Ephrat have made a pretty big entry into the international music scene with their debut ‘No One’s Words’. Hailing from Israel, the band garnered plenty of attention by getting producer/musician extraordinaire Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) to do the mixing duties for the album. To top it all off, they got hold of Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation) to do vocals on one of the tracks, which makes you wonder what this guy is up to. He’s like the Rob Schneider of progressive music. And why hasn’t he started work on the next Pain of Salvation album? Is there ever going to be one, Dan? Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Omer Ephrat – guitarist, flutist, keyboardist and the sole composer of the quartet – is a fantastic song writer. He has this ability to make effective pop songs with a heavy modern progressive undertone. Unlike Steve Wilson’s other Israeli pet project Blackfield, the songs here are much more guitar heavy and crunchy in its execution. Much attention has been paid to mimic the trademark compositional techniques of classic bands like Rush, Yes, King Crimson and fuse it with the more contemporary formulas introduced by bands like Alice in Chains, Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree.

Vocalist Lior Seker has a very pleasant voice in a Neal Morse meets Doug Pinnick kind of way. He does a damn good job even with the added pressure of having Daniel Gildenlow on board and risking getting completely ‘pwned!!11’.

‘No One’s Words’ is a fantastic debut and it has definitely put Ephrat on the progressive music map, right up there with the big cats in the business.



Year - 2008
Label - Inside Out

http://www.myspace.com/omerephrat