MAD HATTERS

In 2006 touchstone released an EP featuring 20 minutes divided in four tracks, in which the band included their first compositions, their first steps in the progressive rock world. Since then, they have developed an own style which though in my opinion has to be more exploded, one can now easily recognize their music. Since these first songs we can notice they had been influenced by AOR or hard rock bands, which is why their music has almost always both, a catchy tune and a kind of heavy prog style.

The first track here is "Misguided Fool" which is a great track, with a wonderful keyboard sound that puts the symphonic element which is blended by the heavy guitars and drums. The male voice is pretty nice, a very good complement, and all together produce later a kind of symph- crossover-AOR sound, that will be used in the whole EP. "One Shot" keeps the same form and continues with the same path, actually, the track is pretty alike as the opener, only here they don't give a main role to the keyboards.

"Hear me" starts with a more delicate sound, with an atmospheric synth accompanied by delicate guitar notes and even a distant piano. Here for the first time we can listen to female vocals as backing ones, adding a special touch to this cool and emotive track. "The Madhatter's song" is the longest composition here with eight minutes length. The first seconds are like a lullaby but later it explodes and becomes heavier and dynamic, with a great use of keyboards and guitar. In the song we can find several mini passages, some of them are rockier some softer, but all of them contain emotional vocals that produce a patron that will be followed during the whole track. In the last part we can also listen to some Yes reminiscences.

This is a very good EP, with four nice songs that show the dawn of a pretty good band. My grade, 3 stars.

Enjoy it!

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