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Metal from Southern European countries is often totally different from metal created in the Northern parts of Europe, often much more use of keyboards and elements from pop music, and that is no matter what style of metal it is, with an exception of death metal. Cyprus does not have the biggest metal scene to speak of, but on the island the band Winter's Verge rules. They introduce their 3rd album where they play a mix of symphonic and powerful epic metal. With that wide frame the music should reach a large spread group of fans, but the music, oh dear, how is it this time. Mostly in the uncomplicated end of the specter, keyboards and too many repeats of their choruses, as if they needed something to put into the songs. Another thing that could annoy some people is, that Winter's Verge make their chorus come abruptly after a guitar solo, that is too harsh for me to swallow. Vocalist George Charalambous is the founding member of the band, but his voice is not strong enough to carry all the way on this album, on the fast and mid-tempo songs it is tolerable that he make a weak impression, but on softer songs he makes more damage than good.
The real quality of Winter's Verge is their ability to make catchy songs with melodic elements from hard rock and pop music and mix it with the heavier stuff that they also find in their songs. The next super quality they have is their guitarist Harry Pori, without him to set the sails the album would not have been able to leave the birds nest. But as a start comes Cunning Lullabies, a song with keyboard and super guitars in an epic slow style that serves well to warm up the fans. Paper Is Blank comes as the next pick, with great guitar rhythms, melodic and guitar solo, but too many repeats of the chorus drags down the view of the song. Bleeding Heart gives adventure and metal where they succeed with creating a powerful sound and grab the listeners by the bone. Threads Of My Life has a splendor of hard and fast guitar play and even Charalambous get a good result with his singing on this song that is one of the best of this album. Semeni is the searching for the girl called Semeni, it is done with both soft and explosive metal, melodic as well as a bit long drawn as it goes along. If they find Semeni is an open question, and if they sharpen up their concentration and metal direction Winter's Verge can probably make a super album next time, and with answers to the questions.
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