Mithras' fourth full-length album, 'On Strange Loops', is the band's first album proper in almost ten years, and sees the UK's foremost experimental extreme metallers raise the bar to a whole other level. The band's signature sounds are all present across the album's 56 minutes: Leon Macey's mind-bending, ethereal solos creep in and out when you're least expecting them, and his insanely fast blastbeats and crushing drums underpin Rayner Coss' otherworldly vocals and lurking bass; in essence, 'On Strange Loops' delivers everything that can and maybe should be expected from a band of Mithras' stature – and then some! And the 'some'? There's a mastery to the song-writing on this fourth instalment that (and the band agrees) surpasses everything they've released over the past two decades – the musicality and attention to the smallest of details leaves absolutely nothing to chance, and 'On Strange Loops' should satisfy the most wide and varied of musical palettes... It came as a blow to Leon Macey when Rayner Coss decided to leave the band just over a month before the album was due to be finished, apparently deciding he could no longer find the time to learn the lyrics or practice basslines. So 'On Strange Loops' is the last Mithras release to feature Rayner Coss. This revelation saw Coss put in a rare and last live performance for the band at London's Incineration Festival in May before he decided to leave prior to any further shows. Despite the turbulent times, Macey continued mixing and mastering the album at Dreaming Studios – giving it a truly massive-sounding production, while he solidified a live line-up to make sure the band could keep their live commitments - including an appearance at the Czech Republic's prestigious Brutal Assault Festival - without Coss. Completing an album as ambitious as 'On Strange Loops' alone was challenging enough, but it soon became clear that positive things could and would manifest from the negative situation Macey found himself in, and with their new line-up the band is now better placed than ever to support the release. Looking at the song-titles in hindsight, perhaps Macey had some sort of premonition...Stranger things have happened.
