PLAINED is a Danish Progressive Rock/Metal project with inspiration from bands like TOOL, OPETH, and KARNIVOOL. As far as I can tell, this is their debut EP, and contains five tracks.
"Prelude" is the opener. It has a soft and mysterious sound, with drum brushes and clean guitar notes. It segues into "Chorus Line," which opens with a heavy guitar sequence and then airy vocal harmonies. When the harsh vocals come in, it picks up with Progressive elements in the meter and a much angrier sound, before returning to those lush clean vocals in the verses. Towards the end, a harsher sequence enters in again, with the guitars attacking in short staccato notes.

"Erupted Material" opens with bass and guitar notes that sound like they are being played inside a tight glass enclosure. When the bottle lets out the notes, they breathe, but with just a few beats away of dying out forever. The main riff than slams in, with dexterous time manipulation by the band. Tender vocals in the verses turn angry with harsh utterances that are fueled by rage. I can hear a bit of DREAM THEATER in the guitar work...it's heavy, dark and technical. "Odio Fati" opens with a faster aggressive sound. The clean vocals build in layers and a heavy cadence, ushering in the harsh vocals with some groovy bass parts. Now I can hear the OPETH influence kicking in. The riff is just heavy enough to compliment the clean vocals.

"Amor Fati" closes the EP. It's an instrumental song that builds along the way. Just after the half-way mark the sound drops to almost nothing and then returns with soft vocal chants. The rhythm changes and it's an all-out cage match to the end. Overall, it's hard to get a handle in an album with effectively just four tracks, due to the first being a short instrumental. But, I felt that I more than understood them at their core. Musically, they are perhaps more like TOOL or later edition OPETH, but not necessarily vocally. The music has an edge to it and the album was quite enjoyable. I will be looking forward to a full-length release in the future.