Review Myland - Light of a New Day 2011

My land… That would be my garden here in Sweden. The land on which the house I own stand and the backyard it has. My land is tarmac, I have a pretty big back yard, but all of it is paved to be a parking lot and also a place where you can play basketball or soccer or tennis at the summer. And there is no garden work to take care of, no lawn to cut or plants to weed to take care of or anything else. It’s a backyard made for having fun in and not to look at. It’s MY land.

Myland the band doesn’t take any of my interests in consideration. Their lyrics are all about love, love and love – but looking at the cover art it looks much more like they were to sing about dragons and holy swords. The music sounds like neither. The theme with love should mean some sort of romantic music, but fact is that the music sounds more like soft heavy metal or tougher AOR and Swiss biker rockers Gotthard pops up in my head a couple of times. There’s a lot of things that doesn’t make sense with this album. With the theme they have their backyard garden should be a romantic flowery garden with lots of colors, streams with pouring water and wooden bridges and paths in gravel to walk on. With the cover they have the backyard should have hedges sculptured like squirrels and birds and hives with bees and strange flowers on the silver grass. The music take my thoughts to my own backyard; a boring, paved, flat yard without a trace of life except for when you’re in it playing sports and having barbecues. Doing an album like this is almost like wearing flip flops to a suit and then wrap it up with a cap like the one Robin Hood have in the Disney comics.

But… let’s forget all the details, let take our microscope and only concentrate at the music. The full picture might be wrong, but in the end it’s all about the music and not about what the music is dressed up in – it doesn’t matter if it’s a robe, a suit or green tights. The Italians make a pretty decent AOR/heavy metal album with a hoarse sounding vocalist and soft melodies with keyboards and guitars doing most of the work. I don’t think about love at all when I listen to the music, not even in a Scorpions or Whitesnake way (which is almost can be called “tough love”). This is more love without meaning it. Like a guy taking his non-fantasy-interested girlfriend to a Tolkien convention. The music is good but the vocals annoy me quite a lot. I’ve never cared much for the hoarse vocalists – I hate Lemmy and all his sound-a-likes and the AC/DC-Rod Stewart-sound is as bad that. If you are to sing in a band, at least then learn how to use your voice good enough to sing with it and don’t sound like some anteater out on a hunt after magic beans. Now, I better make it clear I don’t think Franco Campanella is THAT bad. I just don’t think he’s that good.

Myland delivers a soft heavy metal album or AOR with metal sound. Their melodies are soft and go with a nice flow. Their music play without offending anyone – easy going, easy to like rock. Looking at the production side it’s good too – nothing impressive, but absolutely good enough to be “unbothering”. Often the instrumental side is pretty toned down but now and then the band raise them and starts to rock a bit more. I think that is when this band sound at its best. I think the mid-tempo, mid-produced, mid-everything songs are too much mid-anything. They don’t call for attention in any way, they just are. But a lot of songs are more than this and they are what keeps the interest up with Myland. Only bad that the album ticks in at the hour. Waaayyy too looong...

Even though a lot of things are strange and confusing with this album, the music is overall good. They do AOR-metal according to the book and follow the schedule like a beaver. But some parts I think are too much done after the book without putting any of themselves in the music. Now and then Myland really is peeks out from behind that curtain in an honest appearance, but most of the time this album is just a mid-story. Everything and anything is in the middle and because of this I also value this band as a mid-band. In the middle of the scale and in the middle of what’s really good and what’s really bad. A safe path to take if you want to be sure not to get something bad, but also a safe path for missing out on the really good. What Myland should have called themselves on ‘Light of a new Day’ is Mid-land.

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Myland Light of a New Day

Myland
Light of a New Day