INSOMNIA

Hailing from Poland, It's.True.Mentality is a relatively young band; formed as late as 2005. They made a 7-track demo just after hooking up; and then several line-up changes occured before the band stabilized. "Insomnia" is their first effort following this, a 5-track EP (or mini-album, depending on point of view).

After the short opening track, with some passages reminding quite a bit of Metallica at times, 4 longer escapades follow. As with the opener these are all instrumental affairs, where the guitar is the key feature of the sound this act has chosen to follow. Rather less distorted and downtuned than many other acts within the progressive metal genre, wandering mellow guitar patterns, toned down staccato riffs and riff patterns are blended nicely and invitingly with melodic guitar passages and soloing - albeit with less of this latter aspect than one might expect.

Synths and organs provide some neat additional features, where especially the latter adds a vintage art rock mood to the explorations - a nice detail which might just give this act an edge in terms of attracting a key fanbase.

And last track Mistificated Paranoia deserves special mentioning; the opening 90 seconds or so with dark, floating synths and percussion conjures an atmosphere pretty similar to the one found on the soundtrack to Twin Peaks (the series, not any of the movies).

Apart from the opening segment of this creation and the opening track I'd think that one of the major influences for this act is Iron Maiden though; where it's the form rather than the overall sound that has taken most ques from this veteran metal act.

The main flaw of this album are predictable compositional evolvements; and also a few transitional passages that comes across as somewhat underdeveloped. When that is said; I'd suspect that there are many who'd most likely take an interest in this band and this particular album. Especially if they are fond of instrumental progressive metal.

This 2008 album was the debut by Polish prog metal outfit Its.True.Mentality. It's not just the punctuation in the name that is unusual, as while prog metal bands aren't exactly uncommon, it is certainly strange to come across one that is totally instrumental, and one that is happy to move as far away from riffs as these do at times. The line-up of Andrzej Lebek (guitar), Grzegorz Haasa (drums), Anna Weyna (keyboards) and Arkadiusz Doroszuk (bass) can certainly crunch the riffs when they need to, but there is a great deal of light within the album as well. The use of older keyboard sounds also provides warmth, and the result is a five-track twenty-nine-minute- long album that just makes me want to keep coming back for more. Bass and drums sit in the background quite a bit, but aren't afraid to be forward and demanding when the time is right, but for a lot of the time it is Anna and Andrzej who rightly take centre stage. They have a strong solid understanding of each other, so they can duet and provide strong interlinked runs, or they are also content to let each other take the lead.

This is music that is incredibly solid, as one would expect from the genre, but there is also a great deal of light and space within the music which then allows for contrast against the more metallic elements when they make their presence felt. The solos aren't pure solos in the traditional sense, but more that they are taking the musical lead at that point. It is more reflective than many in the scene, and has been influenced as much by melodic guitarists such as John McLaughlin as much as they have by Karl Groom. Highlight is the final song, "Mistificated Paranoia" which has a wonderful warm introduction with some beautiful fretless bass notes that gradually just builds into a swirling epic.

I feel that there are times when they lack the musical depth and power that they need, and some of the compositions are a little weak in places, as if this were a work in progress as opposed to the finished article. But, this was a self-released demo, so possibly they were looking for some recognition and record company support. Sadly, I believe this was their only release, their sites are no longer active, and their Facebook page hasn't been updated since 2009. That's a real shame as this showed promise, and is worth picking up if you come across it.