Kev Rowland
The debut album from this young Finnish band came out at the beginning of 2012, and the guys class themselves as prog metal. Now, MMA agrees with that statement (but it is always possible that is because it says it in the press release), but they are not listed on PA (although I have just asked the prog metal team to have a listen and see what they think). In my opinion what we have here is a melodic metal band, with the odd progressive tendency as opposed to a progressive metal band per se. But, here is the same old issue of trying to pigeonhole a band, as what really matters is whether the album is actually any good or not. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m sticking on the fence on that comment as well.
There is some very good shredding here, and guitarist Nicholas Pulkkinen is definitely the stand out musician. But, I’m not sure that the band is set on a musical direction and seems to be throwing bits and pieces of everything with not always a great deal of success. I mean, nu-metal segueing into piano isn’t what people would normally expect, but is that necessarily a bad thing? I have played this album quite a bit, and find that I change my mind on it the more I listen to it, which is unusual in itself. What I can say is that this is definitely going to be one where everyone needs to make up their own mind. It is possible to hear some of their songs on their MySpace site, and it is certainly worth going there to come up with your own opinion.