Gothic Metal

  • Trail Of Tears – Blood Stained Endurance (2009)

    cover

    Ronny Thorsen comes back with his band Trail Of Tears featuring a completely re-vamped lineup and brings us “Blood Stained Endurance”. After the whole band walked out on Ronny before the promotion of “Existentia” and rumors that the band split up, the band came back stronger than ever in the second half of 2007. Fast forward time to 2009 and we have the first recording of that lineup as a band.

  • Magica – Wolves & Witches (2009)

    cover

    Magica is a Romanian band that has been around since 2002. With 4 releases under their belt, their latest album “Wolves & Witches” provides us with some mature and fresh sounding Gothic Metal. While this genre is full of good bands and great releases, it’s difficult to find albums (and bands) that stand out from the rest. However “Wolves & Witches” is one of them.

  • Gate Of Sorrow – Enter Through The Gate (2009)

    cover

    There are only a handful of releases that I truly enjoy every month, and “Enter Through The Gate” is one of them. This Czech band play a great Gothic /Death / Doom Metal, and their album has an impressive quality, musically and production wise. This album features nine powerful tracks that will blow the fans of the genre away.

    Behind the luscious keyboards and amazing female vocals, there is a very well defined drum line and distorted guitars that make this release great from beginning to end. After several releases under a different name (Gate) and from what I can read on their site, different musical style changes, they have released one of my favorite albums of this year.

  • Leaves’ Eyes – We Came With The Northern Winds / En Saga I Belgia (2009)

    cover

    This double CD live album from the German and Leaves’ Eyes will be a nice addition for all die hard fans of the band, as well as people starting to get into the band’s music. It provides a great variety of songs from all of their previous releases. The audio was taken from their performance at the Metal Female Voices Fest in 2007. And while the production was delayed, it was well worth the wait.

    Leaves’ Eyes is pretty much Atrocity + Liv Kristine, but their music is a Nordic inspired Gothic Metal, that is mainly characterized by Liv’s beautiful voice. But this does not mean the music is not good, since the band members have been creating excellent music in Atrocity for years. And Atrocity is known to experiment within the realms of metal and beyond.

  • Delain – April Rain (Single) (2009)

    cover

    I’ve been waiting for 3 years for a new release from Delain, and this single came before the full album of the same title.  The single features two versions of the April Rain song, one for radio and the full album version. The radio version is shorter and sounds a bit different than the album version.

    While “April Rain” is a very gothic rock oriented song, I think it’s designed to break Dealain into a more mainstream market. While the song is not bad, I was expecting more from Delain.

  • Tarja – Enough (2009)

    cover

    While Tarja is no doubt one of the best singers in Metal, after her time with Nighwish was over, she should have retired or found a band to sing in. Her post-nightwish full length album “My Winter Storm” was pretty dispointing and dull. She had at hand composers and songwriters to aid her in the release, but these things did not help, and the album sucked.

    This single is not far from that release. The songs are pretty dull and while her voice sounds great as always, it does not fit the music at all. It seems like a karaoke attempt. Two songs are contained in this single and they are more than enough to make me stop listening to it, and dig up my old Nightwish cd’s to remember how her voice sounds with good music.

  • Lacuna Coil – Spellbound (2009)

    cover

    This single was released as a digital download from iTunes, and after their previously disappointing, but highly successful (commercially) “Karmacode” album, I was hesitant about giving this a spin. I was very supprised to listen that this song is better than anything on “Karmacode” by far.

    The music has the unique sound that Lacuna Coil achieves with help of Cristina’s vocals, and while it sounds more gothic rock oriented, it’s pretty good. The chorus is very catchy and the drumming in excellent, the guitars are a bit dull (compared to stuff from “In a Reverie” or even “Comalies”).

Pages

Recent Image Galleries