Specular

 Today I am reviewing a Progressive Metal band called Specular. They are also unsigned however they have released a really nice EP called 'Hourglass Nation'. Their songs are really impressive, they have powerful guitar lines and barking vocals that help to make a really hard EP. They have guitar parts that are mind blowing, the guitars can do both classical guitar type things like in their track Ether Dreams but it can also do really hard riffs like in the track Third of Macedon. The guitars can even vary completely in one song. In Ether Dreams they play both some awesome classical guitar as well as some really heavy death metal guitar. The bass is decent, when it comes through, it really just helps to boost the music on some tracks. When it does come through though it is pretty insane. The drums are really fast and powerful. They are powerful and almost Iron Maiden like they do some insanely awesome things. The vocals cover all sorts. There are really good clean vocals that are pretty well done. There are also vocals that are not so much sung as spoken, yet to an very good effect such that it feels like singing. Then there are the death growls which make the music seem so much more powerful. These guys manage to cover a lot of different vocal styles and there vocalists handles them all beautifully. I think that this band is awesome because they can cover so much in their songs. My only piece of advice would be to allow for more time for the singer, in particular his clean 'normal' vocals and his death growl are both excellent. However I understand that being a power trio that can be hard. Overall they are an excellent and powerful band and I really like their EP.

OVERALL 8.5/10

hear em at http://www.myspace.com/specularband