Review Summary: A spaztic whirlwind of many ideas. Good that many of them stick.
Now this one’s a bit interesting. Being approached personally by an artist is something that never happens to me. When I go to research this one man band, everyone says it’s black metal. But that’s a vast overgeneralization. This EP winds down prog metal, symphonic metal, and even electronic territory. It’s also entirely instrumental. For such a short runtime, it makes sure to not waste much time.
First, let’s go over the drumming. Normally I don’t start here, but it's pretty crazy. Vitaly Palagnyuk, the one man, beats his kit with blast beats and extremely fast double kick drums. He can amp up the intensity pretty quickly, even if the riff isn't that nasty to begin with. It does the most work on the first track, Wandering in the Whirl.
Now onto the synths. Most of the time it’s there to add to the symphonic influence, but once it leans more into electronic territory it can get hit or miss. Whisper of Spring is where it hits the most, and also feels unnecessary. The electronic segment is layered on top of synths, and the tone is also pretty cheesy. As for the guitar work, it goes from death metal riffs to clean reverb sections. Like with everything else on the record, it goes all over the place. The backing guitar either keeps rhythm or is going full tremolo. There’s solos up the wazoo, but is also able to keep things going with some nice, heavy riffs.
This is a nice little prog metal EP, but nothing too mind blowing, besides the drumming. The blend between symphonic and heaviness is pretty natural most of the time. There could be a few ideas that could use more work, but not bad at all.
Recommended Tracks: The Mystery of Re-Creation
