Morigan
Cynical

January 2010
Released: 2009, Self-released
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

I saw this Tartu-based, Estonian female-fronted metal act Morigan playing at Club Tapper in Tallinn, Estonia this Halloween for the very first time in my life – and they made me really curious about their beautifully rollin´ extreme metal music.



About after 2 weeks from that concert, I contacted the band, asking politely whether they might be interested in sending their debut album for a review in Metal-Rules.com – and after a few days of waiting, one of the band´s guitarists Elar replied back and was into my proposal.



CYNICAL, containing 8 songs altogether, is a mixture of modern, melodic and technical sounding thrash and death metal, that is a pleasure to listen to. What impressed me first in hearing this band, was the band´s female vocalist Mari-Liis who can do both clean and snarling vocals very well. Most of the time she uses her snarling vocals (reminding me of Metallic Kitty of Decadence here and there quite a bit actually) within the songs that sound simply impressive – and fit the band´s aggressive sound very well in my honest opinion. She can also do those clean vocals well, but I think this album would be even better without them. Technical-wise, they are on a par with any other technically advanced and skilled metal act these days - sounding well rehearsed and just determined to be successful for their global metal domination. Especially both bands´ guitarists Elar and Jaanus deserve a special mention for their very ear-piercing shredding on the album. What a skilled 6-string duo they are indeed.



The band has moulded their somewhat extreme sounding, sophisticated metal aggression into a relatively fine shape on CYNICAL, reeking of just a lot of potentiality and willingness to break out from their country, just gaining a little bit ground in the worldwide metal community for themselves. With quality of the songs that they have managed to get collected for CYNICAL (with the exception of last, sort of a remix song done from “Cyberman”. It sounds just – to put it simple, terribly annoying with its truculent whatever techno modification), I am sure they will cause some impact on people around the world. So people, try to support Morigan from your part in their efforts for world domination if possible at all. ;o)