It's extremely hard to create music that's 100% unique nowadays, most of everything has been heard before and even if ARTIZAN isn't spectacularly originally sounding they don't fetch their inspiration from the most common bands at least.

The first band that came to mind when listening to this three track EP was FATES WARNING, I would say somewhere around "Awaken The Guardian" when they still had those really odd breaks, jagged song structures and peculiar rhythm changes but were on their way to be more commercial. The sound on this EP is of the softer nature though, more like "No Exit" or perhaps even more recent FATES WARNING albums but still down to basics. Jim Morris has done a good job mixing because it's a relief when bands settle for less and skip adding layer after layer of guitars, keyboards and other effects.

What I really like about it is the naivety in the craftsmanship of the songs and free structure, no ordinary verse, chorus, verse, bridge tunes here. ARTIZAN also has a lot of great vocal melodies. Perhaps some more variation could have lifted it even more, with that not saying it is bad as it is. Since the music is quite complex it's nice with the quite tonal and muffled vocals from Tom Braden. His voice sounds great and it's clear, especially in the really soft parts of the songs where his delicate tone really comes through and shows that he does have a great range. Sometimes the choir arrangements can be compared to ALICE IN CHAINS, the double lead vocals that was their trademark on "Dirt". But apart from that there are no more similarities with the Seattle bunch.

Even if this just is an EP it includes a quite generous dose of music, just under 20 minutes for three songs. All from a completely new band and that it never gets boring must mean this is pretty good. At least they woke my curiosity and I would absolutely like to hear more from ARTIZAN.