Truth Inside the Shades

I guess if there is one thing I dislike about the latest Persefone releases (Spiritual Migration, Aathma), it's the fact that they turn heads away from their earlier releases. Persefone have evolved a lot since their debut in terms of composition as well as sound mix, lyrics, vocals and playing skill. And probably most people who find the band nowadays are most likely not even going to listen to this album. Even I took over a year since I found them to take my first glimpse into where it all started (And they're easily my favorite band out of all the prog out there).

After spending lots of time in the hi-fi sounding and extremely virtuous enlightenment that they have created lately, I find it almost impossible to believe that they could have ever made a "dark" album. But they did it and they were very convincing too. I guess every time I play a song from this album it comes as a bit of a shock to me that this really is the same band that made me connect metal music to inner peace and universal oneness. Truth Inside the Shades is focused on anger, fear, sorrow, inner struggles and all sorts of negative emotions that you'd find in regular death metal albums. And the raw sound mix makes it fit in that cathegory even more. However, the prog magnificence is still there.

At times I wonder if the guitarists in Persefone were born with the instruments in their hands because even in this one the guitar leads are insanely technical and fast. Same goes for the keyboards. All the solos in this album are fabulous so there's really nothing to complain about in that department. Even though the compositions were a bit more basic back then (a lot less of the time signature and tempo changing madness) there is still no denying that all the band members delivered a more than remarkable performance on their instruments and I find it a joy to listen to each of them in turn and feel the skill.

But impressive technique isn't the only thing the Andorran masters have to be admired for. As I mentioned already, there is a pretty intense emotional content in this album. The lyrics take you on a joyride of pain and anger and are very quite easy to relate to. I don't think there is much of a concept other than allowing the listener to drown their darkest feelings into the music and as I type these words and can't even believe this is Persefone I'm talking about. And it gets even more unusual. The raging of screams and guitars is complemented beautifully with insertions of strings, different keyboard sounds and piano. The intro is a really good piece with just the piano and some disk scratching background noise immersing you in the atmosphere. And there is quite a lot of atmosphere as often times a rather slower tempo is approached and steady grooves, clean and acoustic guitars and clean vocals bring a bit of inner calm that sets the stage for the dark clouds of rage to descend once more. It's quite a depressing creation that keeps going back and forth between these faces of one's inner darkness. Another aspect that I really enjoyed is the speaking voice that comes now and then to accentuate the sadness as if someone's talking to himself.

Then there's the progressive face of their music which was quite mind-blowing even back then. I just gotta love the math music going on when the vocals cease and the instruments are allowed to go nuts. It's mainly guitars and drums that clash into this time segmenting witchcraft and I see they always had a sweet tooth for virtuosity because they had to make "The Demise of Oblivion" an instrumental song to let themselves go crazy. Ironically though, that's not the most instrumentally crazy song. The Japanese bonus track "The Haunting of Human's denial" seems to take everything the album is made of and push it up another level. It's faster, more progressive, darker, more moody and and above everything, has a touch of Spanish styled acoustic guitar with an awesome groove to it. It is also in this song that the Persefone trademark I've gotten familiar with from Spiritual Migration (A. K. A. things that a human shouldn't be able to play), is most accentuated. And it's the album closer so they've ensured to leave a good aftertaste.

Truth Inside the Shades probably stands out from Persefone's discography as their darkest release so if you ever get bored of that perfect world of enlightenment and feel the urge to get some juicy hatred pumping through your veins, fear not, because the masters have done it all! Give this album a spin. Oh what the hell, take the day off and give the whole discography a spin! They have to be heard!

For many, the discovery of Persefone also implies the discovery of a new tiny country, Andorra. As their line-up includes Spanish musicians, I am really proud to see that, despite the extremely poor Spanish metal culture, there are talented metal artists from my country - Spain - though having to end up in another nationality band, in this case, Andorra, which, for their little population, also has a lack of "metalness". Now focusing on Persefone itself, this band has surprised me for it´s ability to achieve changing their sound with a quite correct judgement without forsaking their previous and original style. In each new release, the band managed to add different elements to it´s music but conserving their melodic-symphonic-progressive death metal sound so characteristic in them.

