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"New Tunisian metal band, Persona gratifies us with a luminous and impressively mature first album."
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5/5
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A musical wind is blowing from Tunisia in this year 2016. After Nawather and his promising "Wasted Years", after Myrath and his excellent "Legacy", here is the first album of a newcomer on the North African metal scene. Persona was born from the union of the Serbian-born singer Jelena Dobric and the Tunisian solo guitarist Melik Melek Khelifa. Formed in 2012, the duo quickly became a sextet by recruiting a rhythm guitarist, a drummer, a keyboard and a bass player. Four boys and two girls united around a common passion: music.
And it is indeed passion and an unfailing will that gave birth to "Elusive Reflections" because the path to give birth to this first opus proved to be full of pitfalls due to the lack of accessible recording infrastructures. The album was conceived at home, in a bedroom. In order not to disturb the neighbors, the voices were recorded under a parasol covered with sheets to attenuate the reverberation of the walls. The tracks were then sent to the Slab Sound studio in Lorient who mixed them. And the result is magnificent because beyond the anecdote, these conditions of artisanal creation have definitely welded the group whose cohesion is significant on all tracks.
If it does not deny its origins, Persona is above all a true metal band, sometimes symphonic, often alternative and always melodic, closer to Lacuna Coil or even Metallica than Nightwish. The oriental atmospheres are present but distilled judiciously and sparingly. The short, efficient and unstoppable tracks follow one another without any dead time and the catchy refrains take us by the hand to never let go. Impossible to resist the sublime voice of Jelena Dobric who, on each track, challenges us not to fall in love and bewitches us with her introspective lyrics. The musicians are impressive in their mastery, especially Melik Khelifa who enchains the devastating solos, without bluster but with luminous shred shots. Alternating shadow ('Forgotten') and light ('Blinded'), heavy ('Ageless', 'Persona') or thrash rhythms ('Monsters' and its surprising growls) and ballads ('The Sea Of Fallen Stars'), the album is a lesson in coherence, even in the order of the tracks, whose random reading can only weaken the range.
The impressive maturity of this first album can only impose respect. If the discovery of a new band is always moving, in this case the emotion quickly turns into exultation. Persona has so many assets, richness, class and musical ambition that it deserves from us a benevolent proselytism, while waiting for an international recognition which would be only justice. - Official website
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TRACK LISTING:
01. Somebody Else 02. Blinded 03. Forgotten 04. Halley 05. Ageless 06. Torn 07. Monsters 08. He Kills Me More 09. Persona 10. The Sea Of Fallen Stars
LINEUP:
Jelena Dobric: Chant Melik Melek Khelifa: Guitares Nesrine Mahbouli: Basse Walid Bessadok: Claviers Yosri Ouada: Guitares Youssef Aouadi: Batterie
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