Album Review :
Hrada - Mirrorland

This is a very unusual release, and I mean that in the best way possible. If you don’t know, Hrada is the brainchild of Peter Espevoll, formerly of Extol. So Hrada sounds like Extol, right? Not at all. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Well, kind of. Do we have excellent instrumentation, exquisite arrangements, and segues that make your head spin a little? Sure. The two projects have that in common. On Mirrorland, there are also themes of faith, doubt, and some very deep questions and societal critiques that wouldn’t be too out of place on an Extol album. We’ll say more about that in a moment.

What’s missing on the project is any musical resemblance to Espevoll’s former entity. No growls, no searing guitars, no brutal heaviness of any sort. Mirrorland, as stated above is a very unusual release. It’s very high-quality progressive pop, barely even rock. The closest comparisons I can make (and admittedly, none of these are very accurate) would be to projects like The Guillemots, Moments in Grace, and late-period Into Another, after they shed the hardcore influence.

Clean vocals with layered harmonies abound (sometimes akin to The Beach Boys, other times more aligned with chamber music that added vocalists. Instrumentation—though including guitar, bass and drums—focuses more heavily on piano, strings and the like. It is ridiculously difficult to describe this music, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it.

While the band does address faith, it’s in a very different way from Extol. I mean, the hint is in the name, right? Extol means “to praise highly” and is synonymous with “worship” (according to Dictionary.com). Mirrorland instead makes observations about life, and even critiques the faith from which they come. Take “Gospel Oak” for instance, a song about the horrors of western Christian colonialism:

My brethren, I have communed with the Lord
His task for us is enslave and control
I don´t care for the New command
Coz it s the old world I understand

Strange how a task so dire
Matches up with the Lord’s desire

“Tainted Mirror” warns of the dangers of moving away from the simplicity and purity of the Gospel:

Window, tainted truth
Grant us carnal youth
Storm is taking hold
Feels so dark and cold
We wrestle with this strange desire
Poisenous (sic.) and spreading like fire
Gospel changing form
shifted by this form
Diluted down and placed in lieu
of what we’re able to construe
Something slipped unnoticed
into our water stream
And with each handful
We’re quietly deceived
So raise our voices
Each single one with candour
Regardless of intent
will wipe out lies we just invent
Destroyer, taker of our lives
Break this glass and let in the light

No easy answers here, but some powerful observations nonetheless. Overall this is a great release, highly challenging to listeners expecting more of the same. Order or download from Bandcamp: https://hrada.bandcamp.com/album/mirrorland

*EDIT: Peter Espevoll is still a member of Extol, but no longer a touring member.