Conor Fynes 'Truth Inside The Shades' - Persefone (6/10)

Before developing onward to the potent progressive death metal of their magnum opus 'Core', Andorran metal act Persefone was something fairly different. Something I have liked about this band is their ability to switch up their sound with each album, and on 'Truth Inside The Shades', their sound falls within the realm of keyboard-dense extreme gothic metal. Although the band's technical strength and flair for the dramatic is here early on, Persefone would not visibly reach their potential until a couple of years later.

The sound here is composed of blistering guitar licks rolling drumbeats, symphonic keyboards and raspy growls. The song 'The Whisper Of Men' aptly describes the direction the band takes here. Galloping riffs and heaviness abound for much of the song, but there is always room made for a few acoustic respites, in which some clean vocals take a showcase. For all intents and purposes, the sound is quite powerful, if perhaps a little unoriginal. However, while Persefone will certainly draw comparisons for the likes of a great many symphonic metal bands, their complex and energetic approach is laudable.

Where the sound of Persefone starts to grow weak is in the band's unabating focus on keyboards. Although keyboards are a staple for virtually all symphonic or progressive metal bands, the sheer amount of weight the keyboards have in the mixing here makes the music here sound somewhat cheesy, made no better by the fact that the keyboard tones are fairly weak. That being said, the musical skills of keyboardist Miguel Espinoza are not in question, but there is the sense even a minute into the second track that Persefone could have done alot better with a more guitar-centered sound.

'Truth Inside The Shades' is my least favourite of the works that Persefone has released, but that is no shame to them; they would only improve from here on, and later release 'Core', a truly excellent album of progressive death metal. For the sake of the band's debut however, 'Truth Inside The Shades' has some great moments, but the effect gets lost in the cheese.

Conor Fynes 'Core' - Persefone (8/10)

Hailing from the tiny European nation of Andorra, this tourism hub would not be the first place someone would expect great progressive death metal to be born. Regardless, here is Persefone, an Andorran act that certain leaves no stone unturned when it comes to their musical vision and ambition. The second album of this band as well as my first introduction to the music of Persefone, 'Core' has proved to be an excellent find; a deep and complex journey of progressive extreme metal that screams 'epic' in every sense of the word. Suffice to say however, the album takes quite a few listens before one is able to truly appreciate the scope of it.

From the track listing alone, one can tell that this is not your typical death metal record. At three tracks each over twenty minutes in length, one can expect a foray into epic compositions with 'Core'. In terms of how well the band actually does this, I was pleasantly surprised. Often, I have been disappointed by bands that promise great things, and fail to deliver. While 'Core' may not have the perfection I would associate with a masterpiece, each track is wrought with incredible musical ideas. The band's sound is rooted in melodic death metal, at times sounding like a rawer version of Opeth. Throughout the course of one of these tracks, the listener is transported through a variety of different moods, each contributing to the mythical story the album seeks to tell.

Of particular surprise are the great female vocals here, which pop up several minutes into the album. Wonderfully harmonized, they provide an unexpected respite from the thrashy heaviness of the heavier segments. The death metal moments are done with almost as much success as the mellow parts however, although it does feel as if the rather lacking production of the album deters from what would otherwise have been a consistently stunning listen. Although the somewhat lo-fi studio work is typical of most underground metal and doesn't always hurt the product, the complexity of 'Core' doesn't lend well to being conveyed through anything less than clear production.

Another issue here is the fact that while Persefone makes good use of the track time for each song, each piece doesn't feel so much like a structured composition as it does a stream of great musical ideas, flowing one after the other. There are undoubtedly attempts to provide a sense of cohesion (especially in the first track, 'Sanctuary') but while all excellent pieces, they often feel scattered as compositions. The slight disorganization aside however, this does not stop 'Core' from being a consistently intriguing listen.

A fantastic piece of progressive death metal, and as much a grower as any other album you fill find in its genre; Persefone's 'Core' is an excellent concept album that begs not just a handful of listens, but a long lasting experience.

Conor Fynes 'Shin-Ken' - Persefone (7/10)

The third album by the Andorran progressive metallers Persefone shows a steep development in the band's presentation. With my introduction to the band being through the band's second work 'Core', it is difficult not to compare the two, but for the first time, Persefone appears to have finally achieved a production value that properly showcases their talents as a band. Sound like a somewhat more extreme version of Symphony X or Dream Theater with 'Shin-Ken', Persefone appears to have changed up their sound to accommodate the less underground approach, and while it may lack the same strength as 'Core', Persefone has conjured another great album with 'Shin-Ken'.

An album notably themed with Far East and oriental motifs, 'Shin-Ken' adopts many traits that one would typically find in most concept albums. A running sense of musical flow, recurring musical ideas, and an epic scope of ambition fuels Persefone here. Certainly a promising set-up by any standard, but in their transition to a more typical prog metal sound, they do seem to have lost part of what I originally found so endearing in them. Instead of the melancholic riffs and dark, complex compositions that I first heard Persefone play on 'Core', things are much more typical of mainline prog metal. This will not necessarily be a bad thing for all listeners, but as someone who really enjoyed their heavier death metal sound, it would have been nice to hear a little more edge from these guys.

