Bella Italia! Home of many great metal bands such as Eldritch, Rhapsody Of Fire and Elvenking. As many bands before them, Lahmia was founded in Italy. With Rome as their base of operations, the Italians began to take up their instruments as a band in 2001. With the joining of guitarist Flavio Gianello, the band changed its musical direction from thrash/goth to melodic death metal. Eventually, their first mini-CD Forget Every Sunrise saw the light of day in June 2008.

Although the band is still without a record label, the way they arranged the artwork, production and distribution of their mini-CD is most impressive. The artwork is nothing less from stunning. The design has seen a lot of hours being put into it, but the result fits the band’s style perfectly.

That being said, the music is quite entertaining, as well. ‘Nightfall’  reminds a bit of Dark Tranquillity and has a nice sense of melody and speed to it. In general, the songs stick to a pace that is just above average speed. Not too fast, not too slow, which delivers a good, up-tempo feeling.

Music-wise, the band has a lot of good qualities. The guitars sound rock hard and melodic, the drums sound lively (especially the ‘wild’ cymbal work plays its part) and the vocals are brutal, with a few clean parts for diversity’s sake. All in all, the band sounds like it drew a lot of their influences from old school melo-death records. This is where In Flames – and again – Dark Tranquillity come to mind.

Although the revival of old-school sounds are great, a promising band like Lahmia would have made a more lasting impression by adding some distinct sounds from the band’s creative pool. Although of good quality, it’s ‘only’ melo-death after all. The fact that this mini-album contains only five tracks doesn’t help, either. I am anxiously awaiting a full-length release.