but if you missed that “King’s Call to Arms” video, it’s under the PR wire info below, along with a new teaser that’s handy-dandy shareable on the old-style social medias.

Check it out:

Mythosphere – “Pathological” to be released on Nov 18

Past and present members of Beezlefuzz, Fates Warning and Pale Divine team up in new band that marries pure metal with rich, progressive rock flourishes!

On their Pathological debut album, Mythosphere e re-ignites the flame of classic, emotional metal with eight songs of depth, introspection and harmony.

PRE-ORDER CD: https://tinyurl.com/2xwr74c5
PRE-ORDER LIMITED EDITION GOLD VINYL (LMT 100): https://tinyurl.com/5aa3zb7c
PRE-ORDER LIMITED EDITION MARBLED VIOLET VINYL (LMT 200): https://tinyurl.com/b79n5h9d
PRE-ORDER REGULAR BLACK VINYL: https://tinyurl.com/bdcunb9u
BANDCAMP: https://mythosphere.bandcamp.com/

Pathological track listing:
1. Ashen Throne
2. King’s Call to Arms
3. For No Other Eye
4. Pathological
5. Walk in Darkness
6. Star Crossed
7. No Halo
8. Through the Night

MYTHOSPHERE’s origins began in 2020 when Ortt and McCloskey started working on material intended to be the continuation of BEELZEFUZZ. Their songs came to fruition in 2021 once the pandemic subsided, prompting Ortt to reach out to Arduini to lend his identifiable brand of lead guitar playing. McGinnis was the natural choice for bass, thus completing MYTHOSPHERE, an outfit steeped in traditional metal and doom history that promises to live up to its lofty billing.

Recorded & Mixed by Noel Mueller at: Tiny Sound Studios
Mastered by Arthur Risk
Produced by Noel Mueller & Mythosphere

Logo by Shane Rice
Front & Back Cover Design by Bill Kole
Photos by Shane Gardner
Layout by Tamara Abarzua-Valencia

Mythosphere lineup:
Dana Ortt: Vocals/guitar
Victor Arduini – Guitar
Ron McGinnis – Bass
Darin McCloskey – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/Mythosphere-103752001922863
https://mythosphere.bandcamp.com/

cruzdelsurmusic.com
facebook.com/cruzdelsurmusic
cruzdelsurmusic.bandcamp.com

Mythosphere, Pathological teaser

Mythosphere, “King’s Call to Arms” official video

Next week, Mythosphere will play their first gig Maryland Doom Fest 2022 as part of a packed lineup, and part of what they’ll be celebrating as they do is not only their advent as a new project working secretly in the shadows on putting together a debut full-length — and apparently having completed one — but also their signing to Cruz Del Sur Music to release said album. The band, which unites Pale Divine members Dana Ortt (also ex-Beelzefuzz), Darin McCloskey (also also ex-Beelzefuzz) and Ron “Fezzy” McGinnis (also Admiral Browning, etc.) with lead guitarist Victor Arduini of Fates Warning, Entierro and Arduini/Balich — bridging a geographical divide from the Chesapeake Watershed to New England in the doing — will have a limited number of self-made CDs on hand to share at the fest.

That I want one goes without saying. Gonna keep my finger on the trigger for when they launch a merch page and hopefully have a couple leftovers.

In any case, those familiar with Beelzefuzz‘s run — which began about about 13 years ago and ended seemingly for good at Maryland Doom Fest 2019 (review here) after two LPs — or who were made familiar with Pale Divine‘s most recent outing, 2020’s righteous Consequence of Time (review here), will recognize Ortt‘s stepping back into a frontman-ish role for Mythosphere on “King’s Call to Arms.” The song has a sweeping melody and a rhythmic foundation of swing that’s classic as much as defined by what Ortt, McGinnis and McCloskey have done in the past, but I also get the sense in listening that Mythosphere isn’t necessarily a redux of Beelzefuzz with Arduini‘s ripper solos over top so much as a new collaboration between parties familiar with each other that is in the process of setting out to find its own path. Can you hang with it? Oh most definitely.

