BATTLE OF EGOS

With a hearty 35 min EP, Winter Crescent make their appearance in the prog-metal scene, a nice treat to those fed up with the typical melodic, keyboard-driven (often imitating) Dream Theater-esque style.

Winter Crescent take an opposite route, that of in-your-face, pounding heavy and dark progressive metal and they succeed in creating something worthy of mention and untypical of the Greek metal scene. It took a few spins for me to grasp the massive influence that Control Denied's sound has had on the guitarist duo; the 'ghost' of Chuck Schuldiner definitely makes its appearance in this release on the solid heavy/thrash riffs and the melodic, 'sliding' clean passages and solos. What a great start.

Vocals have always been an issue for the Greek metal bands, but not as much here. The vocals of Spyridakis are well-balanced and remain at low octaves, matching the sound of the band; no efforts for high-pitched screamers here, rather an effort towards a more "theatrical" approach, reminding somewhat of Warrel Dane of Nevermore and at times (see 'Furrow') of Devon Graves of Psychotic Waltz. Both aforementioned bands seem to have had a big influence on Winter Crescent's sound, the former on the construction of riffs and general heaviness and the latter on the dark approach with regards to the composition and melodies. My only small complaint on the vocals is that at times the singer attempts to "over-do" it, sounding too "intentional" of what he tries to achieve.

The sequence of the first three tracks works extremely well, as do the majority of compositions, with 'My Last Will' and the title track being potentially the slightly less interesting out of the package. Otherwise, this is a very good, "no-messing-about", old-school (but yet contemporary in a way) progressive metal proposal (no keyboards, dragons and fairytales here).

Solid production and solid act, decent start; we shall wait to hear more from Winter Crescent.

3.5 stars deserved.