Mirzadeh
The Creatures of Loviatar
3.9
If you’ve ever found yourself bitching about how soft black metal is nowadays, Mirzadeh has absolutely nothing to offer for you. I can’t really say whether this style is part of the problem or the solution for modern black metal, but despite how the preceding question is asked, I think the large consensus is that while competent, The Creatures of Loviatar is a low impact release reserved best for ardent fans of the softer side of black metal.
The largely keyboard and vocal driven material is mainly reminiscent of what we’ve all been hearing the past decade or so in the vein of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir as it’s main principle source of inspiration, but Mirzadeh does manage to embrace a fairly large plethora of accomplishments cousin mainly to the style of bands like Graveworm or Catamenia.
The production is thin to the point of crippling hints of aggression and intensity that the band occasionally hints at, and add to that a noticeably streamlined sound the whole package turns into a very commercial black metal display of in many ways, a less than satisfactory performance. “Viper of the Frozen Ground” and “Witness of Moonlight Mystery” carries the same tonality as the Enthrone Darkness Triumphant era Dimmu Borgir, and sadly never quite reaches the same plateau. The ridiculously bouncy “Louhi’s Legacy” is the perfect example of what I consider to be the main shortcomings of this band. The repetitive composition lines and mundane, predictable progressions leave much to be desired in the wake of what could otherwise be a fairly decent listening experience.
Albeit there are some accomplished and even enjoyable moments to be found on The Creatures of Loviatiar, such as “Kalman Kevat” which brings a well-needed boost of intensity to save the slightest shred of interest, the main stays of Mirzadeh are hardly what we’d call impressive in the wake of so many identical acts churning out hyper melodic black metal.
The thing is just that this watered down version of the genre has already been played to the point of over saturation and the musicianship displayed by The Creatures of Loviatar is competent enough for the genre, but not quite enough to pull Mirzadeh from being little more than a routine exercise in the run of the mill riffs and a plethora of familiar clichés.
