Signum Regis
Through the Storm

Heading through the storm are Slovakian band Signum Regis, who are back with a new offering. This new EP follows their latest album Exodus that was released in 2013, but they have been flying under our radar since the debut that was released back in 2008. At that time they featured Göran Edman on vocals, now for this EP they have found a new vocalist and it may be to present this new vocalist that they are releasing this EP – as EPs often tend to be kind of pointless releases of a pair of good tracks and a couple of fillers. Still, lets not judge the book by its cover or by its genre, the cover does however look very good so if that is an indication then I suppose that it has to be something good this EP.

It is power metal with some traces of the neo-classical, very melodic. Good vocalist and a very good production, the EP has a fairly good drive and energy making it a very solid production. Six tracks on the EP; one is a new version of a track from the debut album. Not overly much variation over these tracks and it is quite easy to look at it as a fairly shallow release meaning that it might lack the depth that gives an album or an EP longevity. The playing time is thirty minutes long, meaning that it is a fairly long EP and you could almost call it an album, but it isn’t really built like an album if looking at the structure of songs.

I think this is a decent EP, the songs are overall of decent quality and the opening ones are very good. I think however that the songs that follows the opening pair, though decent songs they are still quite forgettable. And unfortunately it is kind of like an EP usually is, there are two great songs and the rest feel like they are just filler tracks. That is a bit unfortunate, I think they seem capable of doing so much more than this but I think that the nature of the EP is the problem here and just having two excellent tracks and nothing to match that isn’t really the recipe for something great.

The first track Living Well is the best of the EP, very strong and entertaining track and power metal at its best. I also think the same can be said about the second track Through the Desert, Through the Storm, I like these two tracks and as I stated when listening to the opening pair of tracks on this album I think it is power metal at its absolute best – then it goes a little bit downhill and I start to think that it is a shame that the band doesn’t deliver the same quality throughout the entire album. Still, fans of the band and power metal should probably check it out – even if it is only for the first two tracks.

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