Mygrain - Signs Of Existence

Published February 15 2008

*=Staff's pick	Translucent Dreams This Perfect Chaos* Asphyxiated And Inflammable* Shed The Second Skin Walk Puppet Walk Killing Time The Psychonaut Alienation Human Wasteland* Final Frontier*

Genre	Melodic Death Metal	Tommy	Vocals
Tracks	10	Resistor	Guitar
Runningtime	48 Min.	Matthew	Guitar
Label	Spinefarm Records	Jonas	Bass
Release	13 Feb. 2008	DJ Locomotive	Drums
Country	Finland	Eve	Keyboard
Similar artists	Soilwork, Trivium, Raunchy

Two years have passed since the last time I reviewed this Finish melodic death metal act. Back then it was their debut album, entitled Orbit Dance, which thoroughly was measured and tested in all aspects to serve you the best guidance possible, as always here at Metal Covenant *cough*… Anyways, I was quite impressed by the album considering it was their first effort but the song writing suffered a bit from being uneven.

Stylewise they have not left their path they took on their debut, it is still Scandinavian melodeath spiced with modern American influences. They sound quite similar to Soilwork without using the same melody patterns if you understand what I mean. It is clear that they have developed in many ways since the last recording. The vocalist Tommy still delivers great well articulated growls and his clean singing has gotten even better. The fact that his clean voice is a bit rough prevents him from sounding too cheesy when using it, which is great.

Mygrain has also grown as song writers, a fact that mostly shines through in the six minute piece Human Wasteland which is arranged in a fantastic way and moves from dark slow sonic landscapes through fast paced thrash metal verses and reaches the climax with a great melancholic chorus. This composition clearly surprised me the most when listening on Signs Of Existance. The absolute peak however is without a shadow of a doubt Asphyxiated And Inflammable. This song has all ingredients you could ask for in this genre. A perfected balance between aggression and melody, great guitarwork, dedicated vocals and melodies to die for, superb!!!

Mygrain still suffer from a couple indifferent songs in the middle section but the quality level in general has increased a bit since the debut. The performance is top notch all the way and I really hope they continue developing like this in the future. This should appeal to most of you Metalheads out there and at least I hope that many people get to hear Asphyxiated And Inflammable with the simple reason that it's a monster!

See also review of: Planetary Breathing , Orbit Dance

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	6	7,5	7,5	7,5

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Hawk