### Ephrat: No one's words

#### 05/09/08 || Euthanatos

This better be some amazing shit, because I just stopped listening to Metal Church to review it. The thing is, it’s labeled as “progressive metal”, so I’m fucking tense as of right now. Ephrat is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Omer Ephrat, but what actually got me interested was the fact that the producer is Steven Wilson, of Porcupine Tree, who is a fucking genius, and also features Pain of Salvation’s Daniel Gildenlöw as a guest singer. There’s also Petronella Nettermalm, from Paatos, singing on one track.

What you get from most of the songs is, yes, progressive metal, in the vein of Pain of Salvation. The song structures are mostly straight forward with the occasional middle-eastern flavored intermission and some prog craziness like on “Blocked”. Petronella’s vocals on “Haze” are much better than Lior Seker’s, who is the original band vocalist. They should keep her on board, or at least get a female singer to replace Lior, as his vocals are fucking shitty. The over 10 minute long “The Sum of Damage Done” reminded me of King Crimson and it’s the one where Gildenlöw sings, and he does a kick ass job of it. This is more like it, someone with grit, passion, who truly communicates with the listener through his vocals. The song also is a bit heavier, although it has some acoustic parts, just a bit too long to keep one interested.

The overall feeling I get from this debut is that while Ephrat (the fella, not the band) is a talented fellow who has surrounded himself with amazing musicians and gotten the best producer and guests possible, it still wasn’t enough to make an interesting album. There are good ideas on the songs, but mostly they are too damn long and boring and for fuck’s sake, get rid of the singer. If it wasn’t for his shitty dying chicken singing, I might have given a higher score.

Back to Metal Church.

The cover: The band’s name in a sewer. How appropriate.

4 Steven Wilson’s couldn’t save this out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Insideout Music
- Website: Ephram MySpace
- Band
- Omer Ephrat: guitars, keyboards, flute
- Lior Seker: vocals
- Gili Rosenberg: bass
- Tomer Z: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The Show
- 02. Haze
- 03. Better Than Anything
- 04. Blocked
- 05. The Sum Of Damage Done
- 06. Real