Although Tears of Magdalena is listed as a Finnish band, it is very much a product attributable to one Magdalena Lee, and she is a Belarusian. And a very talented, highly educated Belarusian. Magdalena lists among her academic credentials, graduation from the Music Academy of St. Petersburg with additional studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. She then studied opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and with the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and finished up doing training with an international opera figure in Vienna. In other words, she has spent some time learning her craft. And that background shows on Myths and Legends. Magdalena contributes vocals, violin, keyboards and composition expertise on this production, and that should be reason enough to call this her CD. Just in case you’re interested in my opinion.

The music is interesting Beauty and the Beast Gothic. The Beast part is contributed by Vasstago who also wrote the lyrics for these tracks. I asked Magdalena about the development process, these bands seem to have a variety of methods that they use to develop their music. Her description of the process reflects her classical background; the focus is on the music first, with the lyrics coming later. Specifically, she describes the process as one that starts with themes:

"First we are thinking about theme of emotional lyrics. And after I start to paint a song like a painting. I use different colours: opera / crouling / rock vocals, very emotional, instruments, sounds, harmonies, riffs. Different styles of music helps to describe characters of my small opera or film.

Then, I make a melody of vocals and after I put everything around it. Usually I make many different versions of every part of the song."

The musical component reflects the classical background of the writer, the lyrics reflect topics of interest; a combination of the interests of Magdalena and Vasstago although they are written by Vasstago. We often wonder what exactly these lyrics are describing; Vasstago was kind enough to provide answers to those questions in detail for each song on the CD. I’ll provide some of them here.

Myths and Legends opens with Aurora Borealis. There is a keyboard line covered by the trademark guitars that lead to the operatic vocals of Magdalena. However, this song, as with most of the songs here, is a duet with the beautiful female vocals contrasted against the harsh male vocals of Vasstago. The music moves between the keyboard based classical direction and the guitars and the story line focuses on tails of the northern lights and the myths and legends associated with those themes.

The following title, Cut ‘Em Down looks at another topic from Scandinavia. According to Vasstago, the song deals with "Finnish light cavalrymen during 20 Years War in Europe in Swedish army, they were called "hakkapeliitat" because of their war cry "hakkaa päälle" = "cut them down". They were well respected and dreaded in all Europe for their war tactic and blood thirsty nature." The song is a little harder than the previous offering, there is the tone of the battle cry, there are the more desperate guitars over the stirring symphonics. And, again, there is the vocal playoff between the male and female vocals.

Immortal Love takes the music initially into a softer direction, and adds the violin to the mix over a haunting Gothic theme. Vasstago describes this as a personal message, describing the relationship between the two vocalists. Magdalena delivers a strong vocal line here over the keyboards. The song builds as it moves onwards and there are some interesting operatic components that serve to define the song. These vocals, along with the violins provide one of the more memorable tracks on the CD.

The violin introduces the following selection The Eastway. Again, we return to the Nordic tradition and themes. Vasstago describes this song as a " true story of Finnish Vikings called Varangians. Swedish Vikings came in Finland and asked some Finnish swordmen to guide them in to the east, through the Russian rivers even to Istanbul, Turkey. These voyagers were Varangians." The story provides some interesting history about a time long ago:

There is some truly beautiful, classically oriented music to appreciate as well here. Mermaid is largely sung by Magdalena and has a more operatic tone to it. Keyboards give us some interesting sounds that build to the guitars, but the song yields to the female vocals and are carried from that direction. Magdalena has a voice that is hard to classify, you hear the opera but it’s not a Tarja opera. The background is, however, more classical in nature than the typical Nightwish sound. When Magdalena’s voice is overlaid, it provides a choral sound that is truly interesting. This tone is carried over to the final track; Your Blood is My Whine, only with a more sinister direction. This is vampire music and, although beautiful, it takes us to the very dark side of the Tears of Magdalena repertoire. Musically, it is a highlight of the CD; it gets you in the mood for your favorite Dracula tale, with lyrics to match:

Myths and Legends provides a wealth of entertainment, great music, interesting themes and strong gothic vocals. And you get the historical background thrown in for free. Hard to beat that. Now regarding the future, well, that’s way beyond me, but we can only hope that this musical entity, however it’s defined, will continue to provide strong, enjoyable music for us for a long time to come. With or without the tears.

9 / 10