Review by J.C. on December 29, 2025.

I'm a Mental Home fan, and I love their music. While their music isn't slow enough (which is common to at least half of the melodic death/doom metal bands), they are pretty good at writing songs. Many of their songs often sound ordinary at first, but after listening to them repeatedly, you will find that they contain a lot of detail and clever ideas. Their musical style is perhaps not just melodic doom metal, but also gothic and progressive metal.

In 2012, the band said goodbye to a 12-year hiatus, emerging from the shadow of the original member of the band, Roman Povarov, who committed suicide by jumping off a building, and released their fourth full-length album, Угра, which is not as complex as the band's most complex album Vale and the most beautiful album Black Art (lyrics related to Slavic mythology), but still maintains a high level.

The album is still the band's familiar formula, with mid-tempo riffs, beautiful melodies, clever pairs of dual guitars, diverse vocal styles between extreme and clear, innovative drums and basses, complex and delicate keyboards, and well-choreographed articulation between progressive passages and bridges. But unlike the dark, oppressive atmosphere of the band's earlier works, the melodies of the new works are optimistic, majestic, and full of wild power. There are a lot of highlights in the arrangement, and these good ideas are very comfortable for the ears; the previous album,  Upon The Shores Of Inner Seas, is a bit shoddy (and still an excellent album). Please note that the preludes of Track 1 ('Gen Osten!') and Track 7 ('Берёза, Яблоня, Рябина') are very long, but if you analyze them carefully, they are all based on the repetition of a simple motive many times through the change and evolution of details, and the interpretation of multiple instruments to achieve the progression of mood, atmosphere and song theme, although complex but very in line with the laws of human hearing, so it is easy to win people's patience and will not make people feel bored.

Also worth paying attention to are the second half of Track 1 ('Gen Osten!'), Track 2 ('Вихри Времени'), and Track 7 ('Берёза, Яблоня, Рябина'). These three songs are the three longest songs on the album, and the song structure is similar, with an interesting transition after the second chorus, which is layered and refined in Track 1 ('Gen Osten!'), embellishing the song with a relatively simple motive a little more complicated; in Track 2 ('Вихри Времени'), it's gorgeous and melancholic, as if it returns to the artistry of Black Art's album; in Track 7 ('Берёза, Яблоня, Рябина'), it's a bit longer and more progressive. There's also a not-so-noticeable Track 5 ('Гжатский Тракт'), which sits behind two not-so-good tracks, Track 3 ('В Среднем Течении...') and Track 4 ('Угра'), but has the most elaborate orchestration of the entire album, where progressive sophistication blends with gothic glamour, with several beautiful passages linked together in a complex song structure. Track 6 ('Утонувшие') is a new version of the song 'Drowned' from the early demo, with the band rearranged and the lyrics in Russian, and if you've listened to the original 1995 version, you'll find it a brilliant rearrangement that retains the highlights of the original song while enriching more details, while blending in perfectly with the style of the new album, which is almost inaudible to those who are not familiar with the band's work. The album's final track, Track 8 ('Вороньё "Raven Land'), is a cover of Lake Of Tears, which is basically faithful to the original song except for translating the lyrics into Russian, but sped up, and since the original song is called 'Ravenland', the band adds a crow call at the beginning and end.

This album is certainly not perfect everywhere. It's clear that Mirrorland was the peak of lead singer Sergey Dmitriev, and after about 20 years, his voice is not as good as it used to be, and although we can hear him singing as best he can, in the chorus of some songs, he used to be able to sing better. The change in language was also a challenge for him, and switching to Russian was a breakthrough in his comfort zone. However, the unique pronunciation of the Russian language also gives this album a different sound than the previous three albums.

The band's latest EP album from 2017, Triangle, is based on the mythology of the ancient Mediterranean, which I have listened to many times, and is also a work of art. It's hard to expect new works from the band, especially after the death of the band's former guitarist, Sergey Kalachyov, in 2019.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10