Myrath - Legacy (2016)^{Release ID: 7462}

Good enough, but not the classic follow-up that was hoped for

While Myrath's Legacy sounds fantastic with the increased production budget (those violins!), the songs themselves mostly fall short of the brilliance of Tales of the Sands, or even Orphaned Land's All Is One for that matter. They all manage to be at least pretty good, but they just don't feel as lively or inspired as most of the songs from the last album. As big and "epic" as they sound on a surface level, I detect a hidden lack of substance. 

I don't mean to sound too negative because this is a decent effort, it really is. Maybe it's too much balladry for my tastes, or maybe it's just that they refined their sound and toned down the progressive elements. I don't know. But what it comes down to is that, with the notable exception of "Believer", the melodies here just aren't striking me as particularly memorable even after several listens. That's the heart of the issue. Myrath won me over with their passionate melodies on Tales of the Sands and I'm just not getting enough of that from Legacy.

That said, "Believer" is almost worth the price of admission on its own. Easily the most infectious song Myrath have written to date, it's one of those tracks you can just listen to on repeat all day. Never gets old. Jump on the band-vagon! The "Believer" music video is already hands-down going to be my favorite music video of 2016. When the video first came out, those soaring Arabic violins at the beginning blew me away on first listen. Unfortunately, it set my expectations too high for the rest of Legacy, leaving me with a slight feeling of disappointment now that I've digested the whole thing. "Get Your Freedom Back" and the last three are probably the picks of the rest, but sadly I don't think I would go out of my way to add any of them to my library if I didn't already own the whole album.

Nevertheless, I think they will win a lot of new fans with such a strong single and professional-sounding album. I still love their sound - how they infuse their proud Tunisian heritage into accessible prog metal with stellar vocals. Even though the songwriting here underwhelms me, Myrath are still extremely unique and a band I will follow closely in the future.