EDVIAN-2012

Total Metal Records
2012

One of the advantages of reviewing music for a hobby/living (or whatever you want to call this particular aspect of existence) is the (seemingly) non-stop influx of new music at ones fingertips. Hardly a day goes by anymore in which new albums show up in either my digital or physical mailbox. As a fan/collector myself it's cool to know that with every new day somewhere a new band is potentially either in the process of forming or releasing debut material. Such is the case with this particular album that was released at the tail end of 2012 by the Russian band EDVIAN.  Formed in 2009, and featuring two brothers – musicians: Andrew and Victor Plitkinyh in it's ranks, this particularly act focuses their attention/talent on the field on progressive music.Their full-length, 8-track debut-album, as noted, was issued at the tail end of 2012 and, theme-wise, deals with the oncoming end of the world as predicted by the Mayan calendar! Interesting to say the least. Thankfully that didn't happen (the end of the world and all) as we wouldn't all be sitting here today talking about cool progressive music like this! My guess is EDVIAN is probably pretty stoked that the world didn't end as well since they would probably like to see the fruits of their labor. With all of that said, and seeing as the world hasn't imploded (yet), onward we march to this debut-recording. As stated, this is progressive music at it's core.While we could just call it "progressive metal" I think that "progressive music" is a better tag. Sure, it does have all the hallmarks of progressive metal as evident by usual progressive metal influences (Dream Theater and Symphony-X are mentioned in the promo material and it's a fair enough statement) there's all sorts of other things present, add-ons if you, such as electronic music and progressive rock. Add all of that together, mixing gently as you go, and, after you toss in the emotion theme of a world wrapped in chaos (by way of metal that's much more extreme then the Dream Theater and Symphony-X comparisons would suggest), you end up with "2012". With only a 4-track demo to their name otherwise, this 8-track LP shows a level of maturity and experience that's normally not associated with such progressive-minded groups this early in the game.With interesting time-changes, and musicians focused more on creative metal then mass-appeal metal, these 8 tracks add up to a stellar listening experience and a suggested pick-up for the fans of all thing progressive rock, metal and beyond.