If you're anything at all like me, you've often wondered what it would sound like if Linkin Park were forced to drop their DJ, and instead pick up a violinist. Of course, if you were like me, you'd also be embittered, cynical, and have several convictions for attempting to feel up a shopping centre Santa Claus. Nevertheless, even if you haven't thought about it, it's an intriguing idea, isn't it?

Proto might not sound exactly like what I envision would happen if you mixed those two things together, but they're still pretty close. With a vocalist that sounds alarmingly similar to the one from Linkin Park, an instrumentation section similar to Tool, and of course a violin thrown into the mix at random intervals, Proto serve up an fascinating concept on their debut EP.

The first track, Monkey, kicks off with a single violin frantically bowing along, before a dark and menacing bassline kicks in and the vocals enter. The next full song-length piece, Backwards Waltz relegates the violin to providing background in the verse sections, but features some nicely constructed guitar lines that fill things out nicely. The final traditional song, Breathe This Day open with some rather generic palm-muted guitar parts, but again develops into a nice enough, if a bit unspectacular and overly lengthy, song.

In between these three tracks are three "filler" tracks, entitled The Obvious, Essence Of... and Clarity In..., which generally feature distant echoed drone, which are nice enough to provide an extended segue between tracks, but don't do much else. The titles possibly are intended to run together with the name of the final track, Breathing, to form "The obvious essence of clarity in breathing". I'm sure that's profound, or something.

The final track itself is the most interesting of the set, weighing in at twelve minutes long, and featuring a lot more developed string sections, and no vocals or harsh angry guitar sound. The melody is exactly right, and it stands very well as a stand-alone piece, and something that Proto should be proud of.

The rest of the EP is decent enough, if a little generic. If it weren't for the slightly gimmicky presence of the violin in the songs, they'd just sound like some generic A Perfect Circle ripoff, but some skilful and subtle arrangements mean that it comes off a lot better than it could have been. The lyrics are a bit too basic for my personal taste, such as "Vanishing and disappearing/Fading/Vanishing and disappearing/Falling" in Monkey, which really sounds like it belongs in the repertoire of some high school metal band. Still, it's not an especially bad problem here, just something that the band needs to work on in the future.

On the strength of the first six tracks, I was going to give this EP a rating very close to being average, but the superb final track convinced me to give this album something a little above average. A little uneven, but still a very good debut from a promising band.

If you're anything at all like me, you've often wondered what it would sound like if Linkin Park were forced to drop their DJ, and instead pick up a violinist. Of course, if you were like me, you'd also be embittered, cynical, and have several convictions for attempting to feel up a shopping centre Santa Claus. Nevertheless, even if you haven't thought about it, it's an intriguing idea, isn't it?

Proto might not sound exactly like what I envision would happen if you mixed those two things together, but they're still pretty close. With a vocalist that sounds alarmingly similar to the one from Linkin Park, an instrumentation section similar to Tool, and of course a violin thrown into the mix at random intervals, Proto serve up an fascinating concept on their debut EP.

The first track, Monkey, kicks off with a single violin frantically bowing along, before a dark and menacing bassline kicks in and the vocals enter. The next full song-length piece, Backwards Waltz relegates the violin to providing background in the verse sections, but features some nicely constructed guitar lines that fill things out nicely. The final traditional song, Breathe This Day open with some rather generic palm-muted guitar parts, but again develops into a nice enough, if a bit unspectacular and overly lengthy, song.

In between these three tracks are three "filler" tracks, entitled The Obvious, Essence Of... and Clarity In..., which generally feature distant echoed drone, which are nice enough to provide an extended segue between tracks, but don't do much else. The titles possibly are intended to run together with the name of the final track, Breathing, to form "The obvious essence of clarity in breathing". I'm sure that's profound, or something.

The final track itself is the most interesting of the set, weighing in at twelve minutes long, and featuring a lot more developed string sections, and no vocals or harsh angry guitar sound. The melody is exactly right, and it stands very well as a stand-alone piece, and something that Proto should be proud of.

The rest of the EP is decent enough, if a little generic. If it weren't for the slightly gimmicky presence of the violin in the songs, they'd just sound like some generic A Perfect Circle ripoff, but some skilful and subtle arrangements mean that it comes off a lot better than it could have been. The lyrics are a bit too basic for my personal taste, such as "Vanishing and disappearing/Fading/Vanishing and disappearing/Falling" in Monkey, which really sounds like it belongs in the repertoire of some high school metal band. Still, it's not an especially bad problem here, just something that the band needs to work on in the future.

On the strength of the first six tracks, I was going to give this EP a rating very close to being average, but the superb final track convinced me to give this album something a little above average. A little uneven, but still a very good debut from a promising band.