CHALICE like it old-school, it seems. This three-song EP brims with driving four-on-the-floor drumming and earth-shaking power chords, with vocals to match. The opener, 'Silver Cloak', comes in hard and stays that way until it's over. Though the vocals are a bit lower-register than typical for classic metal revivalists (think Satan), every other hallmark is there. The guitars have enough intelligibility in them to be called melodic, and the solo screams with harmonized licks from the golden age of the 80s. 'Drowning in Dream' is a sharp change in pace from that though, as an entirely acoustic interlude. For all of one minute and forty seconds, a simple arpeggiated line repeats itself underneath soft orchestral accents.

The last two songs were over pretty quickly, and if you thought it was too quick, then you'll be happy that the final song is over eight minutes long. 'Parallel Path' starts in the same kind of arpeggiated fashion as the interlude did, only with more gain (and variation). Then, the guitars briefly go clean for a verse, trading off with the heavy part. After a couple times of this, the song goes into a more consistent chugging, lurching along at midtempo ballad pace. Even though this is a pretty long song, for the most part it just alternates between the heavy/light arpeggiation and the chugging riff I just mentioned. It goes into the solo at around 4:30, but though it is nice and shows off what their guitarist can do admirably, it doesn't save the overall monotony of the song. The band takes a second lead break not long after.

The vocals are also more of a rousing chant than they are sung, which is a bit odd. It also starts to fade out seven minutes in, a whole minute before the end, meaning that for a while we just hear some ringing bell-like refrain ad nauseam before it dies out. Overall, this is a very short EP so it isn't much to go off of and judging everything they do from here might not be fair. But also, a lot of what I wind up reviewing is classic/power metal it seems-I guess nostalgia is popular. So now I have to ask myself what about this makes it demonstrably different? The answer is really not much. And it isn't not different in a good way either. I can think of a few more contemporaries that do this kind of thing better.