Croatia isn't really bursting at the seams with a choice of metal bands. LUX PURUS are one of the country's few metal bands. Founded a mere four years ago in 2011 by Mario Stojčić, Ana Marija Dundović and Borna Dananić, "Chaos Creates" is their debut EP.

I am at the stage now where I have been staring at the same three lines of text for the best part of two hours, repeating the process of typing and deleting trying to figure out a way to explain my views on this album. The album starts off with a catchy riff that instantly reminded me of the "Slaves of Fear" (AMON AMARTH) riff, in structure they sound quite similar to me. The vocals are quickly introduced and I'm quite surprised. This woman can sing... but at the same time she can't. I've mulled over how to explain this one for a while. During the verses where her voice is at a lower tone and there is less.... background noise, she sounds like any good female symphonic metal vocalist should sound. But, alas, when it comes to the chorus, things get messy. The vocal lines don't match up, everything is so jumbled up and not at the right sound level that it literally sounds like noise. But as if this wasn't enough... two songs later we're blasted with the train wreck that is "The Seven Seals" and I hate to be so blunt but I had to stop this song halfway through and cleanse my ears. If you were naive enough to think that the chorus of their opening song was as bad as it got, you would be sadly mistaken. If an exorcism was taking place on a crashing plane, this song would be the soundtrack. The vocal lines are miles off, the production levels are all wrong, absolutely nothing works in this song. Thank the Gods that this is the shortest song on the album, although the longer ones also leave a lot to be desired.

Now, maybe you're thinking "ah she just doesn't appreciate Symphonic Metal". You couldn't be more wrong. I love Symphonic Metal. But this is not it. This is a group of people releasing an album while they're still learning and getting the hang of things. In a few years of working together and learning, maybe they'll be better. But for right now, LUX PURUS went and truly dropped the ball with this catastrophic album.