Well, when you see this band saying in their bio that they play music for people that aren’t into the “Paranoid” riff anymore and that they are influenced by ‘Dillinger Escape Plan’ in just their debut, you realize you are facing something weird here. I don’t know many things about the members of this act from Milan. They don’t even have an official web site; only a myspace page. They also have an awful English translation for what they have as a bio. On the first hearing the accent sounded bad. I can’t say the same about their music.

It’s by far the most progressive release I’ve come across from Italy. It will remind you of ‘Dillinger’ and of ‘Cave In’ but also the old activists ‘Consolidated’. They seem to have heard a lot of Relapse mathcore with the addition of experimental acts in general. They are sometimes completely jazz, some are attacks in hardcore sounds and some are speeches in a rap kind of style! This sounded like ‘Candiria’ to some of you, didn’t it? They are full of arsis, breaks, mood and rhythm changes in the whole duration; they have strong guitars and aggressive vocals and a very good sound, too. And the accent ain’t so bad after all. These guys have a clear view of what they are doing and that’s impressive.

It’s not so easy to get it from the first time you lay your ears down to it so it demands patient listeners. Where you’re into to the neurotic riff a trumpet joins along the way or some Eldritch (who are also Italians!) vocals pop up from nowhere! A good thing about them is they try not to copy their influences. The transfer from one theme to another is quite unique for a first full-length effort. This is a very tight-together-act with gifted musicians that have chosen the hard way but prove that they are fully equipped to succeed on this. Best real progressive metal work I’ve experienced for 2008. We also await some Ipecac acts’ releases that would fit in a tour with Yak perfectly...