Remember how in 2012, the world was meant to come to an end but never did? What if it did end and we all lived in an apocalyptic world? The thought of that would be truly shocking to us all and often the thought about the world ending has inspired a numerous amount of things in the media, including the movie "2012", and also music as well. STARBORN are just such a band who have clearly taken inspiration from the supposed apocalypse of our world, or that's the impression I got when reading the first paragraph in the press release of their debut EP "Born By The Wind".

The thing is though, I say it's an EP but after doing some research on The Metal Archives website, it classifies this as a Demo so I'm not sure whether or not to call this an EP, a demo or a demo EP, so I'll probably call it the latter. This is a 20 or so minutes long 4-song independent demo EP released by the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne based Power Metal quintet who also have Progressive, Heavy and Thrash Metal styles in their music.

So what does it sound like for a release where I am unsure what to classify it as? If it was a Demo then it sounds like what you'd expect from a Demo but if it was an EP that was produced and mixed, it's not bad but if it was the latter then it needs a few more tweaks in the production department.

So what about the music itself? The first thing you notice is how heavy it sounds which is sort of what you expect from anything released by a Metal band although because there are four styles of Metal in this band, I'm not quite sure what type of Metal this Demo EP is classified as so I'll say it's a mixture of all 4.

In traditional Metal fashion, it's loud, heavy and fast in some places mainly the guitar solo sections and there are also some pretty quick drumbeats and bass lines too. Vocals? It's pretty much traditional Metal style vocals with lots of high notes and a few screams thrown in. As for the quality of the vocals, it's not bad per-say but it needs a bit of work as at times the vocals and the lyrics seem a bit lost in the music.

So what is the overall verdict? I'm left feeling a bit confused, as I'm still not sure what to classify this release as. It's meant to be classified as an EP but another site says it's a demo so I'm not really sure which one it is so I'm a bit puzzled because of that. Music wise, it's good for what it is but a few tweaks are needed here and there to make it a bit better as it has potential but I think more time is needed in the production/mixing stages to improve the quality a bit.<