Eros And Thanatos

The, now three-and-a-half year old, first album by the Italian act Empty Tremor, “Apokyntosofgnasiognwcsipspncvwhatever…”, was a f***ng amazing progressive metal album, filled with superb melodies, lots of technical show-off from all band members and an incredible vocalist-performance. It might not have been a truely imaginative or original album, however it was one of those “first” great Dream Theater-rip off albums (ok, I know I’m gonna get slammed for saying this) showing the World that DT weren’t the only ones capable of playing and creating cool progressive metal - and the most funny thing was that the average age of those Italian monster-skilled instrumentalists were closer to 15 than 25 back then! Ok, so now the average age in the band might have passed the 20 year limit, but so what, the guys are still superb musicians and all the trademarks from the first album are evident on this new one. BUT - and believe me, this is to me a large “but” - the DT-copying style of prog-metal isn’t “in” anymore, it isn’t funny doing what have already been done to great extent earlier on, and it most definitely isn’t cool not being able to create something all of your own. Empty Tremor had it all going for them back then … now all they have is their fantastic playing skills and not much more… Sad!