Here comes an EP from a band I just learnt are about an hour away from me. Here's Toronto's own WHERE GIANTS ONCE STOOD, with their new independently released EP "The Changing" that is pretty great to be honest. No, the fact that they're Canadian and I am also Canadian (and they're locals to me) does not change what i'm going to say they're great because they're great.

Its hard to talk about an EP without making it a track by track review so im only going to talk about the first and last songs of the EP and if you're interested you can check it out and be surprised by the middle yourself. WHERE GIANTS ONCE STOOD are hard to categorize, they have this ASKING ALEXANDRIA, ALL THAT REMAINS style of Metalcore but they also have this IN FLAMES style of Progressive and Melodic riffs. "Living In Sanctuary" is the opening track, featuring screaming, growling and clean vocals (as do all the tracks). The riffs are melodic as all hell and the solo sections almost take on a PROTEST THE HERO Mathcore style of chaos, close to the end the guitars begin this scaling craziness that gradually gets quicker and more hectic, not to mention the vocals are catchy and if you get into it you'll get to know them fairly quickly. "Myths Lies And Crimes" closes out the album, and sorta sums up Toronto fairly well. The intro builds using samples of keys and violins before kicking into high gear with an amazing transition into guitar and drums, the first thing I noticed was the bass doing its own scaling thing in the background before everything kicks up. Randomly in a few sections the guitars seem to go into little solos of madness behind the vocals. The song slows a bit about 3/4 of the way through and gradually exits into a sample and closes out the EP masterfully.

This is great Canadian Metal and if you're looking for something new look no further, WHERE GIANTS ONCE STOOD are new to the turf but will soon make it their own that's for sure. If you like the idea of a ton of different sections of metal coming together to form one monster then this is it.<