Shiori Vitus – Eleanor

Interview by Alessandra Cognetta

Here we are for another feature from overseas in our series of interviews with female-fronted Japanese bands. This time we move from Tokyo to the south of the country, specifically Osaka. Shiori is the lead singer of Eleanor, a gothic/melancholic metal band that will surely remind you of the Dutch act The Gathering. But there’s much more than that in their music and we had Shiori as our guide to get to know more about Eleanor and their latest release, “Breathe Life Into The Essence”, with in-depth analysis of the songs, the emotions the cultural influences and the people behind the music. You only have to scroll down and read!

Hello. I’m the singer of Eleanor, Shiori. Thank you for the opportunity, and I would like to express my feelings of honor at being interviewed. As for the new album, we have been introduced by magazine reviews, radio programs etc., and through various sources of media we have been receiving favorable receptions from not only our fans, but also listeners who have never heard of us before, and I feel very happy about this. It could be due to the fact that before the release we posted free test plays from the album, and made the PV accessible, so that as many people as possible would have the chance to know a little bit about us.

The making of the second album began from the act of first putting a stop to the currentof our activities, and taking a second look into ourselves. The songs on the second album I think have increased in scale, compared to before. We do call ourselves a melancholic gothic metal band, but many songs take a widely altered course from what would be expected from the gothic metal genre. If we had not stopped the flow after the release of the first, we most possibly might have ended up making an album on the same track as before. Continue reading »

Circle of Moebius – “Elegy for a Broken Life” EP (2012)

Independent Release

Review by Tony Cannella

From Italy, Circle of Moebius was founded in 2003 by Paolo “P2K” Salvati. In addition to Paolo the band utilizes a wide array of musicians including two exceptional female singers Laura Prosperi and Eleonora Serafini. On their debut EP “Elegy for a Broken Life”, Circle of Moebius offers up some conceptual progressive metal with some interesting lyrical content and cool guitar work courtesy of Paolo.

On “Elegy for a Broken Life”, Circle of Moebius offers 7-songs 31-minutes of conceptual metal à la Queensryche. Also counted among their influences are Pink Floyd and Queen. You can definitely hear the Pink Floyd influence on “(Act 4) My Own Prison”, but I’m jumping ahead. The songs are well written and the two female vocalists are quite good and they definitely work well together. They give the album something special, and they each bring their own style. After the opening intro “(Act 1) 08:29 p.m.” the heavy riff on “(Act 2) Falling in the Dark” kicks in drives this energetic, kick ass song. “Kingdom Comes”, the aforementioned “My Own Prison” and “Silent Dogma” are three other highlights. Continue reading »

Video: New AMBERIAN DAWN Singer Covers SKID ROW’s “18 And Life”

Video footage of new AMBERIAN DAWN singer, 40-year-old Päivi “Capri” Virkkunen, performing a cover version of SKID ROW’s “18 And Life” this past December 31 at Jack The Rooster in Tampere, Finland can be seen below.

AMBERIAN DAWN‘s new lineup is re-recording the “best” songs from its first four albums — “Circus Black” (2012), “End Of Eden” (2010), “The Clouds Of Northland Thunder” (2009) and “River Of Tuoni” (2008) — for a compilation album, to be released in 2013.

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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: Letizia Chiozzi – Synful Ira

Interview by Ary R

Young and talented, the Italian band Synful Ira is proud and ready to introduce itself to the European metalheads with their first full length album, “Between Hope and Fear”. After having signed a deal with the label logic(il)logic Records, this sturdy young sextet is ready to enter the International music biz, spreading their own symphonic-gothic metal sound. For the occasion, the lead singer Letizia addressed herself to our crew and she talked about the creation of the project and much more about the band and the record itself.

Thank you! It’s really nice to answer your questions and to introduce myself to all the readers!

I would like to introduce you all the members of Synful Ira:

Bass – my brother Emanuele Chiozzi

Guitar – Laura Balducci

Drums- Marco Renzi

Keyboards- Filippo Mantignano

Guitar- Fabio Balducci, project leader.

After several years playing “covers” we finally made something by ourselves. Fabio put into music the main phases of his life, his emotions, feelings, memories and he created the main character of our album “Between Hope and Fear” by taking out all the emotions people experience during their lives.

At the beginning Laura proposed to form a Nightwish and Lacuna Coil cover band and meanwhile Fabio was trying to form an Evanescence cover band; when they told each other about their same ideas to form a gothic-metal cover band, they decided to combine them. This was the germinal try to set their dreams up.

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