Another gothic metal female fronted band. This time from Germany. I already
hear some of you complaining about another newcomer to the gothic scene. Don't
go away though, because the band's debut effort is really worth listening to
and some of you might like it as much as I do. OK, I know that when it comes
to gothic female fronted bands, I might not be the most objective guy, but again
this time around all I can do is to bow. My teammate Chris sent me this promo
a couple of weeks ago telling me I might enjoy this stuff. Do I have to tell
you I had never heard of Xandria before ? In fact I bet 99
% of you haven't heard of them before, have you ? So I played this stuff...
again and again and again. Yeah this thing has been in my CD player or my computer
(it all depends what I am doing) since then and let me tell you I am not going
to take it out soon. I will try however to be most objective.
The opening track Kill The Sun says it all. Just like a good bottle of
wine, Xandria's romantic metal is of the best vintage. I know
that if I tell you that Lisa's voice is of the sweetest and most beautiful female
voice I have ever heard you are going to say that I have said it many times
before, but she indeed has one of the sweetest and most beautiful female voice
I have ever heard (at least my detractors will have something to complain about...
again.). Anyway, I know many of you reading my reviews share the same taste
as I do. At least when it comes to gothic metal. Of course not everything in
perfect such as on the Evanescence album (I know I should have
waited a bit more before publishing my Evanescence reviews... time makes you become a bit
wiser, doesn't it ?). After a trio of great tunes Kill The Sun, Mermaids
and Ginger, the band gets a bit out of breath on the next couple of
songs She's Nirvana and Forever Yours, although they are
more than decent songs and not fillers at all. Feel reassured, it was only to
get stronger on the next one Casablanca. The bands sounds a lot like
Theatre Of Tragedy's Velvet Darkness They Fear on
that one although they do not reach the intensity of songs such as Der Tanz
Der Schatten or And When He Falleth, but maybe is it just an attempt
to pay tribute to one of the forerunners ot the genre ? The band succeeds in keeping
the listener's attention until the end with the last four songs being quite diverse and
entertaining especially Isis/Osiris. Even though these guys
aren't the precursors of a new submetal genre and they will not revolutionize
the genre, they know what they're doing and they do it well. So much better
than most of the forerunners do it now.
On the whole, this is one of the finest hunks of heavy metal I have had the
joy of reviewing this year, but the year is not over now and I strongly believe
there's more to come. Hopefully it will be as good and refreshing as the music
delivered by this young talented band.
Why then did I only give it a 85 / 100 when I gave Evanescence and
the latest The Gathering a 95 / 100 ? Because I promised myself
to be a bit harder on my quotation system, otherwise I might not be able to
quote albums under a 100 / 100.