Here we present to you one band that is not coming from Serbia but we consider them part of our scene anyway; Heaven Rain hails from city of Banja Luka and if I would go deeper into the political situation and reasons for my statement I would bore foreign readers to death so just take it as it is, hehe. The band threads Progressive / Power waters with slight symphonic leanings (mostly in keayboards’ work) and after their debut "Far and forever" which was unleashed back in 2008 they are back again with their self released EP "Evolution" made for promotional purposes. It should be said that you can find the whole thing for free on their myspace page so go and visit it after the reading of my review to see if I am full of shit or my scribble is godly as usual. Everyone should notice one very important change in the band and those are new people: guitar player Igor and female singer Miona (metalheads to the bone, as press release states) which have pumped the new blood and left their mark on the music without a doubt. „Evolution” enlists 3 songs, two new ones „Dreamless” and „My only one” and one cover entitled „Galebovi”, originally performed by famous Yugoslavian pop rock band Bolero (I wouldn’t use the word „cult” for describing them like the band did as that word in my dictionary is reserved for obtaining some hot UG band endorsed by Fenriz) so let us see what do we got here... I must say here before I forget (I am slowly getting senile these days, must admit that) that Heaven Rain have bettered the production work of their music; „Evolution” was mixed in Chainroom studio (one of the best for this music in Serbia) and the final result is the best sound in HR’s career, it is noticeably clearer and much heavier than their debut album, and we as metalheads are aware that heavier is always better so we will mark plusses there. So far they are going good but let’s cut to the chase and the most important thing – music. So Heaven Rain have stayed on their already beaten path so I will try do analyze it a little bit. Prog comes from band members’ undeniable skills (some of them are even students of Academy of Arts where the founders met – ain’t that so Dream Theater?), and drummer Laki’s T-shirt collection so they are fully capable to put into the music some interesting passages which does not interfere with overall flow of the song which is in base Power Metal, mostly of Finnish origin so fans of bands like Sonata Arctica, Nightwish, Thunderstone or Leverage will find this material very interesting, I guess. Those bands doesn’t shy away from big hits so it is the case with Heaven Rain and that fact leads them even to some AOR waters, you know those large catchy songs which come to your mind so easily which is not the minus at all, if you ask me. „Dreamless” and „My only one” are good written and interesting songs, the first one being my favourite and very good representative of their style as it carries most of their characteristics I was talking about, and „Galebovi” sounds fine to me, considering I don’t know the original (maybe it is for the better...). One more thing that bothered me in the past about this band stayed almost the same: you see, I didn’t like their previous singer as he sounded bored to me, like he was forced into the studio, and sang very nasally and Miona has similar delivery. She does sound a bit better than her predecessor but in this kind of music I prefer more passionate vocals as lion’s share of this kind of playing lies in the vocal lines (you know those fuckers that make your nipples hard, force you to behave like an idiot in your room and make you wanna go to some gig to shout the lyrics until you sound like a cow with sore throat); luckily she doesn't use that Tarja-influenced symphonic approach that even Tuomas himself couldn't stand anymore but I would like to see more improvement in that field. But after all, songs are good and interesting enough to make this EP more interesting than full length for me so don’t be cheap bastards – go to their myspace and check out this cool band, that’s the least you can do.