The Ukrainian Edenian come back to life with an ep just a little less than a year after the good debut Rise Of The Nephilim. An interlocutory release, then, that seems more a sort of appendix of the last album than a possible anticipation of the next one; certainly the sound coordinates haven’t changed, always marked by a gothic doom with draconian imprint, supported by the usual contrast between the growl of Eternal Tom and the operatic voice of Valery Chudentsova. As already mentioned in the review of the previous work, just the voice of the singer is the aspect that still leaves some small perplexity about the work of Edenian. The sensation is that Valery sometimes expresses herself on registers that are not always suitable for the development of the songs, almost as if the still very young vocalist is not able to modulate in an optimal way her own potentialities and, maybe, this aspect is even more evident because Tom’s growl is very expressive and, usually, it’s with his entrance on the scene that the songs become more intense, with an aura of drama. Nothing, however, that goes to invalidate more than so much a test that does not take away and does not add anything to the work of the Ukrainian band: the ep offers us three unreleased tracks in line with the past production, among which surely stands out the excellent The Ghost, and two covers, the first of another band that is definitely a model for ours such as the German Xandria, while in the second Edenian try nothing less than with Eternal, taken from the immortal Gothic of Paradise Lost, sung here by Tom alone and magnificently rendered in a version with an accentuated symphonic appeal. Forgotten Once is a good but not essential test, so we give appointment to Edenian on the occasion of the next full length.

2014 – Solitude Productions