The Painter's Palette reviews

preview from www.movimenta.it , one of the biggest "Alternative" webzines in italy:

"È bastata the passage, open-track x farmi sobbalzare sulla sedia incredulo a quello che le mie orecchie stavano sentendo.Ma andiamo con calma. Gli ephel duath si distaccano completamente, dalle sonorità del loro primo album, infatti se con phormula, che li aveva fatti notare e poi messi sotto contratto con la earache, si cimentavano in un black metal sinfonico e dal sapore avantgarde, ora con questo "the painter palette" le sonorità sono completamente cambiate.
Questo cambio stilistico è soprattutto dovuto a una formazione completamente stravolta, l'unico membro rimasto è Davide alle chitarre, con un background
musicale bizzarro e soprattutto al di fuori delle sonorità metal. Le sonorità degli ephel duath potrebbero ricordare quelle dei Candira meno
fissati con il crossover e ancor più jazzati o dei Cynic in nero, ovvero dalle atmosfere oscure, oppressive e claustrofobiche riuscendo a fare proprio il discorso lasciato aperto con focus dimostrando di essere i
migliori eredi ascoltati fino ad ora.
Inserti jazz, le doppie voci in contrapposizione su una sezione ritmica mai uguale e imprevedibile, una tromba che nelle sue apparizioni da un ottimo
contributo al disco, una chitarra incontrollabile, scoordinata dal sapore progressive, un pò alla Robert Fripp per intenderci, e qualche inserto elettronico che non guasta mai.
The painter palettes è l'ennesimo gioiellino italiano e che andrebbe ascoltato solo per l'originalità e il coraggio che lo distingue dalla massa."
 
Skinnys music (Indie retailer)
Review: http://www.skinnysmusic.com.au/ephelduathreview.htm
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"What on earth has happened to this band!
When I received their album ‘Rephormula’ last year (A re-release of 2000’s ‘Phormula’ with extra tracks), I duly tried my best to describe what I was hearing onto paper (Or fingers to keyboard actually), and in the end, I think I was successful.[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]However, ‘The Painter’s Palette’ was not what I thought Ephel Duath was going to follow up with![/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]However damning this may sound, it’s actually the opposite. Many in recent times have tried to incorporate jazz-fusion with black metal in recent times, but few have sounded as authentic or as genuine of Ephel Duath.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ephel Duath’s main man and sole guitarist Davide Tiso decided expand the bands line-up with an assortment of untypical musicians in order to flesh out his stunning vision of a an undiluted twisted take on jazz/black metal.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Taking on the drums is the forty-seven year old jazz/blues supremo Davide Piovesan, progressive/fusion bassist Fabio Fecchio, and dual vocalists Davide Tolomei (Providing the albums clean elements) and Lucio Lorusso (Who’s background in hardcore/noise adds to the albums harsher moments).[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]No sooner does ‘The Passage (Pearl Grey)’ (The lead off single) start, and you are bombarded with a host of sounds flowing from one genre to the next. Gentle melodic guitars are up first, then there’s a free form saxophone solo (Courtesy of a Mr. X) followed by a barrage of black metal with swathing clean vocals around sampled like drum beats with acoustic ones.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Trying to break down any particular moment is any easier with the equally static melodic moments/extreme metal/jazz infused sounds in ‘The Unpoetic Circle (Bottle Green)’ and ‘Labyrinthine (Crimson)’, while the instrumental ‘Praha (Ancient Gold)’ and ‘Ironical Communication (Amber)’ does delve more on the progressive/jazz side of things.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As the albums heaviest track (In parts that is), ‘Ruins (Deep Blue And Violet)’ sees the black metal within Timo bubble to the surface.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]‘The Picture (Bordeaux)’ and ‘The Other’s Touch (Amaranth)’ features some exceptional moments from Fecchio, while Timo stunning underlining guitar work takes pride of place as the songs anchor. [/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]‘The Painter’s Palette’ is not only a credit to Davide Tiso song writing and lyrical genius, but equally speaks volumes to all those involved throughout this extraordinary album.[/font]​
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Like Celtic Frost’s ‘Into The Pandemonium’, ‘The Painter’s Palette’ is sure to be labelled as original, difficult and in a class of its own."[/font]​

Primal Agony
Review: http://www.geocities.com/primalagony/cdreviews50.html#14
(the same as review above)

Full Strength
Review: http://www.full-strength.net/world_review_ephelduath.html
(the same as review above)

