In the Sign of the Ravens

After releasing four demo tapes Mithotyn finally releases a full length album. Their first album In the Sign of the Ravens is nowhere near as great as their other two albums, although there is still a lot of joy to be found in it.

Like I said, they released four demos before this album, so about half the songs on here are from their demos, mostly from Nidhogg and their Promo 96. The songs that are new however are all pretty good. There are only about two songs on here that I can think of which some people might think are kind of bad, “Tills Dagen Gryr” and “Let Thy Ale Swing”. “Tills Dagen Gryr” is just a Swedish singing with a drum and minor keyboard over it and “Let Thy Ale Swing” is a keyboard type instrumental piece that sounds like a 64 bit piece of music, and that it would come off of a role playing game (or RPG) from the Nintendo 64. It reminds me of the time (ten years ago or so) when I played them so I actually liked listening to it. Others might get annoyed by the frequency of the keyboard that is given off by it however.

The Viking atmosphere is the best out of all their work hands down in this album. You can really pick it up while listening to the instrumental songs in the albums like “Lost in the Mist” and “Let Thy Ale Swing”. Rather it’s the excessive keyboard use or it’s the chorus they use, or the lyrics themselves, it all gives off great atmosphere. The vocals don’t help for that matter. They are kind of distorted and not as loud as the rest of the music, like the music is played louder than he is singing so you can’t hear him sing, especially the backup vocals, like in the song “In the Forest of Moonlight”.

The biggest problem with this album is that too many of you will get bored because of how repetitive it can be if you’re not a huge fan of this genre. If you’re a fan of the Viking/folk you know what to expect from this album, some long songs with some variation and harsh growing vocals followed by clean choruses. And that’s just what I have come to love from this style of music. However, if you’re not a huge fan of this style of music, you will get bored easily.

For the fans of folk or Viking music out there, you might enjoy this album like I have, and I would suggest that you look for it. If you don’t however, you might want to turn away from this one or the band in general, for this release doesn’t offer much new material to the table.

(Edit: fixed mistakes)

Mithotyn’s debut album is a hard and cold Viking Metal release. On this early stage, the band had not yet adopted so many of the more melodic elements which appear on later releases. The music is dominated by distorted guitars, which play repetitive and hard riffs, supported by frenetic drumming. The drums are not in focus and when they became more significant later on, the band improved. The vocals are almost entirely growled on this album. Some Viking chants, which are almost compulsory in this genre, can be heard on this CD, but they were also increased on the later releases. The chorus of the best song, the title track “In the Sign of the Ravens” is clean and even includes some female chanting.

The band creates a mystical feeling with folky keyboard melodies behind distorted guitars and growls and chants. This band knew what results they wanted from the beginning, but they improved their skills significantly in the period of time between this album and their third and last “Gathered around the Oaken Table”. The problem with this album is that it is pretty repetitive so those who aren’t lovers of this genre will get bored. The songs are not so similar, but they are often long with little variation inside. In my humble opinion, growled vocals can be tiring in the long run too, especially if the singer isn’t anything special. I think that the growls on this album sometimes don’t follow the music as good as they could do. The music of Ensiferum is a very good example of how the perfect growl sounds.

Overall, Mithotyn made a solid Viking Metal album with mystical and epic melodies, hard distorted riffs, good keyboard, and decent lyrics and vocals. However, they improved a lot during the following years and this is their weakest release. The three first songs are typical for the album but on a slightly higher level than the rest. I think the decision to have the short Swedish interlude “Tills Dagen Gryr”, the instrumental folky song “Lost in the Mist” and the happy keyboard outro “Let thy Axe Swing” on this album was wise. These songs break the heavy repetitiveness and add a little variation. It is also good to hear some songs that aren’t that dark on an album to light up the mood; it is easier to get through this album thanks to these songs.

My final evaluation is: mystic, heavy and dark, but could have needed better vocals, and more variation.