Well, after all the thousand and one straightforward power metal albums that have spun in my CD-player, I could not be but relieved to receive this piece of Dutch melodic thrash metal. From the first second, this mini-CD pounds with excellent riffing, intricate drumming and melodic interludes. It’s very clear that this band doesn’t just follow the masses but instead deliver a refreshing mixture of old school melodic thrash metal with progressive elements.

Fallen One starts with the heavy and up-tempo “In Sight Of The Seraphim”, which is relatively straightforward but nevertheless very enjoyable. You are immediately struck by the clean and high vocals of Raoul G. Pinxt. Sure, this is a matter of taste and it certainly has to grow on you, but the fact is that he adds an extra dimension to the album with his great vocal lines. The best songs of the album are arguably “Hopefully No Longer” and “Thy Thousand Names”. Especially the former manages to impress me with its very decent chorus and good lead breaks, while the latter contains some superb aggressive riffs.

My biggest problem with this independent release is the sound quality. Most of the riffs lose their edge because of the weak production and the keyboards unfortunately totally drown in the mix of noise. I can’t help but wonder how this album would sound with a professional production. The riffs have potential, the background keyboards are good, but don’t touch you because of the relatively poor sound quality. One other minor point of criticism concerns the songs’ structure; some of the songs are slightly too repetitive and could either use some extra bridges or should just be shortened. Especially the last and most melodic song, “Fallen One” suffers from this problem.

I can without a doubt say that Sectarian shows great promise and it’s very nice to hear such quality from a Dutch underground thrash metal band. I am looking forward to a full length release of this sextet. Now let’s hope they’ll manage to fix their sound quality problems!