Until Rain
Anthem to Creation
Escape Music
2013
Going through some line-up changes, after their debut album, “The Reign of Dreams”, the band updated its sound and evolved. The new vocalist Yannis Papadopoulos (Crosswind, Wardrum) & bass player Bill Gkagkavouzis have already participated in the band’s EP “Pandemic, in 2011, so the fans were a bit aware of the band’s general changes.
“Anthem to Creation” vindicates the band for its hard work and the detailed music plans they had all these years. Influenced by prog metal giants such as Dream Theater & Symphony X, mainly, Until Rain do not fear to play the game and present their own prog music which is also embellished by prog rock, atmospheric, power metal & melodic metal elements. Sometimes they may remind you of a heavy/power melodic metal band, while other times they dive more into the prog metal music as it was defined in the 90s. It’s notable that even though they come from Greece they do not sound like a Greek band nor do they have the flaws Greek bands (used to?) have, especially on the production part. You see, this album was mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Amon Amarth, Symphony X, etc.) at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. There’s no doubt that they achieved a rather good result in general, even though that damn digital promo copy doesn’t help at all. (Labels must be extra careful on the digital promos they send for consideration for they downsize their own bands & music).
Until Rain are doing better (at least for me) when they have a more straightforward, heavy/power & melodic metal approach on their music rather than when they deliver long (over 10 minutes) tracks. Of course, a prog metal band is obliged (?!) to have long tracks whereas they do not work out that well most of the times. Until Rain is a prog metal band, thus they do not avoid the clichés of their genre (can progressive music be cliché at any point?! – huh!) but they set a big query for the future… where can they go next? - if they do not want to be just another prog metal band that follows the top bands of the genre. They do have the talent and they can deliver fine melodies and tunes but I think there’s something more than that for every band that wants to go further. Aside from all the above stuff, “Anthem to Creation” has various pleasurable parts for all the prog (heavy/power/melodic) metal fans…
“Anthem to Creation” vindicates the band for its hard work and the detailed music plans they had all these years. Influenced by prog metal giants such as Dream Theater & Symphony X, mainly, Until Rain do not fear to play the game and present their own prog music which is also embellished by prog rock, atmospheric, power metal & melodic metal elements. Sometimes they may remind you of a heavy/power melodic metal band, while other times they dive more into the prog metal music as it was defined in the 90s. It’s notable that even though they come from Greece they do not sound like a Greek band nor do they have the flaws Greek bands (used to?) have, especially on the production part. You see, this album was mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Amon Amarth, Symphony X, etc.) at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. There’s no doubt that they achieved a rather good result in general, even though that damn digital promo copy doesn’t help at all. (Labels must be extra careful on the digital promos they send for consideration for they downsize their own bands & music).
Until Rain are doing better (at least for me) when they have a more straightforward, heavy/power & melodic metal approach on their music rather than when they deliver long (over 10 minutes) tracks. Of course, a prog metal band is obliged (?!) to have long tracks whereas they do not work out that well most of the times. Until Rain is a prog metal band, thus they do not avoid the clichés of their genre (can progressive music be cliché at any point?! – huh!) but they set a big query for the future… where can they go next? - if they do not want to be just another prog metal band that follows the top bands of the genre. They do have the talent and they can deliver fine melodies and tunes but I think there’s something more than that for every band that wants to go further. Aside from all the above stuff, “Anthem to Creation” has various pleasurable parts for all the prog (heavy/power/melodic) metal fans…