What a difference a change in scenery makes. Think that clinical, central / northern European power-metal has begun to amorphously run together? Well, here’s Myrath to bring some desert heat to things, and actually make it pretty great again.
This is also their first album to be properly ‘great’ instead of just ‘good’, on top of that. Apparently they’re pretty massive in European prog-metal circles stemming from an impromptu fill-in slot headlining 2019’s Sweden Rock Festival, which might have just been the catalyst for where Karma chooses to go. In the past, Myrath’s blend of metal and Middle Eastern folk has been their easy calling card, as the next step when the prospect of a metal band from Tunisia will get you through the door. Karma, however, is headlong in on the most bombastic symphonic-metal they could possibly conceive of. You’d think when that supplants a lot of the Arabic tones and textures, it’d really leave a dent in things, but that’s not so. Not even remotely, in fact.
The logic behind that is quite simple—Myrath just leave no room in which to be disappointed. It’s the easiest workaround that metal has, and almost exclusively to itself. In no other genre is it feasible to cut most criticism off by brute-forcing your way through, and yet that’s essentially Karma’s M.O. If anything, when Myrath do lean hardest on the twanging strings and cascading heat haze on The Wheel Of Time, it can actually feel a little bare by virtue of wearing its negative space more prominently. Compare that to Into The Light or The Empire—easily the two cuts that go hardest on the bombast—and it’s pretty self-evident what the current cache of strengths has at its disposal. Strings and horns and calamitous blockbuster vision are just as vital as anything metal, pumping up what Myrath bring and, ultimately, just making it better.
It leads to a point where Myrath feel too big to feel hemmed in or trapped in a corner, despite a relative lack of variety on display. ‘Progressive’ is a rather ostensible term to be applied to an album like Karma, done so more out of necessity for flooding over the imperious monoliths that this kind of metal can sometimes be built by. Honestly, it’s not even that far from radio-metal sometimes, such is the emphasis on demolishing hooks usurping everything around them, and Zaher Zorgati having the insane vocal chops to keep pace. Unlike them, however, at no point are Myrath left feeling dreary or bogged-down by any lack of advancement. You basically have the tone set from the very beginning with To The Stars—crashing opulence that rises up and rains down, and sends an immaculately-produced metal composition galloping along.
And there are still deviations and intricacies within all of that, it should be pointed out. It’s always good when the bass is allowed to pop out a bit more on Candles Cry and Temple Walls, as a way to reciprocate the chugging beefiness strived for everywhere else. More predominantly—and often, more effectively—is how detailled the arrangements can be, in small but excellently dynamic ways. On Into The Light, the pianos and strings will flutter more on the bridge; Let It Go sees them taut and pizzicato against some lower horns. It’s all really great stuff, presenting an eye for intricacy that really is necessary in giving the best symphonic-metal its runway. Slammin’ it all down is fine, but it’s the nuance dancing around inside that which makes it stick.
Though, granted, it’s no secret that Myrath have their brightest colours nailed firmly to the mast of pure opulence. It’s the thesis of the album that’s so unerring among its repertoire, throwing itself aloft and screaming out into the twin endlessnesses of the sky above and the desert ahead. If there’s a word to describe how that feels, it’s ’adventurous’, in the state of wanting to ride out into the world uninhibited. It cancels out the lack of adventurousness in the other sense—i.e. the fact that there’s really not a lot innovative to chew on—by orders of magnitude; it’s just that potent. When Zorgati bellows out “the empire never dies” as the hook on the titular song, good lord, do you feel the might rippling through it.
Karma isn’t totally without its issues either, though. Zorgati might excel at a belting, vibrato tenor but anything higher than that is a little shabbier (plus there’s a suspect stink of AI around the artwork which is just bad on principle). Fortunately, the size and scope and cratering landing velocity works as the ultimate failsafe. You aren’t getting too hung up on the setbacks when Myrath are basically exemplary at everything else, handily topping their own catalogue, and many others’ for whom ‘cinematic’ ambitions just don’t go this far. If this isn’t some kind of a benchmark for modern power-, symphonic-, prog- or even plain radio-metal going forward, something’s gone dreadfully awry.
For fans of: Dream Theater, Symphony X, Epica
‘Karma’ by Myrath is released on 8th March on earMUSIC.
Words by Luke Nuttall
Brilliantly written review!