Exenemy – Overture EP Review

6th December 2015 0 By Suzie Rottencrotch

We all love a bit of extreme metal, right? Give me blast beats, tremolo picking, shredding solos and evil vocals and I’m one happy chap. But, there is nothing quite like a wee bit of power metal – sometimes it can be cheesy, often it can be brilliant, but it always has a healthy dose of a feel good factor. Enter Bangladesh’s Exenemy, and their debut EP, Overture. What Exenemy have unleashed is a short, three track burst of incredible promise – power metal executed fantastically with just the right amount of cheese.

Overture opens with Victory Serenade, kicking straight off with a minute’s worth of very Iron Maiden-esque leads before the body of the song kicks in. Throughout the song as a whole there is an excellent display of melodic lead passages and exactly the kind of huge riffs one would expect from a band clearly taking influence from the likes of Dragonforce and Hammerfall. With solos leading down a more traditional metal vein it is clear there is a huge amount of talent from guitarists Shanil Arnab and Ahmed Souren.

Twisted Saints has a much thrashier feel to it, kicking off with some fast riffing and punishing double bass. As the thrashy verse swings into the chorus Exenemy crank up the cheese and this sounds like it could have been taken from a Hammerfall demo. Once again Arnab and Souren display their remarkable chops from some brilliant solo work. Twisted Saints also features some brilliant symphonic passages that fit in perfectly, and the song as a whole is a standout vocal performance from Emran Hassan. His cleaner, more melodic vocals are slightly weaker than his perfect venom-filled thrash yell, but with a bit of work Hassan can stand tall beside genre stalwarts Joacim Cans (Hammerfal) and Andi Deris (Helloween).

The closing track from Overture is also the strongest, Rusted Wings. A fantastically written song crammed with brilliant lead passages, mammoth riffs and excellent vocals, Rusted Wings is definitely the highlight of the EP – complete with customary “woahs,” brilliant shredding solos, a divebomb or two and even a couple of punishing breakdowns. The lyrics feel uplifting and the musicianship is completely on point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKsyk3ZhFKw

Written by the band as a tribute for the fallen and unnamed soldiers of conflict past and present, Overture is, to be perfectly honest, a brilliant debut release from a band filled with talent and promise. I do feel, however, instead of releasing a three track EP they should have gone straight for a full length album. In spite of this, however, Overture is filled with excellent musicianship from each and every member of the band and carries influences from many branches of our beloved metal tree – Exenemy have released something they should be proud of. With plans to continue this theme in their debut album (scheduled for release Summer 2016) I’m intrigued to see what the next step for them is, and how they progress.

8/10