In 2012, the Australians Myridian made themselves known with a debut album (Under The Fading Light), very successful and already mature. After some line up adjustments and three more years of experience, the guys from Melbourne come back with a long-distance test that confirms them as authors of a death doom of great class and quality. We, The Forlorn is a work without weak points, well produced and perfectly executed, highlighting a constant balance between all components of the sound. The two founding members, Scott Brierley (guitarist and author of all the music) and Felix Lane (vocalist and bassist), are still in the hands of the newcomers Ian Mather (guitar) and Dan Liston (keyboards), both from Catacombs, and Zebådee Scott (drums), from Adamus Exul, bringing new life and at the same time further compactness to the sound. Myridian‘s style draws on the most melodic fringe of the genre and, all in all, it turns out to be an ideal mix between the sounds of the European and American school, with more than normal references found respectively in Swallow The Sun and Daylight Dies. The work is quite long, with its almost seventy minutes of duration, but manages to keep the attention constantly awake thanks to the high average quality of the songs even if, during the first listening, it would seem to lack the song over the top capable of nailing the listener in an uninterrupted loop. In fact, insisting in the passages, finally explodes in all its sorrowful beauty a track like Snowscape, oozing melancholy from every note, and not far from these levels are placed the title track, A Lone Rose and the final Mourning Tide. Remarkable also These Weary Bones, which sees the particular contribution of the guest Nick Magur, (vocalist of the already mentioned blacksters Adamus Exul, a band in which, however, played the same Lane), with his extreme scream to the limits of depressive, Silent Death and Desolace, while the shortest episode, I, The Bereft, is an acoustic instrumental that actually divides the work into two parts, introducing the last half hour, truly splendid. Felix Lane turns out to be an excellent vocalist, good at alternating, new Kotamäki, growl, scream and clean vocals without giving in but, really, these five Australian musicians have expressed all at their best to give us this umpteenth pearl born from a musical genre that continues to reserve surprises from every corner of the planet. Maybe Myridian risk to pay in part their geographic isolation, moving moreover in a niche area for its definition, but if today Swallow The Sun are released by Century Media, I don’t see why the band from Melbourne can’t aspire at least to a contract with some label in the sector like Solitude or Weird Truth, just to name two of the most qualitative ones at roster level. The music of these guys deserves to be exported and put to the attention of the audience in the northern hemisphere, where it could find the deserved feedback: in the meantime, let’s not make the mistake of ignoring an album like We, The Forlorn.

2015 – Independent