Winter Crescent - Battle Of Egos

\r\nOnce I listened to the Winter Crescent’s demo, I was enormously\r\nimpressed. "In your face"\r\nprogressive metal, but, and this "but" hides a whole story behind it. \r\nLet us therefore reveal the truth and find out what lies behind it,\r\nstarting....from the cover.
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\r\nThe cover was designed by Maria Trialoni and the logo by Marianna\r\nAntoniadis.\r\nBoth lady did a perfect job, proving that there are\r\nGreek design talents, able to work for the music industry. The logo\r\nwitnesses the band’s progressive style, and the cover fully expresses\r\nthe aspect of the music and lyrics. Also the title is part of the rest\r\n... Battle of Egos, a conflict against ourselves. I wish the best to\r\nthe two girls and hope to see more or their artworks in the future.
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\r\nThe music is a wonderful "In your face" progressive metal, with clear\r\ninfluences from Nevermore, with no tiring long lengthed\r\nsolos, bridges and\r\nfillings, the band was not trying to prove that they are virtuosos (oh\r\nwhat does it reminds me), but they successfully proved that they are\r\nexcellent instrument players,\r\ncomposers and producers (the production is home made). The songs, whic most of them are composed by Alexis\r\nKtistakis,\r\nare so careful composed, that the care is\r\nqualitatively similar to a cardiac surgeon while he operates. Each note\r\nis, if\r\nnot perfect, almost perfect in the proper position. Indeed, as a\r\nprogrammer that I am, I believe that I can take a song and break it\r\ninto independent musical parts, that each one could easily stand alone,\r\nnot as separate song or as a riff, but as a milestone ready to be\r\nplaced in the right positrion in order the whole stracture to be built. Also I would like to add that I really have loved the "Lost In\r\nDreams" drums. George Ktistakis is an 18 year old talented drummer that has been playing really complex drums at least from the age of 15.
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\r\nThe vocals of Nikos Spyridakis (ex - Arkenstone, Rex Mundi) are very\r\nnice, perfectly touched on the songs. His voice has a special falsetto that makes\r\nthe vocals even more varied, full, and having the songs being more peculiar. He\r\nhas participated to all of the songs’ lyrics writing, proving that he is good at that part also.
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\r\nThe lyrics provide a dark style, an internal search\r\nand a deep introversion. Typical example of this "paranoia" is the\r\n"Battle Of Egos" trilogy. In there, the protagonist struggles with his\r\npast sins but also with himself. In a similar vein are the rest of the\r\nsongs. While the first three songs are part a concept story, we could\r\nsay that listening to the demo is like watching different episodes\r\nfrom the same series. To further emphasize, some of the lyrics are\r\nreally theatrical at some points which is reflected to\r\nSpyridakis performance.
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\r\nFinally, the production and the mixing are excellent, don’t forget that they are home by Ktistakis\r\nbrothers. It is a noteworthy try, cause is not easy to achieve that\r\nkind of high quality production. Let us not forget that in order to get\r\nyour music produced and mixed like that, you have to pay a studio and\r\nsome "specialists" a lot of money. Furthermore to say that the songs\r\nwhere masterd by Michael Papoutsaki.
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\r\nIn conclusion, the overall effort worths of\r\npraise. It has been an organized effort, from the composition period,\r\nuntil the demo printing. and I think the first step is done in order to\r\nescape from Heraklion and their music to become known in\r\nGreece and aboard. Good luck to Winter Crescent and I wish to see them once live in\r\nThessaloniki, and believe me, my words are prophetic.\r\n

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\r\nKostas Grevenitis \r\n

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