MITHRAS „Worlds beyond the veil”

RUNNING TIME: 67:43

There’s no doubt that over the years, the UK has produced some outstanding metal acts. For me, Carcass was probably the best of the lot. They knew how to create songs that revealed more and more each time you listened to them.

Benediction never did anything for me; their songs were too straightforward and never held my attention, likewise for Napalm Death. Don’t get me wrong I have a lot of respect for these guys, but I just don’t get their music.

Now, Mithras promised a lot with their previous album “Forever advancing……..legions”, but I felt that the production let it down and didn’t give it the true power that it really needed.

I now have a copy of their new album in my hands and to be honest, I have no idea where to start. Never in all my years as a metal fan have I heard anything so immense, so incredible and so much better than anyone else around, past or present.

The album kicks off with a six plus minute instrumental. Plenty of eeriness to be found on this one and frequent stops allow for new atmospheres to creep in. This wouldn’t be out of place on a film soundtrack or on a Merzbow or Schloss Tegal CD. A third of the way, there is some stunning guitar work with a guitar sound like I have never heard before. It sounds so rich and warm that you can almost reach out and touch it. Horror film church organs are interspersed and create an atmosphere of uneasiness like the first time you ever watched Halloween, hiding behind the sofa, occasionally popping your head over to see if it’s safe to come out. What a way to start the album.

The title track kicks in; guitars raging and inhuman double bass drumming filling the room. The momentum is never lost and the brutal drumming is kept up throughout the whole song, nicely placed fills and rolls giving the song an identity. The guitars drop off mid way through making way for a quieter moment, all the time backed up by the drums.

Bequeath they visions starts with that beautiful guitar sound again before launching into a breathtaking riff and imposing vocals. The song is built on riff upon punishing riff and guess what, the drums! The guitar solos are mesmerising in their complexity and THAT guitar sound takes me off to another world.

The Caller and the listener doesn’t fuck about. Launching straight into all out attack, only stopping briefly to let Leon Macey do some blasting. The solos are again a standout on this track. Imagine Trey Azagthoth at his best and then imagine him being even better, or imagine Cryptopsy era none so vile and you are still nowhere near the sounds created here.

Track five, break the worlds divide is a brooding instrumental with some sublime guitar work that you’ll be humming for days. This is a suitable place to put a quieter moment as you’ll need time to get your breath back before Lords and Masters spews forth. Angelcorpse wouldn’t be a bad comparison for this particular opening as they both blast in similar ways. However, Mithras injects some melody into the song later on, but you still can’t escape the fact that they are the musical equivalent of having your head crushed by a very big steamroller. They combine melody and brutality like no one else and as a listener; you sit there asking yourself “how the fuck did they do that”?

If you close your eyes, you can imagine yourself lost on a beach somewhere as you listen to the intro to Psyrens. Its lush tones are deceiving as to what the rest of the song holds. The solos are jaw dropping as you listen to what seems like several guitar players battling it out. Things slow down and we are treated to that guitar sound again which works perfectly over the rhythm guitars and pounding drums.

Voices in the void is very fast at the beginning and then dives straight into what I consider to be the best riff on the album, a riff that should seem out of place because of its catchiness, but doesn’t and sounds even better when it is repeated a few seconds later with Rayner Coss singing over it. Two and a half minutes in and it is time to slow matters down. Another superb guitar sound is somehow found and gives the listener another minute to try and make some sense of all that has gone before. The guitars kick back in and then the vocals and then a guitar solo which plays out the remainder of the song until the distortion is switched off and we are treated to some more of Macey’s guitar wizardry.

The sands of time has a slow opening and builds up into a faster song with a touch of an Egyptian feel to it, not like Nile, but there is definitely something there. For an instrumental, this is quite a long piece but never boring. The end of this song can’t really be described, it has to be heard, and its beauty must be appreciated by everyone. At this stage of the album, it is pretty clear that we are dealing with something pretty fucking special, something we have never heard before and will be lucky to hear again. Akercocke got a lot of praise recently for their new album (a lot of that praise from me) but this Mithras album blows anything else from the last ten years clean out of the water and laughs at it from a very great height.

Track 10, search the endless planes, lets the band be creative again as beautiful sounds wash over the listener. This is what you might expect on an advert for a car or on the soundtrack for one of the Terminator films.

They came and you were silent sees a change in pace for the band. It starts off with a monster of a riff, creeping slowly until it veers off into faster territory. Things take a bizarre turn in the middle as we have some melodious soloing over a solid double bass drum beat which finishes the song.

Transcendence puts the speed back into the mix for the opening minute before slowing down to a melodic break. Another album defining riff is then slotted in and then it’s off into Devin Townsend territory before the drums cut out and we get a calming outro complete with more guitar heroics.

The final track is a thirteen minute monster which brings together every atmosphere from the album and rolls it all into one. Within a minute and a half, jaws are already on the floor and remain there for the rest of the song. The riffs and breaks are, well, killer and the vocals reach a new level of intensity. The song ends beautifully with more of that guitar sound I have come to love and worship.

If you have managed to make it to the end of this review you will no doubt have come to the conclusion that I think this is something rather special. They have without doubt worked extremely hard to create something as massive as this and they deserve to go straight to the top of the metal throne. The Linkin Bizkiters won’t get it, but I don’t give a fuck. I feel privileged that Mithras has, in a way, shared their creation with me. I am a changed man and feel better for it. For all its brutality, Worlds beyond the veil is an album to get lost in, an album to close your eyes to and not open them until the very end. Picture yourself in ancient Egypt or some other far away land and spend an hour there. Tell your friends about it, but don’t expect them to understand it.

If anyone, except Mithras themselves tops this album during my life time, I’ll be the first to sing their praises, until then, Mithras is metal.