Day 3 of the #mayvinylchallenge is Favorite Color or Effect, but truth be told I really prefer black vinyl. Initially there was an attractiveness to colored, splattered, or marbled vinyl but over time the glee of obtaining a limited edition variant lost its appeal. The beauty of a clean, silly black vinyl however, did not. That being said, there is a joy to be had when album art and vinyl combine and coordinate for a beautiful presentation. I presented a few option on my Instagram page, but for purposes of today’s entry we’re going with the synth-heavy doom of Megaton Leviathan and their third release, Mage.

I wrote about Mage for Nine Circles back in 2018, and three years later the album still feels like a warm mystery to me. The band’s evolution from funeral doom to something altogether more melodic and ambient in its larger synth passages continue to hold me over the course of Mage’s five tracks. On a song like “The Bulldog” I still hear whispers of Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears, and the epic “Within the Threshold” continues to enthrall with its opening cinematic synthwave making way for some ultimate heaviness that reaches back to echoes of the band’s earlier output.

In the end, though, this entry is supposed to be all about the visual representation. But it certainly doesn’t hurt that the album still holds up as one of the best of the year.