I have a bit of weird history with this band. Waaaaay back in like 2004 they contacted me for an interview, which I said I would do, but as I had never heard the band I wanted to review their most recent album first. They hemmed and hawed and dragged their feet about it, finally sent me a promo and I did the review, sent them the interview questions, and then never heard back from them. Later I heard they had broken up, though according to Metal-Archives that’s not true, so I don’t know.

Anyway, this band hasn’t put out an album since 2006, despite the fact that they have been supposedly active. Now we get a new, self-titled album after 16 years. This band was always in the same general zone as Black/Death bands like Belphegor or Ragnarok, mixing Death Metal heaviness with Black imagery and Satanic screaming. This kind of thing was much more a thing 10 or 15 years ago, so now this seems kind of retro, in a way. As before, Mystic Circle are solid but not really better than that. The production is good, the playing is decent, and the songwriting is adequate. This isn’t bad, but it is pretty pedestrian.