"Truth Inside the Shades" could be described as an explosion of progressiveness skill and creativity. The power and the strength typical of death metal are slightly left behind - while easily still finding absolutely headbanging passages throughout the release - to focus more in the melody and in the acoustic and symphonic parts. These are extremely well written, creating the dark and sad atmosphere reigning during all 6 songs. The length of the songs - the average of the main songs is around 8 minutes - is what allows Persefone to expound musically on and to debut through the main gate. Now then, in view of Persefone´s talent, this album leaves much field to improve, field that has been shortened in each future release. In the first listening there are two obvious potentially improvable elements that hit you in the eye: One, the drums. The drums are not bad, but fail to be audible at times, and also the tempo with which there are played could be raised. Blast beats and the double bass are rarely heard when those would blend better with the music than the current low-tempo drums. The second evident element is the overuse of the clean vocals which, in my opinion, ruin in some way some passages of the songs. In any way, the rest of the vocals, the harsh ones, though remaining invariable throughout all the album, are extraordinary and fit perfectly with the sadness and sorrow wanted to be expressed by Persefone in "Truth Inside the Shades". Finally, focusing on the lyrics, the most underrated and ignored element of the music, I have to say that these are exceptionally profound, skimming at times the philosophical. However, the lyrics tackle more sensitive matters than philosophical ones.

“Truth inside the Shades” is a great debut album and moreover considering the brave bet Persefone has made with their approach to such a complex and elaborated type of music. In spite of having some minor errors, overall, all the songs exude talent and skill, and worth every second of the listening of this more than decent release. My suggestion, though being quite obvious, is running to your music shop and buying one “Truth Inside the Shades”. I ensure you that you will not regret even a bit having bought it.

Before developing onward to the potent progressive death metal of their magnum opus 'Core', Andorran metal act Persefone was something fairly different. Something I have liked about this band is their ability to switch up their sound with each album, and on 'Truth Inside The Shades', their sound falls within the realm of keyboard-dense extreme gothic metal. Although the band's technical strength and flair for the dramatic is here early on, Persefone would not visibly reach their potential until a couple of years later.

The sound here is composed of blistering guitar licks rolling drumbeats, symphonic keyboards and raspy growls. The song 'The Whisper Of Men' aptly describes the direction the band takes here. Galloping riffs and heaviness abound for much of the song, but there is always room made for a few acoustic respites, in which some clean vocals take a showcase. For all intents and purposes, the sound is quite powerful, if perhaps a little unoriginal. However, while Persefone will certainly draw comparisons for the likes of a great many symphonic metal bands, their complex and energetic approach is laudable.

Where the sound of Persefone starts to grow weak is in the band's unabating focus on keyboards. Although keyboards are a staple for virtually all symphonic or progressive metal bands, the sheer amount of weight the keyboards have in the mixing here makes the music here sound somewhat cheesy, made no better by the fact that the keyboard tones are fairly weak. That being said, the musical skills of keyboardist Miguel Espinoza are not in question, but there is the sense even a minute into the second track that Persefone could have done alot better with a more guitar-centered sound.

'Truth Inside The Shades' is my least favourite of the works that Persefone has released, but that is no shame to them; they would only improve from here on, and later release 'Core', a truly excellent album of progressive death metal. For the sake of the band's debut however, 'Truth Inside The Shades' has some great moments, but the effect gets lost in the cheese.

... because this is far better. Actually, it wouldn’t certainly take long for anyone to notice this band is more than a simple Opeth clone, but it’s far easier to say something like “You know, they sound a bit like Opeth” rather than “Well, good sir, Persefone plays a sort of melodeath with loads of progressive and neoclassical influences and an overall gothic touch”.

