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Sequester is the lone project of one Ryan Boc, hailing from Canada, that was begun in 2005. I'm used to one man black and Viking metal bands, most of which are rather shoddy, but a one man power metal band is almost unheard of. The Nameless One EP is Sequester's fourth release, with a back catalogue of one demo, a single and a full length, and I have to say that if the quality of its predecessors is as high as this one I'm going to have to hunt them down.
Sequester plays in a mainly progressive power metal style, drawing influences from many of the established bands in the genre, such as Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Savage Circus and, to my ears, a good helping of Pyramaze. However, the great thing is that Sequester's sound is actually quite unique. Boc's voice falls short of the typical high-pitched power metal voice, having more akin to the rougher tones of singers such as Piet Sielck of Iron Savior, Matt Barlow of Iced Earth and Andreas Babuschkin of Paragon. Sometimes its a little rough around the edges but this will only improve with time.
The lyrics of Paragon generally deal with fantasy themes, drawn from Boc's open love of fantasy literature and video games. However, the lyrics could not be described as cheesy in the list. This isn't Manowar style 'raise your swords and slay the dragon' lyrics but deep and thought provoking lyrics inspired by the subject matter. The lyrics to the ten minute epic, Nameless One, for example, is according to Boc inspired by the video game Planescape Torment, but the lyrics deal with such themes as the nature of man and what defines his character*.
The EP takes a surprising twist on track three, Three Ravens, a song based upon an old English folk ballad. The music on this song has more in common with Faroese folk metal band Týr but is not a carbon copy of that band's unique style. I take my hat off to Boc for showing his versatility with this song, however, I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of this sort of sound so this is the worst song on the EP for me, I must stress that this is down to my own taste rather than a reflection on the quality of the song which is still very good.
This EP actually stunned me when I put it on. The sheer quality of the songs, lyrics and production are just astounding and I highly recommend this to everyone with even a slight interest in progressive power metal.
*www.rockstarweekly.com/content/view/1313/211/
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