Style: Thall, Avant-Garde Metal, Dubstep, YouTube Reaction Music (Mostly Instrumental, Clean Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Vildhjarta, Humanity’s Last Breath, Igorrr, Doom 2016 OST
Country: France
Release date: 16 May 2026

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Can I tell you a secret? I was a band nerd growing up. Emphasis on nerd. I remember discovering Meshuggah around sixth or seventh grade and becoming completely enamored with the physicality of their distinctive rhythmic conceit. Fast forward to freshman year of highschool: I’m arriving at school at six-thirty nearly every morning for jazz band practice, bugging my teacher with inquiries about how exactly the beginning of “Organic Shadows” is supposed to be counted before the sun had even risen. The next few years, I absorbed as much as I could about music theory, taking a particular interest in all things rhythmic. I was the geek tapping out polyrhythms with his fingers on the bus windowpane while on the way to marching band performances. Stop bullying me.

Anyway, my high school band teacher took my incessant nagging extremely well. Except, he wasn’t a fan of the music I was into. I distinctly remember him calling Meshuggah ‘an interesting exercise in syncopation, but not much beyond that’. I was crushed—after all, I was in high school, I had no personality beyond the music I listened to! Hell, I still don’t, hence my writing for this website! Now, nearly two decades after that pivotal moment, I find myself sympathizing with my teacher’s criticism. Oh—but not about Meshuggah, they’re still fuckin’ sick.

Mirar, though…

Unfortunately, I can’t just copy and paste my high school band teacher’s criticisms of Meshuggah onto Mirar. I don’t think that Mirar is ‘nothing more than an interesting exercise in syncopation’. In fact, I don’t think there is anything particularly interesting about the rhythmic qualities of Gradus Ad Parnassum in the first place. What I can do is relate to the broader sentiment of the criticism: Mirar is, at its core, an exercise in excess. Gradus Ad Parnassum is the latest offering from the thall duo—except, is it really even thall at this point? Is it even metal?

Well, kind of. Mirar have always utilized the core textures and techniques of djent and thall: octaves-wide interval leaps, heavily syncopated palm muted riffing, climactic breakdowns, and an intense focus on production. The problem in Mirar’s case, though, is that the application of such techniques have never really gone beyond surface level aesthetics. Mirar play huge, nauseating thall intervals, sure, but they largely ignore the unique melodic language the genre has cultivated over the better part of the last two decades, substituting it instead with a superficial baroque scaffolding. Riffs are palm muted and syncopated simply because they’re supposed to be, their textural and rhythmic application rarely serving a broader purpose of groove or structure (though “Leclerc” and “Arsenic” do have their moments). The (over)production has always been the primary focal point of Mirar’s sound—dense soundscaping and a reliance on effects—and this has never been more true than on Gradus Ad Parnassum. Except, it actually works in their favor this time around! Mostly. Kind of.

Ok, Gradus Ad Parnassum is still an overproduced mess, but I think Mirar are beginning to sort of stumble their way into their own little niche. Opener “Stjernebro” immediately adds a novel element to the Mirar formula with Lovise Espeland’s delicate singing, her vocal melody floating above deep fried computer nois—er, ‘cinematic’ guitar effects—in an attempt to set the mood for the rest of the album. And set the mood it does, though perhaps not in the way Mirar intended. “Stjernebro” packs an astonishing amount of production fuckery into an intro track which isn’t even two minutes in length, and then Gradus Ad Parnassum just keeps doing it for another twenty-four minutes. Any remaining musical qualities are practically left by the wayside, a mere afterthought in the face of the seemingly compounding maximalism of the production ethos. Not to say that Gradus Ad Parnassum is completely bereft of musicality, it’s just that musicality is obviously and unequivocally not the focus anymore. 

This is a good thing, actually.

Writing songs was never Mirar’s strong suit, composing soundscapes and atmosphere always has been. Gradus Ad Parnassum fully leans into this strength with surprising success. The dichotomy of Espeland’s delicate timbre and guitar-that-doesn’t-even-sound-like-guitar-anymore on “Stjernebro” drops all pretenses—you’re gonna hear some sounds on this record. ““Arsenic” utilizes ride cymbals which sound more like rattling dungeon chains than percussion, before peeling away to horror movie-esque strings screeching in unison with double bass kicks. “Leclerc” features a glitched, staggered guitar rhythm accentuated by electronic wubs and dubs. “Heksebål” opens with panicked breathing which is quickly interrupted by the swell of blast beats and a downtuned guitar pitch—more of an ocean wave than musical passage—before landing at the first ‘Big Riff’ of Gradus Ad Parnassum a bit past the one-minute mark, where it hit me: this isn’t a riff… it’s a drop. A dubstep drop.

This is also a good thing, actually.

I mean, let’s be honest. Mirar have always been somewhat of a dubstep—or brostep or deathstep or minatory or whatever genre you want to call it—project. On Gradus Ad Parnassum, though, I would argue that dubstep is actually the primary compositional force. Songs are structured like dubstep songs rather than metal songs; tension and release comes largely from dynamic soundscaping rather than harmony or songcraft; and any section other than the ‘Big Riff’ is almost always used in service of getting to the next ‘Big Riff’ in as dramatic a fashion as possible. Such an approach encloses Mirar’s sound in a much needed box, lending it an intentionality that is missing from the band’s previous efforts. Unfortunately, plenty of compositional unfocusedness remains—namely, the unnecessary baroque scaffolding which still envelops much of the melodic phrasing; the appropriation of thall and djent techniques without a real understanding of what makes them tick in the first place; and a lingering ‘throw shit at the wall to see what sticks’ approach to songwriting. Gradus Ad Parnassum remains a stilted, disjointed mess—with a number of different styles, influences, techniques, and textures tripping over each other—but at least an overarching direction is seemingly beginning to emerge. 

So, there you have it. Mirar still kind of sucks. But, with the changes made on Gradus Ad Parnassum, I can see myself possibly one day maybe sort of liking them, which is a hell of an improvement. I don’t see the lack of songcraft, thall cosplay riffs, or the baroque gimmick going anywhere anytime soon—the YouTube algorithm hungers, afterall—but perhaps one day Mirar will stop pretending to be a thall band with electronic elements, and properly reorient themselves into an electronic project which uses metal and thall techniques and textures. I just feel sorry for any band teachers dealing with some dumbass kids’ requests to analyze Mirar for them. Ah well.

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Recommended Tracks: Leclerc, Arsenic, Når Solen Går Ned
You may also like: A.i.(d), Stoort Neer, Culak, Aaru, Transformers having sex
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram

Label: Independent

Mirar is:
– Marius Elfstedt (guitar, production)
– Léo Watremez (guitar, production)
– Lovise Espeland (vocals)