My first encounter with _Mortal Mind Creation_ led me to believe that the Finnish sextet Celesty was probably a new outfit, struggling to find their spot in the already over-populated melodic power metal genre. On the contrary, searching through the Dockyard 1 website I discovered that this band has been around almost a decade, and that _Mortal Mind Creation_ was their third studio album. That was the first negative sign; yet I decided to give the album a few more spins.

I really cannot claim that the members of this band are not capable musicians, because there is a great deal of evidence throughout this album to prove their high standard of musicianship. My real objection concerns their musical choices. I find it totally understandable that like most modern Finnish power metal bands, Celesty sound like a mixture of Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica; but in order to come across as a decent outfit under those circumstances, you need to possess two main attributes: a very good singer and some really catchy tunes.

As far as the band's frontman Antti Railio is concerned, my impression was that he is a very potent musician who still needs to develop in some areas to be on top of his game. There are some really good vocal melodies throughout the album, especially in songs like "Unreality", but his high pitched vocals sound terribly weak, thus dangerously reducing the energy levels from each and every composition of the album. That is where, in my opinion, the guitars should have played a predominant and supportive role -- yet they seem to be satisfied with just a supporting role, leaving the main duty of uplifting the compositions to the keyboards. With that in mind, apart from the Osbournesque opening theme of "Lord of Mortals" (see "Perry Mason"), the heavy guitar riffs of "Last Sacrifice" and the Stratovarius / Kamelot sounding melodic theme of "Empty Room", all remaining compositions failed to make any impression on me.

It is a real shame that I have to give such a low rating to this album, especially seeing as it is obvious that a lot of effort has been made in the creation of this album, but I do honestly believe that the members of Celesty can do so much better than this. I personally consider _Mortal Mind Creation_ to be an important step in the band's career -- one that would hopefully help them release a far more inspiring and impressive release.