That the Netherlands have some well hidden musical talented bands proves Sun Caged with their second record, Artemisia. Their debut was already well received, but this time they deserve to get into the bigger picture. Their progressive metal grabbed me completely and there’s a fairly big chance it will also get to you.  

 

When you hear the first track of this record Evergrey immediately pops into your head. The band plays the same sort of progressive metal and when the keyboard comes around it almost gets frightening. Then, an Opeth drum part with some whispering Åkerfeldt-like vocals passes by. Wow, it really sounds amazing and impressive, but what a big similarity with those two fantastic bands.

 

We get to hear exciting and very interesting rhythms and riffs and you can literally drown in the dreamy solos. These are often combined with twirling keyboards, which fits with each other very well. Also production wise they link up seamless. The entire production has a reasonably homemade sound and feel which gives the music a rawer sound, which isn’t a negative point between all those overproduced records these days. The only real problem I had with this record were the clean vocals of Paul Adrian Villarreal; in a song like ‘Unborn’ a real awesome headbanging polyrhythmic riff opens spectacularly but quickly cools down with slow dragging vocals. A grunt once in a while wouldn’t have been inappropriate, but on the other hand it would even more stimulate the feeling of an Opeth clone.   

 

Although this record reminds more than just a few occasional times of big progressive metal bands such as Evergrey and Opeth, the music just breathes sincerity and it sounds absolutely fantastic. That’s why I won’t let the unoriginality weigh too heavy and simply give it the score it deserves, because trust me, this one will stay in your CD player for a long time!