Mirador

Members of the Swedish metal band Mirador have come and gone since the group was founded by Jakob Forsberg, Erik Mjörnell and Kalle Santana in 1991, but two of the original members, the cousins Jakob and Erik, still form the spine of this group. Naturally, back in the early days, no one knew what this project would turn out to be. Erik, ten years old at the time and by far the youngest member, was quite inspired by the metal band Stryper, and so it came to be that the first song the band started rehearsing was Stryper's 'More than a man'.
Mirador recruited members from a circle of close friends, and eventually played a few locally renowned gigs. Their musical style turned quite a bit heavier than that of the original Stryper tunes, mostly due to heavy influences like Metallica, late 80's Black Sabbath and Guns N' Roses. Needless to say, Mirador's own music written by Jakob, initially sucked. But young and extremely talented lead guitarist Erik helped the band to perform with charm.
Some two or three years later, Mirador would undergo some major changes as Veni Domine released their debut album, 'Fall Babylon fall', a masterpiece yet to be matched by any band in the genre.
Never having heard this style of music before, the Veni Domine album became a revelation to all of the members of Mirador. Deeply moved and enlightened by this discovery, Mirador searched the vaults and found invaluable treasures in similar styles, such as Candlemass and most of all Memento Mori. This made Mirador take on a new pure doom metal music costume.
At this point, the band was reinforced with Isak, a divinely gifted singer with a characteristic high-pitched voice. Jakob gladly handed the mic over and focused on writing music and playing the rhythm guitar. Mirador's first studio recorded demo made the cut and they closed a deal with a small Swedish record company. Realizing that the forthcoming recording was going to be important, the members chose to put the band under scrutiny. They found a weak link and so it was that the hard-hitting drummer Lars Palmqvist to joined them.
Unfortunately, the record company went bankrupt before Mirador could enter the studio, and the record was cancelled. Mirador fought on. With heavily improved skills on songwriting and instruments, they turned into a competent live act, and their demos and performances won renown among Swedish metalheads.
In 1997, Isak at last found himself being more interested in the singer/songwriter genre, and with his own material he set out from the little village Finspång, home of the proud death metal masters Edge of Sanity, to the Swedish capital Stockholm to seek his own fortune, and he quit the band. The remnants of Mirador went scattered and divided when the members, for different reasons, moved all over the country and rehearsals became rare. Slowly, Mirador was put to a long and well needed sleep.
Six years later, in the fall of 2003, Jakob and Erik met in Stockholm and started to write new songs. Christian Rivel, the turbo charged Narnia lead singer, picked up interest in their material and signed Mirador under his own label. The cousins mingled old influences with new, and now not only metal, which makes their debut album THE Azrael Tales an interesting and unpredictable experience. Teamed up with new drummer Olof Gardestrand, they have created a record with a doomish flavor in some places, and classic Sabbath style riff showdowns in others. These ingredients blended with strong choruses, Oriental and Swedish folklore twists, guarantee the listener to be in for a pleasant sonic journey.