I became a Metal convert in high school. I used to hang out with older guys who could be roughly divided into two crowd types. The first type was nice and gentlemanly, played real guitar and listened to Queen and Rainbow. The second was a bit snarlier, played air guitar and swore by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. I was only 14 and don’t know who watched after me, but I sure preferred the power of Judas Priest to the softness of Queen. I do own just about every recording made by Deep Purple and Rainbow, history needs to be respected, but my heart has always been set on Metal, rather than Hard Rock or AOR.

From the first chords of Myon’s Ghost in Paradise, all those 80s memories came back. Death of the Dawn sounds like Foreigner and opening riffs of Tournament could have come straight out of Rainbow’s Bent out of Shape. I really thought that younger bands do not make music of this type anymore, but looking at the promo picture of these Finns I can see that the guys are older and probably get their inspiration from that other crowd I abandoned at 14. Ghost in Paradise, the band’s second album after Heaven’s Garden on Noise Records, is a perfect trip down memory lane for those who enjoy sounds of the 80s or for those who like soft melodic rock.

Pleasant and highly melodic music, no doubt, Myon exhibits all traits that really made me choose the angrier side of heavy metal. Total lack of grit, keyboard saturated soft verses, choruses containing the song’s main hook and drumming that is concerned more with bells and whistles of high-hat than the accent of a snare – nevertheless, Myon play their stuff technically very well. Your average local FM Soft Rock the River station would be lucky to play them. I would not call Ghost in Paradise overly progressive only because keyboards are used, there are no odd time signatures or complex song structures. Myon is no more progressive than Uriah Heep was back in the days. Risto Silenius can play his leads, but there is no Blackmorish razzle-dazzle here.

A few songs have power metal elements, like Tournament with its playful chorus and Follow the Sign with some helicopter riffs and Sonata Arctica-like harmonized lead. A parallel with Sonata can also be drawn in terms of vocals. At times, Sami Huotari sounds like a more controlled, more polished version of Toni Kakko. At this point, Sami’s voice is a perfect fit for the sound of Myon.

No dungeons and dragons, Myon songs deal with more philosophical and deeper personal subjects, but the cheese factor is not totally eliminated, case in point balladic synth heavy Avenue. I am sure my teammates Marty and Mike would take pleasure in Ghost in Paradise quite a bit more than me, this release appealing to a specific, but quite broad, fan base. 80s, where art thou?