Mehida- Blood and Water

Artist: Mehida
Album: Blood & Water
Label: Napalm Records

This is the first release for Finnish progressive metal band Mehida. Released on Napalm Records, "Blood & Water" just didn't seem to offer anything very interesting to me. Mehida is the new band of ex-Sonata Arctica keyboardist Mikko Harkin and is fronted by ex-Candlemass vocalist Thomas Vikstrom.  The music is anything but progressive and comes off as very generic sounding. Jani Stefanovic's guitar riffs bring nothing new to the genre and Markus Niemispelto's drum playing is made up of very basic beats and doesn't seem to fit the music at times. Mikko's keyboard playing is really noticeable throughout the album which isn't always a good thing. Along with the keyboards, the pietistic lyrics written by Mikko "Blood & Water" makes the album sound more like some form of gospel metal than anything else. Thomas's vocals are about the only thing that I didn't mind on the album but I would much rather hear him singing on "Chapter VI" with Candlemass than with Mehida. Overall, I can't say that I liked the album very much, even after a few listens, and I'm not really sure who I would recommend this album to.