Once again, kudos for Lance King and his team at Nightmare Records who definitely had an expert ear for Modern Progressive Metal and virtuoso music in general...After "Synthetic" in 2012, a quite successful debut blessed by a worldwide acclaimed feedback, HEMINA returns with their new recording: a sheer musical spectrum built under a spirit of imagination and creativity, a new perceptive universe fully explored, clearly another ambitious conceptual album distinguished by odd arrangements, intricate harmonies, smart players, and perfect execution, rationally titled "Nebulae".

The extraordinary closing number "Otherworldly" is a perfect demonstration of this fact, an adventurous band that is never afraid of crossing each and every stylistic border in a heterogeneous melt, musically utterly demanding, virtuosic but still strongly rewarding for the listener -some impressive lead guitar solo spots are unleashed like within the catchy "Nightlives"-, melodically rigorous, yet constantly shifting in the musical side from obscure emotions to limpid & optimistic harmonies ("Hope")...The groovy and the Jazzy flavors of "Lust" and its syncopated riffage seems at first in a diametrical opposition with the down tuned MetalDjentCore frenzy of "Loss" but the final impression is still revealing a coherence!

The antagonistic type of voices are blended in a heavenly consistency instead of being confronted to each other, HEMINA is holding an obvious sensibility and an artistic edge, a clever mania in the harmonized layers of sounds as a tribute to their Classic Prog influences ("Promise"), the same method is adapted to the synths that are used in every classic way for the ambience and the textures but also in a dynamic fashion like in "Strength", i think the term Progressive is taking all its meaning thru "Nebulae". Even if HEMINA is somewhat a strange kind of a band, really unique, the only valid analogy could be something like EVERGREY meets VOYAGER meets FATES WARNING.

As always with this kind of music my approbation is subjective and an open minded attitude is recommended. With the release of "Nebulae", the Aussie's Progressive music movement is becoming more and more prominent, after the recent releases of TERAMAZE / DAMNATION'S DAY / VOYAGER and of course the amazing "Digital Lies" by LORD last year : the thinking Metal quality stream from down-under is unexpectedly solid, creative and challenging in every sense of the word.<