Sakara – “Blood and Stone” (2011)

Label : Ravenheart Records

Review by Luisa Mercier

“Blood & Stone” is the debut of the UK based singer/songwriter Sakara and features several styles. Not only metal, but also more experimental stuff with an electronic vibe.
After the first track, which is quite classic metal sound follows “Rise” which is more based on electronic. Sakara‘s vocals are also versatile: she swings from clean high-pitched vocals to harsh growls. The whole concept behind the record is quite spiritual, her name too was inspired by the ancient Egyptian burial place, Saqqara. “Join You” starts as gentle piano and voice ballad, slowly building into a crescendo that blows in a rock explosion in the end.
“By My Side” is slightly shorter than the prevous ones and quite catchy, it would make a nice single. Continue reading »

Lisa Hannigan – “Passengers” (2011)

Label: ATO/Hoop Recordings/PIAS

Review by Luisa Mercier

Sophomore album for Lisa Hannigan. After seven years spent beside Damien Rice (both in public and private life), the singer decided to start her own solo career and released “Sea Sew” which showed all her talent as songwriter and front-woman. She used to sing only the choirs in Rice‘s records, while here she is allowed to shine and her first musical effort was even canditated to a Mercury Prize.

The present record, “Passenger”, is the evidence of a finally reached musical adult age, a mature album that is strongly connected to the folk of her homeland (Ireland and UK tradition) mixing it with pop influences. Listen to the single “Knots”, for example. Her voice is sweet, soft like velvet and flies over the instruments, the violin in “What I’ll Do” is perfectly matched with her, while in the acoustic ballad “O Sleep” is paired with Ray La Montagne in an inspiring duet. Continue reading »

Elize Ryd – Amaranthe

Interview by Alessandra Cognetta

Many of you remember her from Kamelot, but Elize Ryd‘s career is so rich I don’t think I can fit it all in an introduction. A talented artist and a really sweet person, she agreed to answer some questions for us about her latest effort with the unique band Amaranthe (their second album “The Nexus” will be in stores by the end of March, check their website to see when it’s out in your country!). You’re going to read about music, dancing, Eurovision (?!), bizarre incidents on tour and, well, I’m not gonna spoil anything, see for yourselves, you’re in for a truly interesting interview!

Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure for me as well! It is going great, on Monday the band are gonna meet in Gothenburg and start to rehears of the new songs. You will see Amaranthe in full and healthy shape, we all have had some time of the scene so it will be extremely fun to gather again and start this what will be an extremely intense and exiting year

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INTERVIEW: Chiara Tricarico – Lust for Oblivion

Interview by Erwin van Dijk

An in-depth chat with Chiara, the soprano singer of the well-promising Italian Gothic Metal band Lust for Oblivion about their debut demo “Black Moon” and their musical future.

I’ve always loved music and my first experience with it was at the age of nine, when I started playing the piano, but I’ve always loved singing, too, since when I was a child, so, some years ago, I started taking opera singing lessons.

I listen to classical music, especially opera and piano compositions and also to metal music.

Bands like Dark Tranquillity, Moonspell, Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil, Tristania are my favorite, but I’ve surely forgotten some…obviously I adore Tarja Turunen!!!! My favorite classical musicians are W.A.Mozart, F.Chopin and K.Orff.

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INTERVIEW: Virginie Goncalves – Kells

Interview by Ary R.

They rocked Europe last year with Leaves’Eyes and Tarja Turunen, and with Epica and ReVamp the former year as well. Now they’re back on the music scene with the upcoming album, “Anachromie”, that will reveal some other music features of the French rock band Kells. Just read with us what the front-woman Virginie Goncalves told to us!

I’m fine, thanks! “Anachromie” has been out for a month now, and it seems that both the press and the fans have praised this record. We are very happy about that because somehow we had chosen to take artistic risks, not to repeat ourselves and to renew our image, and people liked it!

In this album, everything in the lyrics is written in a disjointed way, the space-time notion is broken, the reality mixes up with the dream, as in the surrealist genre… Globally, the lyrics are anachronistic. Also, I use many adjectives of color (ochre, silver, gold, amaranth, blue, white, black, saffron, amber, sapphire, sandy…), which gives the lyrics a very pictorial aspect. It is the mixture of these 2 concepts, the chromia and the anachronism, that gave birth to “Anachromie”. The cover artwork has been made by Blackthorns Design. We appreciated what he had made for other bands, this mixture of surrealism and modernity, that’s why we decided to work with him. The frontcover and the booklet are an illustration of the lyrics… the girl with her bridal veil, with all her dreams, the tortured childhood, the nightmares and the anachronism always there, with the hours of the clock, the tracklist in disorder … as in the surrealist universe, where nothing has any reasonable landmarks or points of reference.

We recorded this album in November 2011, more than a year ago already! We went to Mon Studio in Nancy, to work with Yann (MyPollux). We began with the recording of the drums, then the basses, the guitars, the strings, the choir, keyboards, electro music, to finally end up with the vocals, at the end of November. So it took almost one month, because we prefer taking time! Yann then attacked the mixing in December, and we eventually sent it all in New York to the Sterling Sound Studio for Ted Jensen to master it in february 2011.

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