The more streamlined nature of 'Shin-Ken' aside, Persefone does some great things with this modified style. Finally now through some solid production standards, one can hear the band play heavily, softly and everything in between without the muffling effect the weaker production values had in the past. The heavy parts feel somewhat tame here, although Persefone is a big winner when it comes to technical moments. The band is common to kick into a burstfire keyboard solo or soulful guitar lead at the peak of their intensity on 'Shin- Ken', then lapse into a mellow section. As has been typical for these guys, Persefone writes and performs their mellow moments with great beauty. Although some of the interlude pieces here feel somewhat unnecessary to the overall flow of the record, 'Shin-Ken's strength lies in the moments where they let the melody take over.

All in all, Persefone's 'Shin-Ken' is a winner, if not the glorious masterpiece other listeners have made it out to be. New wave keyboards, guitar solos, heavy riffs and interludes aplenty give Persefone a big resonance with the Dream Theater fan inside of me, but for all of its grand improvements, I am still not certain that Persefone moved in the right direction with 'Shin-Ken'.

UMUR Shin-Ken is the 3rd full-length studio album by Andora based progressive metal act Persefone. The album was released in July 2009 by Soundholic Records.

Dream Theater were a big influence on Persefone´s sound on the band´s first two albums, but while the influence from Dream Theater still pops up from time to time, I think Symphony X ( especially the keyboard work on Shin-Ken), Opeth, Edge of Sanity and this time around also the Swedish melodeath of In Flames are more obvious influences. Take a listen to a song like Purity. That´s like listening to the mellow acoustic part of Opeth playing over a Symphony X piano theme with Dan Swanö singing. I realize some might be thinking that Persefone is a clone band then, but don´t worry because that´s far from the truth. The many different influences are combined into something that thankfully sounds unmistakably like Persefone. I´ll label the music eclectic progressive metal with extreme metal vocals. The vocals vary between high pitched and raw/ raspy vocals and deeper growling ones. But there are clean vocals on the album too. As mentioned above lead vocalist Marc Martins Pia has a pretty similar voice to the voice of Dan Swanö, which means that it´s warm and pleasant to listen to. The vocal melodies are actually very strong too. Compared to the mammoth 20+ minutes tracks on Core (2006), the tracks on Shin-Ken are much shorter and more compact. Some seque into each other to form longer concepts though, but none are as elaborate and epic as the tracks on Core. There are some really impressive tracks here like Kusanagi though so don´t expect this to be simple vers/ chorus structured music. The cover version of Sword of The Warrior by Cacophony that ends the album is also greatly enjoyable.

The production is the best yet on a Persefone album and the issues I had with the sound production on the first two albums are almost erased here. The keyboards are still a bit too high in the mix for my taste, but I´m sure that´s an aquired taste.

Shin-Ken is another great album by Persefone and the fact that the band opted to make their songs shorter and more compact compared to the songs on Core is not a bad idea at all. I find Shin-Ken recommendable for fans of harder edged progressive metal with extreme metal vocals.

UMUR Core is the 2nd full-length studio album by Andora based progressive metal act Persefone. The album was released in August 2006 by Soundholic Records.

The band´s debut album Truth Inside the Shades (2004) showed an adventurous approach to writing music, but Core takes the band´s many great ideas even further. The 70 minute album consists of only 3 tracks that each exceed 20 minutes. All 3 tracks are very complex in structure and filled with challenging playing, tempo- and time signature changes and a generally intricate approach to songwriting. The music is still very keyboard/ synth heavy but while Dream Theater and Symphony X are still a very obvious influences, the music on Core is also influenced by both melodic black and melodic death metal. I´m reminded of both Opeth and especially Edge of Sanity at times. The riffing is generally heavier and more raw than on most progressive metal releases but it´s the vocals that make comparisons to harder edged genres valid. The main vocal approach is raspy but there are growling and clean vocals in the music too. In addition to those vocal styles there are some female vocals in the music too that reminds me a bit of Anneke van Giersbergen ( The Gathering). The female vocals give the music a goth metal elements in addition to the many other styles represented on the album. There´s a nice development in the songs, and even though there are many different sections and riffs in each song, there´s a coherence between the sections which means that nothing seem awkwardly placed. That´s a rare achivement in songs this long.

The production on Core is much better than the sound on Truth Inside the Shades, but there is still room for improvement in that department. I still think the keyboards a bit too high in the mix.

Core is an excellent progressive metal album, and while there are things on the album that I´m not too fond of ( the production could have been better), it´s seldom that I´m entertained all the way through a 70 minute long album, like it´s the case here. A 4 star rating is deserved. Core is very recommendable to fans of epic progressive metal who can tolerate extreme vocals.