Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Edge Of Sins
Label: Self-released
Released: 2016
Length: 37:12
Rating: 3.5/5
Edge Of Sins are a Slovenian heavy metal band that’s been active since 2012. The five-piece found their stability and integrity in 2015, and that’s also when they buried themselves in work and created their studio debut »My Escape«, which came out last August.
»My Escape« is a concept album. The story isn’t new. Watch the legendary video for the legendary Yes hit Owner Of a Lonely Heart, or one of the »Matrix« movies, and you’ll quickly find yourself on the same wavelength. One person against the masses, in other words. Realization, reflection, awakening. You drop the mask and find yourself. The idea behind the story isn’t new, but it’s incredibly timely, because it sheds light on how we live in this wonderful, crazy world. You manage to become aware of your calling, you manage to escape the system, and you start walking the thin dividing line of the hidden »warrior-rebel« (after Osho) . You choose the thorny path. But it’s your freedom, and while it costs you dearly, you can always sleep soundly at night, the bills are always settled and you’re your own master. In this crazy world that’s a utopia today, and such people are fewer and fewer, which is why we live in dangerous times, where the fantasies of crazy heads with crazy ideas escalate in positions of leadership and offices of power, with the might to plunge the masked, blinded masses into agony in an instant. Groupthink, mindlessness, uniformity, moral devaluation, spiritual and emotional orphanhood, loss of dignity and boundless humiliation. The choice is yours. If you chose the previous sentence, then you’re just one brick in this horrifyingly absurd system, which you merely prop up (unknowingly, wearing the mask of blindness) with ever greater acts of absurdity and boundless degradation.
Edge Of Sins draw on the foundations of classic metal. But the sound of their guitar phrases and the lower tuning is rumbling and up to date, which is tastefully trendy. At the same time, the level of musicality the band develops in its arrangements is pronounced and high. Harmonic ornaments and passages evoke a feeling of epicness, yet a dark, bleak atmosphere is present throughout, evoked by the sound and the development of the songs, decisive and clearly front and center all the way. It’s also tasteful that the band steers clear of keyboard arrangements, so the album doesn’t contain even a speck of kitsch. The obscure format of the atmosphere they build, a kind of dark theater, is deepened further by the vocal approach of singer Matic Pavlin, who stays mostly in mid-range registers. He goes in with clean, melodic singing, which is at times contrasted very tastefully by the »growl« of guitarist Blaž Hadalin (The Mask, The Wolf Marches On), and that kind of vocal contribution effectively deepens the dark character of the record itself. We run into this fact pretty quickly, right with opener Dead Future. A track with signature riff formatting and dynamic development (pre-chorus included) that grabs all your attention instantly. The album as a whole shows the band’s great dedication to shaping the compositions, confirmed by the exemplary, tastefully built-in mid-eight sections, where the songs reach an even greater character of dynamic variety.
The riffs in themselves don’t bring anything you haven’t already heard somewhere else. But it’s all packaged with heart and authenticity, and as such, in the hands of a hard-working, committed quintet, it works decently and wins you over completely. One of the more interesting moments is the lead riff of Dying… , which at first fleetingly brings to mind something Iron Maiden forgot to record in 1983 for »Piece Of Mind«. But at the same time it has enough of a contemporary sonic character and a charisma of its own, which is what the band builds on as it defines its musical calling card.
All in all, »My Escape« is an exceptionally bold opening to the musical story of Edge Of Sins. »My Escape« is a nice, quality album that the band can proudly represent on stages across Slovenia and Europe and use to successfully build their reputation. At the same time, it’s clear that their creative reserves are still untapped and that this is a young band only now entering its creative zenith and developmental bloom. The next album will be considerably different, and they may well reach for a fusion of metal subgenres. »My Escape« is also an album that’s a rarity on Slovenian soil these days, so amid all the hype around extreme metal, its classic metal foundations make it that much more of a pleasant surprise.
Edge Of Sins – Saved Soul (official lyric video):
Line-up
Matic Pavlin – vocals
Blaž Hadalin – guitar, backing vocals (“growl”)
Jure Flander – guitar
Anže Javoršek – bass
Nejc Hadalin – drums
Production
Edge Of Sins
Tracklist
1. Dead Future
2. The Mask
3. Dying…
4. Time
5. …is Living
6. Escape Plan
7. The Wolf Marches On
8. The Battle Begins
9. Saved Soul
10. World of Sin
