Band:	Mithras
Album:	Forever Advancing...... Legions
Style:	Atmospheric death metal, Brutal death metal
Release date:	2002
Guest review by:	Bas

01. Forever Advancing...... Legions
02. Trample Their Works
03. Sloping Altars
04. Arena Sands
05. Amidst The Fallen Arches
06. The Green Wanderer Returns
07. Wrath Of God
08. As The Wind Blows
09. Vae Solis
10. Dreaming In Splendour
11. Tomb Of Kings
12. What Lies Beyond

Ok, so let me tell you some things about Forever Advancing?....Legions. This is by far the best CD in the history of music. I hope this opening sentence is enough to make you buy it, if it isn't you'll miss something. Or maybe I can convince you somewhere in the course of this review.

Let's start at the very beginning. Mithras is a very unknown death metal band from the UK and this is their first studio CD. There are however a lot of young death metal bands from all over the world who aren't known by anybody, so what's special about Mithras? Let me tell you a bit about their music.

Basic death metal? No way! Point one, it's fast as fuck, not just fast, but around as fast as Morbid Angel but with three times as much variety in the drumming. Point two, the music is epic as hell and the lyrics are about the old romans; their wars, their battles and their gods. Point three, the guitar riffs are catchy enough to actually have me singing along to guitar riffs! Point four, the instrumental and ambient parts are breathtakingly beautiful. Point five, this music is amazingly brutal.

Straightforward death metal, fast and brutal, comes together with technical perfection, beauty and catchiness. For the epicness throw in some stuff like, for example, the real and cheering Colosseum Crowd on "Arena Sands." Good lyrics and an original image round it up quite nicely.

So, who are these unknown musicians that were able to impress me so?

On bass and vocals we have Rayner Coss, rather refreshing to not hear cookie monster vocals for one time on such a brutal album. On the drums and lead-/rhythm guitar and sometimes on keyboard (tracks 1, 4, 5, 6, 12) Leon Macey. And on additional lead guitars and additional keyboard (on tracks 4 and 12) Ben White. Ben does guitar solos on a few songs, together with Leon. Something I'd like to mention as well is that the drumming on this album has loads of variation and reaches a top speed of up to 340BPM! (on "Vae Solis"). While this speed is practically impossible to reach for most long-experienced and professional drummers, Leon had played the drums for only 4 years at the time this CD was recorded! The bulk of the music and lyrics were written by Leon Macey, too, Rayner having written a few of the lyrics as well though.

The production is very good, too. All guitar notes and drumbeats can be heard yet the CD has a great atmosphere throughout the whole album.

It doesn't matter if you are new or old to death metal, if you are more into catchy music, brutal music, fast music, epic music or technical music, this album is simply magnificent and you should try it, no matter what. At the time I really got to know the band I wasn't that much into death metal yet, but loved this CD anyway, so you don't even really have to enjoy death metal to be able to fall in love with Forever Advancing......Legions. Give it a try if anything I wrote in my review appealed to you, because Mithras is plain and simply the most talented band in it's field. Mithras may have been obviously influenced by Morbid Angel, but any of their songs surpass MA by far.

If you are searching for new bands to try out, search no further, except if you want to search CD-shops for Mithras - Forever Advancing......Legions.