The recipe isn’t new a single bit, consisting in the classic opposition between fast, heavy parts with softer neoclassical-influenced interludes where the piano, acoustic guitars or clean vocals are king. The guys overall know how to put their shit together, never falling into utter technical demonstration or uselessly over-subtle structures, even if most of the songs here clock at more than 8 minutes. A few parts may sound a tad dubiously juxtaposed, like in Atemporal Divinity, but almost less often than in most so-called prog bands. A slice of blastbeats comes at the right place to prevent some song from becoming too much sleep-inducing, the mandatory arpeggio guitar solos never fall into mindless wankery, while the production is as clear as it can be, so that you won’t miss a single bar from each instrument, bass included. Another good point is the absence of additional strings or orchestrations, keeping the focus on metal, and metal only.

Persefone constantly plays between three different voices, with a screaming lead singer backed by the keyboardist and second guitarist doing growls and clean vocals. Growls are as raucous as you may wish, indeed they’re rather scarce so one can’t really judge the singer’s abilities – let’s just say they perfectly fit where they got to fit. Clean vocals, of the disillusioned-sounding kind, are more present and manage to avoid the classic trap of excessive whining or pop-ish style a la Jonas Renske. Screaming vocals, which play the leading part, bother me a bit more, making the music sometimes sound like an improbable Dani-Filth-meets-Symphony-X blend. Because, did we really need these raped squirrel shrieks which, if they’re far from being the worst I’ve ever heard in the same genre, most of the time come upon the ensemble like a Picasso in a room dedicated to Classic Greek sculptures? I don’t exactly understood what the guy tried to sound like, but the only thing that can be said is he just tried too hard. However, after a few listens one begins to simply ignore it, instrumental parts being anyway prominent.

Now apart from the annoying lead singer there isn’t really more to be said against this album. It’s this kind of work that has to be listened to from the beginning to the end, from the first notes of the gentle piano intro to the last bars of the both majestic and complex instrumental The Demise of Oblivion, as there is no weak moment. Main dishes would be the title track and the following Niflheim, which get my preference for being maybe the best structured songs of the whole album. But how could anyone miss the beautiful end of Atemporal Divinity, even if the whole track could seem to lack a bit of method? Without speaking about the opener The Whisper of Men, shorter, heavier and maybe less subtle than the other songs, but which acts like a storming intro to the whole work, making a shocking contrast with the previous 1.5 minutes of piano.

Because of its various influences this album may find a place on the shelves of melodeath as well as neoclassical metal lovers, or even casual listeners of both genres. And the last good thing when you own it is it enables you to tell everyone you know one of the three metal bands from this mysterious little country of Andorra.

Highlights: Truth inside the Shades, Niflheim (The Eyes that Hold the Edge)

PERSEFONE is a band from Andorra, that little country between Spain and France.

The band that had been founded back in 2001 is delivering an album that is stomping the majority of bands that try to combine progressive sounds with Death Metal into the ground with ease. Even though that in theory places them pretty close to bands such as OPETH and NOVEMBRE you should not put PERSEFONE down as a clone, because they have so much more to offer.

After the classical piano intro “My Unwithered Shrine” “The Whisper Of Men” shows us the mastered split between melodic Death Metal and progressive elements and on the one hand is powerful and quite fast, with at times quite harsh vocals, but then also gear down into mid-tempo, also with a very good clear voice. And with the almost eleven-minute title track they throw a true gemstone towards the listener, combining double-bass-passages with very quiet parts including clean vocals and altogether a pretty unusual piano that breaks out of the typical harmonies.

So you can see that there is a certain (albeit incalculable) pattern that is woven with great dynamics and always retains an excellent flow, despite the many different elements that are processed within the compositions, which is further proved by the other three songs.

The production of Aleix Dorca and the band is damn good, as well as the visual presentation of the album, very noble, in combination with the very thought-through songs this results in a great album that friends of progressive and heavy music, who also can digest Death Metal, should definitely check out!