TALES OF THE SANDS

Myrath play a style of prog metal inspired by Symphony X and mmmmaybe a little Dream Theater, but enrich this with influences from the music of their Tunisian homeland. Whereas some bands might slip in music from North Africa or the Middle East for flavour, Myrath are no tourists - these are musical traditions they know inside and out and they are able to truly integrate them into the structure of their songs rather than toss these cultural allusions in as an empty affectation. On top of that, their mastery of progressive metal is also laudable, throwing in just enough bombast to get their point across without getting tediously heavy-handed. On the whole, this is a mature album which will hopefully give a higher profile to this hard-working unit, though to be honest I find the prog metal influences they work in a little by-the-numbers and kind of hope that they will lean a bit more heavily on the other ingredients of their sound in future releases. In particular, if they can produce prog metal that is fully infused with traditional stylings, rather than simply existing alongside more traditional music, they'd have something amazing on their hands.