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Review Summary: An extremely promising debut which successfully melds modern progressive metal with traditional progressive rock. The prospect of listening through over two hours of progressive metal from a new band is a rather daunting one, at least for yours truly. Notwithstanding the often quite excellent musicianship on show, adventurous rhythmic experimentation and willingness to experiment characteristic of the genre, I often find the music to be sterile, charmless and largely forgettable. This debut from Spanish youngsters 'Pervy Perkin' is truly an exception to this. If you are going to choose such a goddamn awful name for your band you'd better have something special up your collective sleeves and these guys have it in abundance, at least in the areas that really matter.
You can pick out a huge host of influences on this album ranging from Ennio Morricone to Rush to Camel. The music is often symphonic but never overblown, jazzy but never over-indulgent, chock full with idiosyncratic moments that border on naive charm, mixed vocals and superb guitar work throughout. One moment you will be listening to spaghetti western style horns with soaring strings and choir, then '70s style mellotron and rambling synths, then some chugging Metallica style riffing. There are a couple of slight downsides, the percussion can sound hollow and muddy at times and some of the vocals (sung in English) don't really seem to work. However, considering the amount of ambition on here from such a young group these are trifling concerns. In fact, the lack of polish in places merely serves to make the music more approachable, totally unlike the clinical and sometimes soulless tang which pervades some progressive rock and metal. The sheer exuberance on display is often quite breathtaking and the daring leaps in styles throughout the lengthy running time should serve to maintain the interest of even the most jaded listener.
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Album Rating: 4.0
Stream and free download on bandcamp
http://pervyperkin.bandcamp.com/
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Prog from the country of tortillas?, interesting
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Damn, 2-hours of prog metal does seem pretty daunting but if it's a 4.5 then I guess it's worth my time. I'll download it and put it on my iPod, got a nice 5 hour car journey coming up to listen to it on.
" If you are going to choose such a goddamn awful name for your band..." best line of the review
"The best progressive debut release of the year so far." Wait till you hear Messenger!
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
yeh i know, 2 hours, but it's so varied it doesn't get boring
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Any similarities to Amplifier's The Octopus? If there are I'm totally in
I'm not a massive prog metal fan though, it can get a bit pointlessly technical/heavy or Dream Theatre-ripping-off
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Interesting band name, mena. Will give this a whirl.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Very daft name really, probably puts a lot of people off, which is a shame because it's great.
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It really sounds like the name of some male porn star from the 1980s.
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Listened to the first few songs from this, didn't strike me as anything amazing, the production is a little dodgy and the vocals don't match the music that well, it's like he's trying to hard. Not sure I'll make it through 2 hours of this, might just stick to Haken for now. They've got a lot of potential though.
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Thanks for the tip, looks very interesting...
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