Kania “Remorse” Ep Self - Financed

All of my reviews were done after I first took interest in buying or borrowing some cds and it never stroked me that I would, one day, get to know a band simply by receiving an email from them. According to Kania’s lead guitarist, Alex Warren, it was my comment on Opeth’s site that made him do that. Well, I don’t remember when or what did I wrote back then but I’m really glad to “be discovered” by this Australian outfit. Afterall, their sound may not be that original nowadays but it is undoubtedly of sheer quality as it tends to seize us by the neck and let us swirl all the way around.

Evoking their poisonous strength since September ’03 from Lithgow, a small town 150km West of Sydney, they soon evolved from a two piece outfit (guitarist Marty Warren and vocalist Dan Ellery), to a ravenous squad consisting of the above mentioned Alex Warren on lead guitars, Simon Holmes on rhythm guitars and Luke Case on bass guitars. Due to the difficulty in finding a drummer, founder Marty Warren had to sit behind the tool kit and shred the adrenaline into insanity. The group effort was soon fulfilled with the recording and release of the demo “Prophecy” in December ’03.

Gathering influences from the NWOSDM, they surely deserve, with just a demo and an Ep, the status of one of the most notorious unsigned newcomers this year has brought. It isn’t that they bluntly remind us of some of the major bands (In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork…) enticing the world with the aforementioned musical style (even the vocalist hideously screams through the entire Ep to delivers us, on the final song, Eclipse, a segment of a more crystalline voice)! They are more than a mere copy of those bands!

Kania seem very confident to pierce through waves of crushing rhythms and deflower melodic tunes that guide us into frenzy showing us what a world of passionate cruelty one lives in. Afterall, it is very difficult to dismiss their creational capacity…

I recommend this one to all that are into something new, fresh and with a lot of capacity to evolve because Kania, being a very young and a very qualified band, just give us the feeling that they can do a lot more if given the necessary opportunities. In spite of everything, what they have given us so far is excellency in itself!

“Remorse” was recorded at Velvet Studios from October 4th to 6th, then engineered & mixed by Adrian Grigorieff, being the mastering done at Reaktor Studios by Steve Wilson. Although the sound I heard was from some mp3s the band granted me so I could write this review, I can’t define the sound quality of the Ep. Nevertheless, those mp3s are very audible and provides us with a very rich and powerful sound.

Don’t forget to wander through their webpage (http://www.kania.com.au/) whenever you can for Kania is surely a name worth noticing! To forget may indeed be a sin…