Sparta's follow-up to the Austere EP starts off with guitars that are like Ocean Colour Scene... then in crashes the rest of the band, and the vocals, and it's definitely not OCS!

Sparta are another of the post-nu-metal (new nu-metal maybe?) Nickleback-esque-type bands, but unlike some of the soundalikes out there they are good. Really good. They deserve to get somewhere other than just the Kerrang! channel. The fast songs are heavy without being screamingly overpowering (example: Sans Cosm), the softer tracks such as Air are interesting without being ballads, slightly heavier than say Outcast.

So Sparta aren't original, but they are a lot better than some of the metal bands rattling around out there at the moment, whatever their prefix. Well worth a spin.

Updated: 09:47 Thursday, August 22, 2002