Review by Adam M on September 24, 2022.

This album comes at a convenient time when the band could have made their music more progressive and heavy to appeal to the masses.  This is what they accomplish on this new disc, but this is really much more of the same as well. It is an all-encompassing atmosphere that the band obtains and gains upon throughout.  Compared directly to the previous effort Limbo, Mirage seems a little more thoughtful and compelled to ink out interesting directions. The band is still very heavy and play black metal, but there are times when you wouldn’t be surprised if you thought this was death metal instead. 

Right from the opener “Memoir”, the band hits a high note and destroys all in its path. The guitar work is great and features a very poignant display of metal bliss.  The drums are solid and form a good backbone for the band. The singing is tortured, yet emotive and fills in the remainder of the instrumental aspects nicely. This is really a nice heavy album that peaks at all the right moments and gives way to progression. One can sense that the band has been building up to this baffling new direction and they have paid their dues through repeated uses of progression.  The production values are massive and allow the album to breathe nicely.

This is simply the next stage of Gaerea’s sound and it’s nice to hear them fulfilling their promise nicely. In the future, the band could become more epic sounding and imitate bands like Primordial, but for now they are epic enough and able to capture your attention.  There are a variety of splendid moments on this disc and it’s hard to pick a favorite.  There is no doubt that Gaerea has managed to find their focus, but despite this there could still be improvements.  This was a dense and interesting listen, but it has the ability to become even greater in the future with further refinements.

Rating: 7.2 out of 10