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Zabrahana — Whales Dream in Purple
(Bandcamp no#, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-01-02

Whales Dream in Purple Cover art

This four song EP is the debut release by Zabrahana, a four-piece band from Thessaloniki, Greece, following the debut single “Water” (which is the opening cut here). Their stock in trade is a progressive rock / metal sound that follows a style similar to Tool, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Pain of Salvation and other similarly inclined artists, the chief difference is that Zabrahana has a powerful dedicated female lead singer leading the band forward. The band also features a drummer, a guitarist, and a bassist who doubles on occasional keyboards, mostly of the atmospheric variety. One may be asking “do these players have names?” – and the response I got when I asked was that they don’t want to disclose the members of the band as individuals, they like to think of themselves as a unit, and that their motto is “embrace the enigma” – so at least for now I will just refer to the members not by name but by the instruments they perform on. “Water” creeps in slowly for about twenty seconds before it bursts into a flaming ball of electrified energy, the singer trades off with the instrumentalists as the song proceeds down a nonstandard path, her voice perhaps reminiscent of the singer in the band Tale Cue, she can be aggressive and graceful all within seconds of one another. “Snakes” proceeds similarly, though the songwriting is a bit more standard, while the arrangements are fairly wild, especially the keyboard / electronic sounds near the songs ending, while the third song “Perfect” is built over an interesting drum groove with powerful vocals kicking in a couple minutes in. Incidentally, the band may  be from Greece, but their lyrics are all in English. The closing track is “Whales” and like all great closers it comes out with all guns blazing, but settles down giving the singer some alternating spaces for expression, intertwined with some brilliant background soloing. It will be interesting to see what Zabrahana comes up with in the future, but this seems to be a band that’s going somewhere. The band has also recorded a live video of all four cuts in the same order titled Whales Sing In Purple, the audio is available on their bandcamp page, the video is at the YouTube link below. Worth a watching.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Zabrahana

More info
http://zabrahana.bandcamp.com/album/whales-dream-in-purple
http://youtu.be/BqnKC6far38

 

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