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Italian Melodic/Progressive Metal band Rainfall have offered us their debut EP, Lost in a Cold World. Featuring a melancholy vibe throughout the three songs, Rainfall keeps the keyboards and guitars evenly represented. While this takes some of the punch out of the riffs, which are good, it also prevents Lost in a Cold World from leaning so far to the progressive side that only hard core Dream Theater fans would appreciate it.

The EP suffers the problems typical of many independent releases such as a somewhat muddy production. This relegates the instruments to the background and brings the vocals of Francesca Messali up front a bit too much. Not that there is anything wrong with her performance, although it took me a few spins to fully appreciate. As for the songs, the opener, "Burning Rust" is the best of the bunch, with its crunchy riff and catchy chorus. "Thorns" is similar, but with a less catchy chorus. "Ethereal" has an annoying keyboard riff, a false stop in the middle, and didn't really work for me. The songs have an early in their career sound, i.e. an honest, if unimpressive attempt to capture the sound and message the band is trying for.

This is a decent first release for Rainfall, but by no means spectacular. The band is going to need to sharpen their songwriting skills if they hope to separate themselves from the myriad of other bands playing this style of music.