It's 10th of August, 2009 at Vrahon Theater (Athens, Greece). FAITH NO MORE is on stage, I'm trying to get some photos and a guy behind me starts yelling because he couldn't see a thing. Well, he was right, so I apologized to him. That was the first "encounter" with a band called THE BRIGHTLY SHINING SEA, since this guy was their guitar player, if I remember correctly.

So now, after a few months, here I am with their digital promo in my hard drive to review it. Formed in 2006 by John and Dimitris Havellas, soon Dimitris "Spoonman" joined the band, alongside Thanos Mitsios, their first drummer. But as many bands, the SPINAL TAP syndrome hit THE BRIGHT SHINING SEA, too. So various drummers passed since then, until now that Nick Soul entered the band. Hopefully he came to stay. This first self-titled attempt of the band was recorded between April 2008 and January 2009, at Nick M. studio.

The intro of this EP is quite strange with the acoustic guitar and the violin. You may start to think that there is something wrong, since it has nothing to do with the kind of music that you, our readers, like. But when "Asthmatic" starts everything is back in place. Or aren't they? THE BRIGHTLY SHINING SEA is a band with no bounders and they are not afraid to match things that you may think they have nothing in common. This EP is not recommended to easy listeners. If we dare to write down what on earth their music sound like, it would be, post Metal/Rock base with progressive, fusion, jazz elements and some brutal vocals. You could mark influences from bands like MR. BUNGLE, EPHEL DUATH, VED BUENS ENDE and many more. The production of this EP is above average, and if you have in mind that this is a 'self' release, then we all have to admit that they did a great job. The artwork seems nice as well, but they should be more cautious with the scanning. The photos that I have are quite askew. Not the best thing in a promo, digital or not.

To sum up, this self-titled EP from THE BRIGHTLY SHINING SEA is beautiful in a strange way. You have to listen to it quite a few times in order to start catching what's going on. But it's surely worth the try. Can't wait to listen to their new stuff