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I've been listening to this one quite a bit over the last few weeks and one thing I will say for certain is that, while young (in the band photo, several of the guys look barely into their 20s), these guys are damn good musicians. Melodic Power Metal is what The Silent Rage (the band) are all about, which is not much of a surprise as they hail from Greece, a land renowned for its Power Metal. There is a nice mix of crunchy riffs and keys with both high, clean (squeaky clean) and aggressive vocals. The former are provided by guitarist Kostas Tokas and the latter by founding guitarist Nikos Siglidis. Tokas does a pretty fair impression of Geddy Lee but the overall sound of The Silent Rage (the EP) is more akin to early Labyrinth to these ears.

This is pretty good stuff. The keyboards are used primarily to support the guitars, which is always my preference. The exception would be the track "Silent Rage," which features the piano skills of keyboardist Kimonas Kimenidis quite prominently. The guitars are fairly heavy and crunchy, for Melodic Power Metal, but Nikos and Kostas really let it all hang out on the solos. My favorite part of the EP is how they end "Leading the Legions" with a solo that continues through the fade and then they start right in soloing again at the beginning of "Wings of Tragedy." While good, The Silent Rage is not perfect. Sure, the performances shine, but the songwriting is a bit lacking. The "catchy-ness" factor needs to be dialed up. All the songs sound quite similar and, while enjoyable while they are on, don't really stick like good Power Metal should. Nit-picking, I know, but it was most frustrating to hear such impressive musical skill laboring on some of these songs. I do, however, expect great things from The Silent Rage in the future.