Band:	Mystria
Album:	The Dark Crusade
Style:	Heavy metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	2008

01. Come To Mystria
02. The Pact
03. Demon Eyes
04. The Curse
05. Treason
06. The Dark Crusade
07. Last King
08. Nightmare
09. The Witch
10. Wickedness
11. World Of The Outside
12. Visions Of You

"The Dark Crusade" is the first album of Mystria, a French combo from Montpellier. Some of you have maybe heard some things about them when they finished 3rd of the Wacken French contest in 2007 but if you don't know them yet, you have to know that we're in front of a really good combo of old school Speed Metal. Don't expect anything revolutionary with this album but if you like Thrashy Heavy Metal, I'm sure that you'll find something for you here!

Mystria is not the most original French band but obviously their first release is already promising. If you want to understand how it sounds, let's say that it's a great mix of Iced Earth (for the Power Metal side) with technical Thrash business a la Nevermore and with some really high pitched vocals a la King Diamond (not every time though). This is heavy and definitely not similar to the European "happy" Power Metal bands. I like this fact because Mystria's music sounds really dark and angry and reminds me the old Speed Metal bands that we were able to listen to during the 80's. This is good but can also be a bit problematic if you don't like old school bands (but well at least Mystria doesn't sound like the old Heavy Metal French bands which are totally outdated now?).

The musicians of Mystria are good really. The voice of Guillaume Codina is nice and the two guitarists are real monsters while the rhythmic dudes, bass and drums are good metronomes. Seriously there are no problems on this release except maybe that it suffers a bit of an average production (not terrible but not perfect) and that the music of Mystria is not so modern but with time I'm sure that it will become better, this is already good, they just have to fix some little bad points after all?

"The Dark Crusade" is a good first release. If on a side the album suffers a bit of a lack of originality, this is, at least full of really good songs and the musicians, especially the guitarists are impressive. If you're into Thrashy Heavy/Power Metal and like Iced Earth like Nevermore, I'm sure that you'll like some songs of the album. I just hope that the band will be able to sound a bit more modern for their future albums but if they can do it, you can be sure that this band will become something in France. They have all what they need to find success, let's keep an eye on them!