siLLy puPPy When it comes to nations of the world that have produced some great metal bands, the tiny little nation of Andorra sandwiched between Spain and France doesn’t exactly come to mind but as the odometer moved on to the 21st century, this tiny forgotten principality high up in the Pyrenees Mountains finally got a bit of attention in 2001 when one of its best musical exports hit the scene. Named after the daughter of the mythological Greek goddess Demeter, PERSEFONE expanded past its origins in this nation’s capital city Andorra la Vella and took the international metal world by storm.

While this band has gone through a few lineup changes over the years, it all began with the founding members of Carlos Lozano (guitar), Jordi Gorgues (guitar), Toni Mestre (bass) and Xavi Pérez (drums) who started as a cover band and slowly gained the confidence to craft their own musical visions. The four members worked hard and long on this first album TRUTH INSIDE THE SHADES and after adding two more members, Aleix Dorca (Drums) and Marc Martins (lead vocals), found the perfect chemistry to finish off this debut album and unleash it on an unsuspecting planet. The band experienced instant feedback as the album was a surprise hit at least in terms of the metal underground which has led to a two decade career that has found many slots at various festivals across the European continent.

TRUTH INSIDE THE SHADES actually started off as a demo but after months of crafting new tunes, PERSEFONE found it had enough decent material for a bonafide official full-length release. The style of PERSEFONE is quite diverse and is usually described as a progressive death metal band but those tags only take you so far. It is indeed a progressive metal band that stitches together myriad elements including Chopin-esque piano rolls, symphonic touches, complex Opeth inspired compositional flow and a plethora of time signature deviations, tempo changes and abrupt hairpin turns from aggressive brutality to placid atmospheric contemplation. While guitar riffs rampage, symphonic prog inspired keyboard runs are just as prevalent. Neo-classical guitar shredding sits side by side with black metal screams and death metal growls.

While considered the most underdeveloped of the PERSEFONE canon, TRUTH INSIDE THE SHADES certainly debuted with a bang. While the tracks often begin with classical piano and keyboard melodies, the musical procession offers twists and turns that fuse the elements of power metal, death metal, neoclassical shredding and even elements of black metal in the vein of Cradle of Filth. There are the expected blastbeats, double bass banging and chugging riffage of metal madness but there are also clean melodic moments with clean vocals that offer a glimpse of a true progressive metal album delving into the mellower aspects of progressive rock. The tracks come off as epic with lengthy journeys of musical processions that take on disparate characteristics that at times even mimic operas especially with some of the brief choral vocal moments.

PERSEFONE would go on to craft even more adventurous albums with the following “Core” sending shockwaves into the prog metal community but for a first time effort this debut is not slouch however some of the keyboards do come off as a bit cheesy and there is something missing to the overall effect that really makes this a top notch release but after all is said and done, TRUTH INSIDE THE SHADES delivers an excellent mix of stylistic approaches coupled with outstanding instrumental interplay. The guitar playing is particularly impressive with Jordi Gorgues Mateu displaying some impressively rapid fire shots of shredding. The musical flow runs the gamut of soft and heavenly to hellish and chaotic. Andorra is one of the oldest nations in Europe having been formed in 1278 but finally in the 21st century the tiny microstate at long last had produced a musical artist that put it on the map!

Conor Fynes 'Truth Inside The Shades' - Persefone (6/10)

Before developing onward to the potent progressive death metal of their magnum opus 'Core', Andorran metal act Persefone was something fairly different. Something I have liked about this band is their ability to switch up their sound with each album, and on 'Truth Inside The Shades', their sound falls within the realm of keyboard-dense extreme gothic metal. Although the band's technical strength and flair for the dramatic is here early on, Persefone would not visibly reach their potential until a couple of years later.

The sound here is composed of blistering guitar licks rolling drumbeats, symphonic keyboards and raspy growls. The song 'The Whisper Of Men' aptly describes the direction the band takes here. Galloping riffs and heaviness abound for much of the song, but there is always room made for a few acoustic respites, in which some clean vocals take a showcase. For all intents and purposes, the sound is quite powerful, if perhaps a little unoriginal. However, while Persefone will certainly draw comparisons for the likes of a great many symphonic metal bands, their complex and energetic approach is laudable.

Where the sound of Persefone starts to grow weak is in the band's unabating focus on keyboards. Although keyboards are a staple for virtually all symphonic or progressive metal bands, the sheer amount of weight the keyboards have in the mixing here makes the music here sound somewhat cheesy, made no better by the fact that the keyboard tones are fairly weak. That being said, the musical skills of keyboardist Miguel Espinoza are not in question, but there is the sense even a minute into the second track that Persefone could have done alot better with a more guitar-centered sound.

'Truth Inside The Shades' is my least favourite of the works that Persefone has released, but that is no shame to them; they would only improve from here on, and later release 'Core', a truly excellent album of progressive death metal. For the sake of the band's debut however, 'Truth Inside The Shades' has some great moments, but the effect gets lost in the cheese.

UMUR Truth Inside the Shades is the debut full-length studio album by Andora based progressive extreme metal act Persefone. The album was released in December 2004.

The music on the album is a combination of genres like progressive metal, melodic death metal, melodic black metal and power metal. I´ve chosen to label the music progressive extreme metal as none of the tags above really explain how the music sounds. Acts like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Opeth and Edge of Sanity are obvious references if you ask me, but Persefone are not content with sounding like a clone. They mix different ideas and styles into a sound of their own. The vocals are mostly raspy but occasional growls and clean vocal parts appear too. The keyboards/ synths are very high in the mix and the music is generally very synth heavy. We´re treated with tempo and time signature changes, dual guitar and keyboard runs and high standard musicianship. The production is not that good though and while I find the sound tolerable, the production pose a problem for me. The sound is kind of disjointed and the different instruments sound disconnected in the soundscape.

Truth Inside the Shades is a very interesting debut album by Persefone. Especially the production pose a problem though but I still find the album recommendable for fans of the above mentioned acts. 3 stars are deserved.