I'm inspecting Myring's sole release, the 'Engage the Enemy' mini-CD, to see if my opinion about it has changed in about two decades. This Finnish band performed some kind of folky black metal, quite the raw way.

The music reflects its era, with bands like Catamenia, Moonsrrow and Faerghail having put out demos, EPs or even full-length albums, and multitude of others ding the same a bit later. I suppose by reading the song titles, that the lyrics depict the harsh life of yore in Finland.

So, Nordic black metal with keyboards and folk melodiousness was Myring trade. Their black metal was at times cold (tremolo guitars), at others rocking (power chords and NWOBHM stylings). While there are some great parts in, for example 'Fall' is rather garbled in songwriting-wise. Calmer and more melancholic (and gothic) 'Frostknives' work way better as a song. Its beautiful piano and ominous church organ offer some fine contrast; the band managed to create some rootsy Finnish melodies for sure. The title track contains some dungeon synth work at the beginning, but explodes into violent black metal. Suffering yet angry raven is what the vocals bring to my mind, backed by low growling troll.

The closer 'Juuret mullassa maan' is filled with unintentional comic, already on display on the cover, and this certainly isn't the thing to play to a person who wants to hear some metal to see if the style works for him/her. While the vocals were over the top on the first three songs already, here they are way, way over. Like in other solar system. Drunken warrior choir and babblings with silly guitar melodies and chord progressions are like nails to the coffin.

So, the songs are very quite different to each other. The main grievance together with the songwriting quality is the production. Understandably, it is cheap-sounding, but still it makes this so much worse. Okay, there's some good and interesting ideas throughout the EP minus the closer, but it does stumble face down into snow, like it did back in the day.

Rating: 4 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
06/28/2023 20:24