Album Review: Mývalyĭr – The Past Tales (Self Released)

The UK’s melodic death metal band, Mývalyĭr look to make an impact with their ambitious debut, The Past Tales, released independently on the 27th of February.

Formed from isolated pandemic-era ideas that came together in 2023, Mývalyĭr work within melodic death metal but push its boundaries with folk and orchestral elements. Violin, cello, and nyckelharpa add depth and colour to the riffs, creating a sound that’s both heavy and layered. After releasing the singles ‘Reign’ and ‘Recollection’ in late 2025, the band now present their debut full-length album, The Past Tales, releasing independently on February 27th, 2026. A concept record exploring conflict in its many forms—historical, cultural, and personal—it marks a bold and immersive beginning for the band.

The Past Tales comes with striking artwork from Felipe Machado Franco (Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Rhapsody Of Fire etc) and is mixed and mastered by Janne Lunnas (Boreal Grave, Shade Of Sorrow etc).

Mývalyĭr is Dale Pountney on bass, Kai Boyce on lead guitar, Stephen Wilkinson on drums, Joe Clayton on guitar and backing vocals, Kain on vocals and Natalie Fluess on everything from keyboards and violin to nyckelharpa and backing vocals.

The Past Tales gets underway with Requiem, offering a minute-long introduction full of gorgeous sounds, with twinkling keys and violins giving us the chance to get bedded in before Recollection takes over with a full-frontal assault of heavy riffs and drums. It’s a little chaotic, in a good way, but the payoff comes as the rhythm settles into a solid groove, with some really neat guitar melody driving the song forwards. The vocals are strong, dropping into different tones as the drums and bass release chunky rhythms that will have you headbanging along very early in the track.

The combination of the heavy-hitting groove, the catchy drum beats, and the quickened melodies from the guitars works a treat and really ticks that melodic death metal checkbox. A drop down into a sombre, more threatening melody offers intrigue, and what follows is a passage where the vocals turn from shouts and growls to a more “core”-like shout, backed by guttural growls over a dark rhythm dappled with violin. It might sound like a lot, but it’s not – it works wonderfully well and transforms what is already a really good melodeath track into something unique, memorable, and exciting.

Mývalyĭr have flown out of the gates here, making an instant impact, and that just carries on as we head through The Past Tales. Reign is a longer track, at just over seven minutes, and feels like a powerful statement of intent. The melody of the intro weaves in nicely with the harsh vocals as the pace and power lift. The melody is wistful and drops down into melancholic bridges, with tapping drums and keys adding depth and intrigue equally. I really enjoy the contrast between the harsh vocals, heavy drums, and gentle, melancholic melodies. It grabs you and holds your attention with ease. It’s a very creative, very exciting track and shows Mývalyĭr to be a band not willing to sit comfortably within a genre, but instead here to evolve it.

The title track comes up next with a double header – The Past Tales Part 1 and Part 2. The first section of this mammoth piece, Part 1, is near eleven minutes long. Epic in length, but also in delivery, it is a phenomenal song. The melodies are hypnotic, the riffs are heavy, the vocals are furious, and it constantly changes and evolves throughout the track. You go from banging your head furiously to swaying along with the dreamy female vocal passages, all while the meandering guitar line grabs and holds your attention throughout. We say this a lot in reviews, but it is very true here that the eleven minutes pass in what seems like seconds, as I found myself so engaged with the song.

With a track of this length, you obviously expect many different contrasts and changes, and we get all of that here, with sections where the riffs and drums take over and hammer us with blasts of intense death metal. That then transitions into clean passages, then from there into solos and more. It’s a superbly effective and impressively cinematic track.

Part 2 then continues directly on from the sombre melody that closed out Part 1, bringing in the gorgeous sounds of a violin to drive the melody further. It’s shorter, at less than four minutes, and acts as an epilogue to Part 1, bringing back the chorus from the first in powerful fashion with extra emphasis. More emphatic drums, powerful roars, violins, guitars – everything just raises a step to make this a worthy track in its own right. At first, I questioned why it wasn’t all a single track, to be honest, but on relistening, if you play this track on its own, it stands tall and you wouldn’t necessarily pick it out as a Part 2. In a world of short attention spans and shuffle, it makes sense and is beautifully impactful.

We’re approaching the end with The Mighty Never Fall coming in as the penultimate track. What I love about this track is its simplicity. We have seen the expansive and creative side of Mývalyĭr across the album; here, this song feels like a reminder that they are also more than capable of just kicking ass too. It’s heavy, leaning into the death metal side, albeit with a touch of keys adding atmosphere and depth behind the crushing riffs, blasting drums, and vocal power. In true melodeath style, lead guitars blaze melody out alongside the heaviness, but mostly you just want to get in the mosh pit and let loose a bit here.

The Past Tales closes out with Renascence. At just over two minutes in length, it has the feel of an outro to the album, a helping hand to lead you out of the world Mývalyĭr have envisioned here and back into the battles of reality. Purely instrumental, we move through some gorgeous melody into a blast of impassioned heaviness, before acoustic guitars and folk instruments take over, gently leading us onwards before fading to quiet.

The Past Tales is an album that makes an instant impact and never really lets go. Mývalyĭr balance heaviness with melody, atmosphere with aggression, and creativity with outright power, shifting comfortably between expansive, cinematic moments and more direct, punishing bursts of death metal.

What really stands out is how engaging the album is from start to finish. Whether it’s the longer, evolving tracks that constantly change and surprise, or the more straightforward moments that just hit hard, there’s always something happening to pull you in and keep your attention. It’s creative, inspired, and genuinely exciting, and a very strong debut. This is going to be getting a lot of playtime from me this year.

Track List:

1 – Requiem
2 – Recollection
3 – Reign
4 – The Past Tales Part 1
5 – The Past Tales Part 2
6 – The Mighty Never Fall
7 – Renascence

Mývalyĭr Links

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