Today we have Spanish Symphonic Metal act INNER STREAM and their new album "Stain The Sea". The bands sound is a blend of elements of Symphonic, Electric, Gothic and Nu-Metal and are influenced by the likes of LACUNA COIL, EVANESCENCE and WITHIN TEMPTATION. They were originally formed by vocalist INÉS VERA ORTIZ and her brother JORGE and wrote and recorded demos. She then teamed with Keyboard player and producer GUILLERMO DE MEDIO (who has worked with the likes of TARJA TURUNEN) to put together the full INNER STREAM sound.

With a dark quiet intro the album opens with "Massive Drain". The vocals then creep in as the heavy guitars follow. The song has a nice pace and a sing along chorus with power behind the vocals. The song goes quiet then straight back up for a pretty good guitar solo. Good opener. Next up we have "Fair War" which opens with strings. Heavy guitars come in to help build the song up and another big sing along chorus. The lead guitar lines adds these epic sounding licks and the vocals sound great here. As the last chorus comes in it then switches to add heavier elements to it.

"Dance with Shades" opens with an epic sounding guitar solo above the synths. There is a great vocal delivery in the verses and the song has this epic feel to it. There is a really big chorus and the guitars sound great here. The lead guitar lines are great here too and this is a really good song. The title track "Stain The Sea" seems like a dance song until the guitars crash in and start the head banging. The vocals then come in and just command the song as the band sounds on fire here. The track has a nice flow to it that really gets you moving. There is a strong chorus and a guitar solo that rips straight through the song. To play out the guitars and drums stomp along with the Keyboards playing a melody over it.

After that one we have "The Bridge" which is almost chaotic from the start. The vocals come in as the Keyboards adds melody here and once again they are going for another big sounding chorus. To me this song sounds very EVANESCENCE meets LACUNA COIL. It has a heavy attitude as well as plenty of melody mixed in there. The song comes down only to build right back up again for one last big chorus where the vocals show their full power.

The last song on the album here is "Red" which opens with choir chants and a bit of synths too. The band then come crashing in with some epic vibes and killer riffs. The vocals really take charge here which then leads us to a massive chorus. The verses here have a great groove to them and the vocals show a lot of range. The band are giving it everything they got here. The song then goes down a bit with some strings and very haunting sounding vocals and the drums help lead the song elsewhere. We go back to that awesome chorus again and this is an excellent song to close of the album.

From listening to "Stain The Sea" I can hear that INNER STREAM have some very WITHIN TEMPTATION vibes with their music. There is a lot of power behind the vocals and they have a lot of range too. Plenty if cool guitar work with plenty of killer riffs. The Keyboards has nice melodies and at times adds some atmosphere to the songs. But this album is filled with plenty of sing along choruses and has a lot of really good songs. Totally worth checking out.