Midhaven - Spellbound (CD Review)

01.Lunar Blessing
02.Seeking The Divine
03.Spellbound
04.Tales From The Tide
05.Ascension
06.Fall Of Olympus
07.Third Eye
08.Whitewash
09.Death Row


Karan Seven Kaul (Guitar/Vocals)
Shreyas Rane (Guitar)
Abhishek Sawant (Bass/Vocals)
Viraj Saxena (Drums)
Aviraj Kumar (Drums)

Guest:
Jordan Veigas (Vocals on Death Row)

The band met outside HR and KC college back in early 2011, where they started a project called 'Temple Smoke' where they had a lighter sound.
By 2012, They had played gigs around the city of Mumbai, and started venturing out to other cities such as Pune and Bangalore. By early 2012, the band dropped the name 'Temple Smoke' and went with the name 'Midhaven'.
Karan, Abhishek and Shreyas dropped out of college in the same month to be full time musicians.

By May 2013, they launched their EP 'Tales From The Tide' with much acclaim to fans, which was a mixture of what they used to play with 'Temple Smoke' as well as the heavier side of music which then led to metal.
After a couple of festivals in Pune and Mumbai, Midhaven went back into the studio for a full length album entitled 'Spellbound'.
They went back to the studio to work with their long time producer and friend Jordan Veigas (Jordan Veigas Music Productions).
While in the studio, the band has ideas for at least 14 tracks, some near completion, while some were going to be in the final album.
A tough decision based on their new sound made them cancel 5 tracks including 'Maelstrom' and 'Altaïr', both of which have been played live before.
Their new album consisted of 9 tracks, 6 of which were completely new and written in the studio itself.
The song 'Death Row' has guest vocals by their producer and long time friend 'Jordan Veigas'
During album recording, there was a new face in the studio, Viraaj Saxena.
He, along with Jason D'souza, was a sound engineer for Jordan Veigas Music Productions.
Once the album was over, Viraaj Saxena moved to being a session drummer for Midhaven by replacing Aviraj Kumar, the band's previous drummer who drummed on 'Spellbound' as well as 'Tales From The Tide'.

Usually I hate intros with a passion, but have to say 'Lunar Blessing' is a really great little instrumental with some amazing keyboard work and prog guitar, this then goes into 'Seeking The Divine' (which still kinda proves my point that intros are not needed), its a strange song amazing dual vocals one clean and one death style, the music has a definate modern neo-prog feel.

The next few seem to stick with this sound, but at times does lean towards that metalcore crap, then 'Ascension' comes in at 59 seconds of pointless filler which could have just been tacked on at the beginning of the next track 'Fall Of Olympus' which is stunning slab of brutal (dare I say) Nu-Metal is the vein of Mushroomhead but blended with some prog elements of Mastodon.

Then what a turn around for 'Third Eye' a weird song yet again blending so many different styles I'm not sure where to begin, starts out like Placebo, then gets this melodic death metal thing going before entering into eastern style prog, towards the end it borders on thrash metal!

'Death Row' again mixes it up with modern neo-prog and death metal.

All in all a great mix of styles (except the metalcore bits!) a very intresting and well thought out album.

Rating 9/10
For fans Of: Opeth, Mastodon, At The Gates, Mushroomhead