Myth Of I show why Progressive-Metal can still be relevant with the self-titled album.
Progressive Metal is a genre that is either loved or hated because sometimes the musicality and genius-level abilities of the musicians involved are shown just that one bit too often. If the founding members of the band met up at Berklee College of Music with all its high-class, top of the line graduates and high profile teachers, it’s esasy to think that this is just another one of those bands where the display of talent supersedes the talent of songwriting. However, that is not true for Myth of I even though of course they show that their fingers are quick, their kicks are talented and their knack ability to incorporate several styles into different songs is only second to their idea of letting the song speak for itself.
Interesting about Myth of I is the fact that they are an instrumental band only, nobody is offering multi-octave-singing or screaming, there are no James LaBries involved in the making of Myth of I, their first full-length after an EP in 2017. The band shows a lot of speedy technical aspects and switch between classical prog rock and death metal, between acoustic elements and ambient passages effortlessly. But none of these parts are ever driven over the top, so that one might put them into one genre – it seems as if they are very comfortable being “non-pinpointable”.
Each song has numerous changes and turns, using microscopic scales and huge epic turns, so one might hear some Between the Buried and Me while others hear some Cloudkicker in these songs and both are correct in hearing that because these bands definitely helped define the sound of Myth of I. Usually one argues that songs must take you on a journey, but in this case it is more like being thrown across the globe all the time – not with a harsh kick, but with soft touches so that, in the end, you want to know which spot will follow next.
If you can imagine listening to instrumental versions of Between the Buried and Me or Tesseract, then this album and especially songs like “Glass Castles”, “Needlepoint” or “The Maze” should be next on your playlist as they combine a lot of elements to give this highly musical genre a nice new twist.
