Band:	Mirzadeh
Album:	Ancient Rites
Style:	Melodic black metal
Release date:	August 2003

01. All For One Immortal
02. Under The Veil Of Misery
03. Verenkantaja
04. Winter Ceremony
05. Sacred Soil
06. Sweet Souls Of Shadows
07. Fullmoon Dream
08. Apostate In Orgy

Is really true that thing of "you don't know what you have until is gone", I've seen many any albums in my life, and I've seen some bands signed to big record companies and putting less and less effort in each album (I won't say names though), and here we have Mirzadeh, young band from Finland, their Self-released debut album, and let me tell you that the presentation is flawless, is incredible that this self-financed album has better presentation, booklet, cover art and photo shooting than many other signed bands.

Besides the wonderful overall art of the Cd, Mirzadeh claims to be a Dark Metal band, which I see as Black metal with Gothic influences, as simple as that.
Mirzadeh offer us 5 new songs and 3 songs originally released in their Demo "Sweet Souls Of Shadows", which I been told that was praised among the press.

Anyway, the band lyrics are dealing with Finnish culture and folkloric rites of their ancestors, there's even a song sung in their native tongue, "Verenkantaja" (Bloodbearer).
"All For One Immortal" opens the Cd with good rhythms and catchy lines, but the thing that really shines here, in many songs, is the keyboard, really good work by Exitus, the keyboard player of course.

"Winter Ceremony" is a fantastic song, and easily one of my favorites in the Cd, and be sure not to miss "Sacred Soil" a fantastic instrumental where the keyboards shine once more, the only bad thing is that is only 2 minutes long. From the second part of the album, (the songs from their previous Demo) "Apostate In Orgy" is the killer song there, Arabic-influenced guitar lines and a really creepy keyboard further on.

The production is ok, but It could be a little more crisp, since this was mastered at the famous Finnvox Studios.
Anyway, Mirzadeh and their Dark Metal shall not go unnoticed much more time I think, works of this level always get rewarded, and I foretell a record contract soon for these young Finns, I hope that when they got a record deal, they continue to put this kind of effort in the visual part, which is very important to many people when buying a CD.