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Ashent
“Flaws of Elation”
(Lucretia Records)

These guys have an interesting combination of technical prog metal with old style Children of Bodom brutality in terms of melodic guitar riffs and atmospheric keyboard harmonics. As a big fan of old style CoB I can find no fault in this ha ha! “Flaws of Elation” is I think their debut album (produced in 2006 but for some reason has only just materialised - must've been stuck in a time warp!) and it's excellent, well thought out intellectual metal. I think their myspace page sez around 22,000 people have listened to their new songs in just a coupla months. One thing that their label did get right was their description: no clones, no copies, just 100% Ashent. Nuff said!

-Shan Siva