MONSTER

Before putting this disc into the player for the first time, I thought it was an album with four long tracks. There was nothing in the fold-out digipak to tell me it's just an EP of 17 minutes, just four regular-length songs. [I always want track lengths to be shown - often I have to mark them myself.]

My first review - about an earlier EP, Mute - for this Finnish group was very positive, but now I'm not seeing their progress as promising anymore. The keys player Staffan Strömsholm has left the group, and the composer-guitarist Victor Sågfors is now solely in charge of synths too. The second album from 2012 (before Strömsholm's departure) still waits for my review which will be more thankful. If this EP, their latest release, shows their future direction, I'm quite disappointed. Nothing very radical has happened in their style per se. They have offered fast, tight, heavy and hectic songs before too, but this four-track selection feels much more narrow and single-minded, even compared to 3-tracked Mute which also concentrated on that particular song structure.

In other words, all four songs sound pretty much the same. Maybe Opus Symbiosis are settling into Heavy Prog / Prog Metal approach, and, by doing so, losing the last bits of personal identity. Sorry, I'm exaggerating now, I mean the last bits of my interest in them. All songs seem to contain the word monster if I'm not mistaken. Used in metaphorical sense though, "monster in your heart", "monster in myself". Christine Sten has a good clear voice, but it's not nice to hear her shouting angrily on top of noisy playing.

This rather negative review is of course very subjective. That's how I am. Objectively speaking I can add that they are doing this kind of keyboard-included hard & hectic stuff very skillfully. Four guest musicians (or three if a background vocalist is not counted) include drummer Pat Mastoletto. Friends of Prog Metal and latter-day RUSH, especially if a female singer is a notable plus, will most likely enjoy this.