First things first - the atmosphere of this demo caught me immediately on first listening and has still a very good grip on me!

French OMAINEN catch you with a brilliant mix of high expressed emotions, excellent musicianship + intelligent and permanent variations, through all four songs. The components of this cocktail are guitars, that are once thrashy, once progressive and once melodic, song structures, that don`t betray what is coming next, a bass play that is once doing background power work and once lacy, trenchant runs, a singer, that sneaks into your soul and guts, like a Warrel Dane does, and songs, that come over very mature and proud. The drummer is doing a brilliant job too, as he`s playing very fine fills, rolls, double-bass bits and tempo-variations, that always help the song and stay pretty backgroundish. My drummer-heart jumps, again and again... All four songs deliver on a very high level.

Now, how can I categorize those 20 minutes of Metal..? Nevermore comes to my mind, but that`s just a rough direction... (old) Queensryche come to my mind, but that`s just for the catchy vocal melodies... Anacrusis comes to my mind, but that`s just for the progressive attitude... The whole outcome sounds pretty american, what is a good trademark for Power Metal IMO.

Let`s see what the band says for themselves - "Omainen offer original and powerful songs, combining melody and technique, in a trip throughout the universe." How true! "Progressive (thrashy) Power Metal in the veins of Nevermore, Communic, Control Denied" would also come pretty near, but only with the addition "in a very own manner"!

After a full-length in 2006, this is the second release (as far as I know) of this young band from Paris and there isn`t much more to say than "Give someone this fuckin talented band please a record deal, so we can get much more food from this quality foursome!"

Nick