Earache My Eye (A metal show on Community radios website)
Review: http://www.earache-my-eye.netfirms.com/reviews2/page9.html
"Ephel Duath have created a groundbreaking, mind-blowing, masterpiece titled The Painter's Palette. After releasing their highly acclaimed Black metal/Symphonic debut album Rephormula in 2001, which pushed back the bounders of metal. Ephel Duath main man Davide Tiso seems to have gone back to the drawing board, dismantling Ephel Duath and bringing in an astonishingly devise set of musicians to go to unexplored metal territories. Blending jazz-fusion, hardcore and progressive metal The Painter's Palette is amazing to listen to, while Rephormula takes a while to get your head around, The Painter's Palette instantly assessable to the ears. This does not mean The Painter's Palette is not musically out there as Rephormula, in some ways it's more tripped out, just not as brutal. Ephel Duath have become one of my favorite metal acts and The Painter's Palette is my album of the year as it's ganna be hard to top." 5 ½ /5

The Painter's Palette also received No. 1 album on a Community radio show 3RRR Hard Report's Top 5 last week:
No. 5 Sepultura
No. 4 Marilyn Manson
No. 3 Deftones
No. 2 Children of Bodom
No. 1 Ephel Duath
 
this is an amazing new review on RUMORE Magazine, the Biggest and most Influential italian Music Magazine, (like an "italian Rolling Stone Magazine")

ephelrumore.jpg
 
Windom Pearl said:
Got 10/10 in finnish Inferno Magazine (practically the only finnish metal magazine), but the review was a bit to...artistic to be translated. Plus I don't have it here. And I'm drunk anyway.

wow, if you can please scan and post it here!! :)
 
Lee_B said:

There is a nice comment though. It seems that I am spreading my soMn's curse all over the place :lol:

i heard/have their first CD and enjoy it at some level. It was very avant-garde and i can see in this review that they expanded on their experimentation. I am really starting to like Elitest Records...Rakoth, Forest Stream...now Ephel Duath...wonder whats next. We'll i will surely have to pick up this CD along with the new Solefald...long live metal and its many sub-genres! \m/
 
another good one from www.beyondwebzine.com (belgium):

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]EPHEL DUATH "The Painter's Palette" CD 92/100[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Toohardtodescribe Metal -
(Italy)
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[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There are boundaries. Some musicians cross them and become geniuses. Or complete fools if they're unlucky (or misunderstood...). After the boundaries, you get the boundaries of the boundaries. And those, as you may know, aren't crossed very often because beyond them there's nothing but deadly ground. So when someone dares to take a step up to this very next level, everyone sees the band as already fucked. If you looked at my personal rating before you read this text, you already know that Ephel Duath is still very alive and kickin' despite the fact that they've gone so far. Yes, this album is pure madness, but - paradoxically maybe - it totally makes sense. The Italian combo brought so many nuances that the whole recording cannot be described with just words. You'll find lots of jazzy shuffle rhythm, atonal guitar patterns, schizophrenic trumpet interventions plus tons of other odd things. Coming up with such an album was like trying to summarize millions of styles to finally obtain one. And I'm constrained to admit that Ephel Duath totally succeeded in this audacious yet very image-enhancing quest. It's like a world trip during which you meet thousands of perfumes, colors and sounds. It can be seen as both educational (for other musicians) and emotionally enriching (for everyfuckingone). Now... I won't lie to you: it is an extremely exhausting album, but it's definitely worth the detour. Unique in its genre, tough there's no actual genre of this kind![/font]
 
Again, freely translated from the next issue which should be out any day now.

Exciting stuff this, and especially surprising when you look at the band`s debut album. On their last effort, the band flirtet with symphonic Black Metal, now there is nothing left of this. The question is whether the band should have changed their name, because this time the music is all about agressive metal built on traditional jazz/fusion often spun from improvization. And it is here I can`t follow them any longer. There are numerous parts and themes that would fit into any of the songs, and this makes it hard to find any substance in the individual songs. Great musicianship, and if you are fond of experimental music, you`ll if nothing else be impressed by the quality of the musicians involved. I do wonder whether Earache knew what they did when they signed these Italians, and cannot see how the company can market this to a metal-audience.

Andrè Aaslie
 
Wow...I'm surprised no one's posted the Allmusic.com review. It doesn't really come off as very positive or negative, most reviews on the site don't seem to, but its interesting none-the-less:

Not since Faith No More's post-"Epic" albums where they had the label clout and studio time to explore their kinks in detail has there been a metal-based album as flat-out weird as Ephel Duath's The Painter's Palette. An artsy (sorry) concept album where every song is subtitled after a different pigment, The Painter's Palette welds whiplash hardcore metal (yes, some songs have the Muppet vocals, but lead singer Davide Tolomei more often favors a much more melodic, '70s-rock style similar to John Wetton during his King Crimson days) with the trickiest aspects of jazz fusion (unusual chord progressions, abrupt time signature shifts, melodies that take completely unexpected left turns and then get lost trying to find their way back), along with bits of post-rock, hip-hop and even a bit of classical style guitar. It sounds on paper like it could be a pretentious mess, but the combination is delivered with such power and ferocity that it works. In some ways, Ephel Duath looks back to the days of PFM and Acqua Fragile, the last time when Italian progressive rock was so interesting. — Stewart Mason