Its been two years since the release of Dilutral's interesting debut "Everything; Nothing.", and following up that offering looked to be quite a tough task when considering that the band showed a lot of potential that went unrealized upon it. Taking their time seems to have paid off however as they've now returned with "Phi", a dynamic blend of melodic modern metal crossed with traces of prog rock and hardcore that draws similarities to bands like Tool and Linkin Park, yet avoids following in their footsteps by favoring restrained aggression and disjointed song structuring.

Led by emphatic vocals that belt out their wounded passages with a number of clever melodic embellishments, the band could easily have tailored their sound to the current nu-metal trend and made themselves a mint, but this is not the case as they have instead chosen a seemingly different path. This path that they have chosen is paved by a sense of uneasiness and dense instrumental interaction, complete with a knotted complexity that puts them up a peg above their peers and allows them to remain deceivingly catchy while still coming off as intelligent and edgy.

It is a delicate balance for the band to maintain and while they do occasionally waver into both sides of spectrum the songs still remain simple in theory and will no doubt appeal to many fans of melodic metal with a modern twist. "Phi" is without question a more well rounded offering and a solid step forward in the right direction for the band as it finds them becoming more accessible without sacrificing much of their initial integrity. The song writing formula could benefit from a tad more diversity overall but this is also only an EP and its often hard to get a good idea of a bands full range and scope from a limited number of tracks. Regardless of their shortcomings Dilutral are well upon their way to hashing out a sound that will likely bring them success, because as it stands with "Phi" and its more user friendly nature, the last thing this band are doing is speaking Greek.