Ephrat are a new progressive rock band from Israel on the Inside Out label. They are led by Omer Ephrat whom plays guitar, keyboards and flute. The other band members are Lior Seeker (vocals), Gili Rosenberg (bass) and Tomer Z (drums). There are two guest vocalists featured on the CD; Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation) sings on 5th track and Petronella Nettermalm (Paatos) on the 2nd track. Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) mixed the album and he did a very good job because the CD sounds great. No One's Words contains six songs ranging in length from five minutes to nineteen minutes long.
Ephrat's style is a heavy guitar based progressive rock, and the CD cover helps illustrate their style of music. There is a letter on steel grate; on the letter are two stamps on one of a snowflake and one of a human skull. The steel grate representing hard rock music, the snow flake a touch of softness and the skull a bit of metal which are all in proportion. Omer plays some very catchy grooves making the CD a very enjoyable listen. His guitar sound is thick and distorted, but a couple notches down from being a heavy metal guitar sound. When he does play some of the heavier parts it does not last that long and they are usually follow by softer acoustic parts. The songs do contain many changes in them and they flow together well. All the vocals are clean with only a bit of effects added to some parts. The rhythm section is very tight and they play to the song strengths never over doing it. Petronella's vocals on "Haze" add a very nice contrast to the heavier guitar riffs in the song.
After listening to the CD many times I could not think of anything that I did not like about it. All the songs are melodic and with enough changes to keep it interesting. Ephrat is a band I could see getting very popular, as they have a style that will appeal to a wide range of music fans. They do not get too heavy or too complex, but have a very rich and full sound that sounds great cranked on the stereo. I would recommend this CD to fans of interesting progressive hard rock or bands such as Three, Porcupine Tree and Visual Cliff.
Track List
1. The Show
2. Haze
3. Better Than Anything
4. Blocked
5. The Sum of Damage Done
6. Real
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