Band : Winter's Verge

Album title : Eternal Damnation

Label : Limb Music Products

Distributor : Suburban/ Hard Llife Promotions

Release date : 14/03/2008

Release : CD

Winter's Verge was founded in September 2003 by singer George Charalambous and keyboardist Stefanos Psillides . Soon after, they were joined by guitarist Pericles Mallopoulos , and the trio readily agreed on the musical path to follow...the search for like-minded musicians to complete the line-up could begin.

Until now, the history of this band reads like that of so many others. The difference however, is that Winter's Verge is based on the island of Cyprus, and as you might imagine musicians into slightly Progressive and Classically inspired Heavy Metal are not exactly to be found around the corner on this Mediterranean island, which is still to date a disputed bit of land in the sea disputed by the Greek and Turks. Problems being what they are, they still quickly found a drummer in Andreas Charalambous and were soon writing their first songs. The search for a bassist (needed both to complete the sound during rehearsals and to be able to go out and play gigs) took somewhat longer, in fact it took some 6 months before a suitable bass player was found in Charis Ioannou . Even though they were now complete as a band, the guys still took a further year before they judges their songs mature enough to be played live. When they did finally start to play gigs, they soon gained such an excellent reputation that they decided to record their first demo. 4-tracked CD Another Day...Another End sold well, and even got the band's name outside the Cypriotic borders, but just when everything was goin' well, the bassist was drafted for his military service.

Incredibly, they quickly found a replacement in the already experienced Miguel Trapezaris , which hightened the band's songwriting crafts. 6 months later, they recorded their promo-CD, and released it on a limited 1,000 copy rotation in August 2006 with the same title as the demo of a year earlier. Having refined their style even more, the band re-recorded the 4 songs off the first demo, and added 5 more and an intro to make for a full-length. Then the same drafting problem struck the band, when the guitarist was "taken away" to do his military duties for his country. Luckily the band's profile had gone up somewhat, so a replacement in the form of former Bad Influence 's Harris Pari was found ready and willing to step in. No even more motivated than ever, the band decided to send the promo-CD to LMP, which resulted in the label signing them.

So in September 2007 the band took their music into the German Prophecy And Music Factory Studios , and yet again re-recorded the songs they already had (again re-worked), plus two more, under the productional supervision of Mystic Prophecy singer R.D. Liapakis . The result is an 11-track (51-minute) Melodic Power Metal album. Racing (speedy) guitar riffs with quite a bit of keyboard leads and solos, supported by a truely pounding double bass drum and topped by a clear high-pitched voice as you might expect for the genre. Well, actually the lead singer is rather warmer, but he doés have his higher peaks, and the backings are almost constantly high. In spite of a high sing-along factor, I fear the vocal department is what repulsed...aouch, that IS a strong way to put it...me somewhat in the beginning. Of course the band fakes things somewhat by adding a rhythm guitar along the lead/ solo during the recordings, where they could never produce the same sound on stage...but then doesn't just about évery band on earth make use of that "practical" studio technique to liven up their music even more? I've found no Myspace page for this band, but you can listen to live versions of the songs "To You I Sail Tonight" (which starts off as a ballad but then picks up in pace after 65 seconds) and "For I Have Sinned" (with its great bass intro). It does not let you hear what the band can do in a calmer mood though (the vocally calmer semi-ballad "Hold My Hand" , and actual ballad "Can You Hear Me" ).

Although I'm sure these guys are very serious about their music, they are not without humour. A fact proven by the hidden and short "bonus track", which is an a capella version of Geri Halliwell 's "It's Raining Men" , wherein the "men" were exchanged with "beer"...get the joke? Okay, all jokes apart, I'm not sure about how successful this album is gonna be. The band may have the questionable "advantage" of being somewhat "exotic" (which is how the label puts it, not mé!), but will that fact be enough to aid them in their battle against other, more or already established bands in the genre? I have my doubts.

84/100

Tony.