If you have heard about this Italian progg band, and consciously you want to see what they are all about… DON’T pick this record to be your starting point. Let me rephrase that because I make it sound as if “Pain Remixes the Unknown” was a bad album, because is not, is a great record, it just happens to be a remix one, like any brilliant mind would have understood as soon as they read the album title.

Like any other “remix” album, the songs are quite catchy, bombastic and will get you out of a tight spot if you ever try to score with a “hip girl” (just by saying that you can realize the kind of self centered individual you are if you think a progg band might actually help you pick up a girl!); but dumb comments aside, Ephel Duath are in reality one of those jazzy progg outfits, that is hard to understand and assimilate, that off course doesn’t happen here, because like I said before… this is a remix, so their songs have been arrange in a comprehensive, rhythm base style that is easy to digest, but it never undermines the great ideas behind the songs; songs that if my intuition is correct, are very complex if you listen to them without all this arrangements.

So despite the fact that many can argue that is not a metal record, and they will have some interesting arguments for it, you cant deny the “heaviness” within “Pain Remixes the Unknown”; it actually made me remember a band I used to like but never really got too deep into it “The Shizit” a sort of electro hardcore outfit that sounded pretty interesting; for those of you familiar with that band then you are going to like this unique and daring Ephel Duath release, but if you truly want to hear their sound you better pick up “Pain Necessary to Know” their 2005 release.