Mystons – Alkaem (2010)

Hailing from Finland, we recently got in our PO BOX a very different and unique sounding release from a band named Myston. “Alkaem” marks the band’s second full-length release and with the wide palette of styles, Myston seems to be ready to take over the world and fans of Metal, Indie Rock, Alternative Metal, Grunge and everything in between.

The first thing you will notice about “Alkaem” is that Mystos has a very enigmatic sounding front man with M Myston handling the vocals and guitars. His vocals will immediately make you identify this band in a second, and when paired with the very diverse and interesting sound of the band, we think the band has a winning lottery ticket in their hands.

Through the 10 songs presented in this release, Mystons takes us through a wide variety of styles and emotions. In the first two songs we get some punchy tunes with energetic guitars, tight drumming and hypnotic rhythms. The guitars at some points hit Stoner Rock/Sludge sounds but quickly come back to more Rock oriented themes. In “Werewolf Eyes”, we get to hear the more ‘emotional’ side of things with this very powerful ballad type of song. As you can read, in the first three songs we already have a clear evidence of the versatility that Mystons has.

“Tearstrained” and “Mountains” feature the more hard rock/blues side of Mystons, but are equally as effective as any of the rest of the songs in this release. As a side note, one might consider that the lack of a particular direction is a flaw that the band has, since they can’t seem to commit to one particular style and the album is all over the place. But for us, this only shows that the band is growing musically and that will eventually settle with a particular style based on the response that their releases get.

Our favorite song of “Alkaem” has to be the very eerie “All Alone”. In this track we get a very simple acoustic guitar and vocal approach to things, and out of nowhere we get these epic keyboards that greatly add to the dramatics of this song. The rest of the album continues with its weirdness and with “Bullet” and “Get Born Again” you will be scratching your head but quickly remember that it’s Mystons you are listening to and let it go.

Overall, we think that Mystons has a very interesting sound and while not 100% metal, we have to recognize that their music is catchy as fuck. But besides the catchiness, the band has a solid musical core and seems to be striving to find their own style (or so we think). If you want to check them out, their album can be downloaded from their myspace, but we greatly recommend you to buy their CD and support their future releases.

Release: November 4th, 2010

Country: Finland