Versus Heaven – Behind The Perfect Mask

It is my opinion that some facts will be judged better by history than by the people who coexist with them at a certain time. The debut of Versus Heaven is one of them. The music that the Greek band manages to produce is something that will not be characterised as “renovative” as we’ve heard many bands in the past who managed to come up with a similar music “product”. However, music of this kind is impossible to become reality without a certain amount of talent, creativity and true faith in heavy metal.

During a first, brief hearing of “Behind The Perfect Mask”, the listener will recognize influences from bands such as Queensryche, Crimson Glory, Iced Earth or even Sanctuary and Nevermore but also some fragments of classic power metal. A jolly good combination isn’t it? Influences is a key word in the last sentence as it was almost impossible for me to find any song that had clear “copy-pasting” from other well known songs of this certain heavy metal genre. Versus Heaven manage to combine their originality and creativity with classic riffs that appeal even to the “truest of the true” fans of classic heavy metal and not only lovers of technique and proggressive metal in general.

In “Behind The Perfect Mask” we manage to find some songs that can be a guiding light for Versus Heaven’s future records such as “Betrayed”, “Art Without Pain” and “Heartless Kill Machine”. However, despite its many moments of sheer heavy metal creation, “Behind The Perfect Mask” has one, yet severe, weakness as V.H. fall into the trap of “trying too hard”. Many solos, unnecessary length in some of the songs and so on. The average listener may, unfortunately, be forced to fast forward some lengthy parts of this album.

On the whole, a strong debut which shows that Versus Heaven really mean business. If you are looking for something new in the Greek scene or in prog metal debuts, Versus Heaven is something that will surely gain your attention.