If you’re heading to Maryland Doom Fest, and you go to the merch table, tell them I sent you, or at least that I said hi. Truth be told, I’ve done a near-embarrassing level of premieres and unveilings and streams around these players over the last decade-plus between their various bands, but I am still excited to find out where Mythosphere and this upcoming first collection of songs might take them. I like what I like — same as everyone — but this first impression is resoundingly positive. And kudos on the band signing to Cruz Del Sur.

Dig:

Mythosphere, “King’s Call to Arms” video premiere

MYTHOSPHERE Feat. PALE DIVINE and Ex-FATES WARNING Members Signs With CRUZ DEL SUR MUSIC; Debut Live Appearance Scheduled for MARYLAND DOOM FEST

Cruz Del Sur Music is proud to announce the signing of MYTHOSPHERE, the band founded by PALE DIVINE guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt and drummer Darin McCloskey. The pair are joined by their PALE DIVINE bandmate Ron McGinnis (bass) and none other than former FATES WARNING guitarist Victor Arduini. Their debut album will be released in 2023.

MYTHOSPHERE’s origins began in 2020 when Ortt and McCloskey started working on material intended to be the continuation of BEELZEFUZZ. Their songs came to fruition in 2021 once the pandemic subsided, prompting Ortt to reach out to Arduini to lend his identifiable brand of lead guitar playing. McGinnis was the natural choice for bass, thus completing MYTHOSPHERE, an outfit steeped in traditional metal and doom history that promises to live up to its lofty billing.

“I see it as Dana’s project,” says Arduini. “He is the primary songwriter and instrumentalist. I get to interpret the songs and come up with my own ideas and sounds. It’s great to see the merging of our two unique playing styles and how it forms something new. I’ve learned that when you do a project on your own, it will only represent your musical approach which is cool for a solo project. But Dana allowed an outside influence and I think we are both very pleased with how this came out. I can’t say enough about the band. Darin and Ron are both very passionate and committed to the music. They are very involved in the writing process and are great musicians. It allows me to focus on what I enjoy doing and not have to put the weight of the entire project on my shoulders.”

“From my perspective, I’m just reacting to what Dana presents,” adds McCloskey. “We will work off the basic ideas he presents and sometimes work out the arrangements together. Other times, Dana will have everything pretty well mapped out. I think there’s a bit of nuance from previous bands, but there’s also a progression into some uncharted territory which makes things really exciting!”

MYTHOSPHERE recorded their as-yet-titled debut album at Tiny Castle Studio in Towson, Maryland, with producer/engineer Noel Mueller. Arduini tracked at his home studio and delivered his parts to the rest of the band. “The music would be best described as an expansion of where BEELZEFUZZ left off,” says McCloskey. “A bit less doom as the songs have deeper progressions with soundscapes and melodic overtones which were brought into the mix by Victor creating a whole new vibe and listening experience.”

For the here and now, MYTHOSPHERE will make its live debut on June 24 at the Maryland Doom Fest. That gig will be followed by an appearance at the New England Stoner and Doom Fest on October 7. Fans will be given a sneak preview of MYTHOSPHERE’s debut album and will also be treated to some surprises from their past.

“We’ll be playing the songs we’ve recently recorded for the album and experimenting with the setlist and finding out what songs will go over the best in a live setting,” closes McCloskey. “We are also looking to include a bit of BEELZEFUZZ into the set that matches the vibe of our new music and Victor’s signature guitar playing. He brings a new element of depth and color to the songs.”

The lineup is:
Dana Ortt – Guitar/Vocals
Victor Arduini – Lead guitar
Darin McCloskey – Drums
Ron “FeZZy” McGinnis -Bass

https://www.facebook.com/Mythosphere-103752001922863
https://mythosphere.bandcamp.com/

cruzdelsurmusic.com
facebook.com/cruzdelsurmusic
cruzdelsurmusic.bandcamp.com

Mythosphere, “King’s Call to Arms”