Well, to create what we call as Progressive Metal needs a lot of creativity. It's not an easy style to do, because if you play using a highly refined and technical way, you can become boring to many fans and your music lose weight. And we have the great names the monopolize the public attention, so, to become known is as difficult as to conquer Troy. But even with that, we can find some good new names, as the Russian duo NOTA AMARA, that released their new EP, "Mediocrity".

Heavy and technical, but more coherent than recent works from DREAM THEATER, these two can really create very good songs to our ears, because they never lose the focus on Metal music, even using a more symphonic insight on their songs. And thanks to all Metal gods, their songs are not those boring giant songs with more than 20 minutes of technical self indulgence. Here, the technique arises as a consequence of the songs, not their main motivation. And the female voices are singing in a heavy way. Their sound quality is OK, being heavy and clean in a balanced way that their music needs to be understood and for us to assimilate and comprehend their vision. It's not a super production as some great names usually do, but is OK, in a very good level.

All their four songs are fine, having their own merits each one of them. But "Silence (Part I & II)" is outstanding, mixing tender and introspective moments with some heavy ones, showing a great versatility on voices, and fine and technical tempos and very good guitar riffs, and some musical instruments not conventional in Metal. Yes, this EP is a fine work, and let's hope their next album can be good as "Mediocrity". And let's say the truth: this name is ironic, for their music is very far away to be considered mediocre...