Together for a little under a year, Greater San Francisco Bay Area band DISSIDENT SOULS have released their debut self-titled EP, a 5 song effort. Not really knowing much about this band prior to this release, and based solely on my listening perspective, I'd say the quartet profess a love of older, Traditional Metal and Melodic Hard Rock artists - IRON MAIDEN, ACCEPT, and JUDAS PRIEST coming to the forefront in terms of guitar riffing, tempo gallops, and emotional, melodic-oriented vocals.

"Trying to Find the Light" has a little bit more of a ballad oriented arrangement before picking up the pace a minute in, Ron's vocals a cross between Don Dokken and maybe a mid-range Geddy Lee. Ryan Baillie and Ron Castia form an awesome guitar tandem, delivering very thoughtful interactions as well as lead breaks that haven't been heard very often in today's 'shred' oriented axe scope - these guys prefer the likes of Michael Schenker and Gary Moore to use as their models. The use of triangles (remember the ones you would use in elementary school?) gives "Mental Divergence" more of a Melodic Hard Rock / AOR vibe - although the drum sound appears to suffer in the mix for this particular song (very distant and almost computerized).

Closing on a strong note with another heads down anthem like "Wings of Steel", DISSIDENT SOULS will probably gain the most appeal in Europe or distant lands that still prefer Traditional Heavy Metal as their main source of entertainment. In America that can be a tough sell, as most of the younger generation prefers an angrier, more aggressive total package from a vocal and music outlook. Overall though, this is a 5 song EP that has a lot of high quality songwriting, killer performances, and energy that reminds me of why I came to love the genre back in the early 1980's.

Possibly another band to keep an eye on as this is decent material.