Genres are a thing of the past… Mycelia have continuously strived to defy the traditional boundaries between metal’s various subgenres, while still keeping their sound fresh and engaging. Drawing on influences ranging from hardcore, metal and djent to jazz and classic film scores, the Swiss six-piece has continually baffled both critics and fans with their complex, heavy-yet-catchy arrangements. The band’s signature sound pairs groovy, crushing rhythmic sections with subtle, intricate melodies, on top of surgically precise drumming and vocal arrangements that range from soaring clean vocals to utterly brutal screams and growls.
Mycelia was founded in 2010, by guitarist Mike Schmid and Drummer Marc Trummer, who were shortly after joined by singer Marc Fürer. Since their inception, the band has released an impressive number of records: After two online EPs, the band released their debut album Isolator (2012), and its successor Nova (2013). Next, Mycelia released their third album Obey (2015) thereby setting a new quality standard for the entire Swiss metal scene. The album’s success however was not limited to the national market, as Obey was Mycelia’s first record to reach the band’s Asian fans through its release in Japan, among other countries. In the wake of Obey, Mycelia’s line-up was further improved with the joining of guitarist and singer Mike Fuller and bassist Eugen Wiege. After a highly successful year of touring, the quintet completed the line-up with singer Lukas Villiger, and focused on the preparation for their fourth album, Dawn (2017). With Dawn, Mycelia were able to reach a new pinnacle of their musical career, drawing on their passion and experience to create a musical journey that fuses the technical depth and unrelenting energy of the band’s earlier works with the deep diversity and complexity of the later releases. It wasn’t long before Dawn caught the attention of Eclipse Records (Mushroomhead, A Breach of Silence, Despite) and they subsequently signed an exclusive worldwide deal with the US-based label.
Currently, the Swiss metal juggernauts have released their latest full-length album entitled Apex. The album was produced by Marc Trummer, and mixed by Joshua Wickman (Oceans Ate Alaska, Within the Ruins, King 810) at Dreadcore Productions. Apex features thirteen complex, memorable songs which promise to further establish Mycelia as one of Switzerland’s finest heavy bands. The album’s lead single ‘Eight Milligrams’ takes personal anger and puts it on a general scale against the backdrop of violent revolution, while ‘E.V.A.’ takes a more finctional approach telling the tale of an astronaut drifting alone in space as every sense of familiarity and belonging fades away. The third single form the album ‘Nefarious Seeds’ completely body-slams fake news laying bare the age of misinformation on social media and how easily the majority of mankind is misled to believe anything they read via social media.
Apex was released on October 12, 2018 via Eclipse Records and the album received critical acclaim from dozens of blogs, magazines, and radio stations worldwide. With the push of singles such as “Eight Milligrams” and “Nefarious Seeds”, along with the release of music videos for both tracks, the band was quickly propelled into the spotlight and altogether the album has received over 1.5 million streams across all DSPs worldwide.
Towards the end of 2019 the band continued writing new material, however their efforts were slowed down by the global pandemic. The band quickly transitioned to remotely collaborating during the lockdowns, and as a result, they wrote & recorded fifteen new songs for their fifth full-length album entitled In A Late Country. The new album is a post-apocalyptic djent metal concept album which tells the story of a young man trying to find his lost girlfriend in the midst of a government-controlled evacuation program dealing with an overpopulated city. The lyrics on the album are actually the lines of the various characters within the story, which (when looking at the album’s lyrics) read more like a script from a movie or television series. Pure science fiction, In A Late Country shatters the stereotypical norms within the djent metal genre. By utilizing synthesizers and ambient noise to accentuate the storyline and emotional journey of the characters therein, Mycelia have once again shown the world they are adept and capable of rewriting the djent metal genre’s typical playbook into something new, fresh, and forward thinking.
In A Late Country was released worldwide by Eclipse Records on September 16, 2022.
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