There are some YouTube videos  but they fail to capture much of what the CD has to offer. The MySpace may be the best bet for listening to the sound that is produced, and it is a diversified sound. That especially relates to the vocals provided by the multitalented front woman Mel Bulian. If this is the way the average Aussie lady communicates, remind me not to get one upset. She can whisper, she can croon, she can sing in a relatively lovely standard vocal . . and she can scream like a banshee. . . oh, and her death vocal stuff is solid as well. I think that covers everything but the opera. . which is not to be found here. The rest of the band, a six person mix, utilizes the standard fare of a keyboardist/programmer, a couple guitar players, a base player (another female here, they seem to be cropping up these days) and the drummer. The hail from the south of Australia, Adelaide to be precise. Didn’t know there was a lot of Gothic down under, but this is only Gothic in the broadest sense, again, labels don’t seem to work with this production.

Art in Exile also seems to know something about art, the visual kind, that is. Some really good stuff on the jacket of this CD as well as their previous EP and on their website. And, it seems to capture the flavor of the music, which goes in more directions than a David Lynch film and almost as fast. There’s a lot of dark, sad musical tone to the sound in general. A painfully haunting tone that serves to direct the music. But, in a heartbeat, Bulian can go to a raging psycho screaming her anger to the heavens, rather like a certain Ukrainian blond I was once married to. And, from there, the band can switch to an industrial sound that mimics some of the East German material I mentioned above. They really cover some ground, both vocally and instrumentally, especially the keyboards which provide a lot of the framework for the music.

The CD begins with The Will to Destroy, appropriately enough. And that beginning really leads you astray with a soothing keyboard line intertwined with a low key guitar. . . that leads to the death metal vocals that let you know immediately that this is going to be a long, strange trip into the Australian wasteland. Bulian really does sound like Cadaveria from Opera IX when she does her death metal growling and I’m a big fan of that Opera IX sound. Now this music may not have that same theme, the pagan witchcraft thing, but it does have the sound. Doesn’t take much imagination to see a dark pagan phantasia at the mike, screaming to the heavens. But, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on your personal preferences, Bulian presents a far more conservative image. So, we get a conservative looking vocalist doing things with her voice that you can only conjure up in your wildest imagination.

Bulian doesn’t always do the screaming death metal thing, however. The second track, Signs of Anti Life, covers everything from almost beautiful to full tilt banshee to Norwegian dark death metal, all in one song. It’s a full Monte of styles for this type of music, without the opera, of course. And the transitions are seamless and happen in an instant. This one song sounds like there are at least 3 vocalists, with at least one of them being male. A really interesting tour of the human vocal capability.

Clearly, the big song on the CD is Magnetism. Again, we begin softly, a piano sound with soft guitars. They begin to climb and, as we hit the vocals, they’re warm and supportive. Bulian sings:

The next lines return to the more traditional, low key, female vocal style:

But even here, the final words begin to evolve into that scream from the dark side. And they build into the following lines which carry us to the underside of life:

The song doesn’t stick with this motif forever. There is a strong guitar passage towards the end, one that highlights the capabilities of the instrumental side of the band. But, the song does highlight much of what Art is all about, both vocally and instrumentally. And it’s clear why it is a favorite.

Resonance follows this pattern, with a heavier dose of the traditional, less drastic vocal. It also exhibits some of the more beautiful capabilities of the instrumentalists, especially the keyboards. The guitars are subdued, the drums less pronounced. There is the occasional foray into the dark regions, both grunted and screamed, but these are there for emphasis rather than as featured components, as they are on other tracks.

Sober Optic takes the band into an industrial direction. The keys lead this movement; the guitars come straight from East Germany. Vocals are again different, they work more in tune with the Eastern European sounds, there’s more harmony, in a distorted kind of way. Even when Bulian goes into distorted vocal, the distortion is less pronounced and actually seems more comforting than in other selections. Towards the end, however, we return for a short visit to Cadaveria land, haunted and disconcerting. Later in the song, the movement back and forth from the lovely to the grunting moves from one word to the next, rather than from one verse to the next. This movement is followed by a lovely instrumental selection that features that industrial keyboard sound supporting an almost acoustical guitar. The song concludes with that soft, industrial vocal that lures you into a trance like feeling, one of the few times you walk away feeling at ease with a track.

I wouldn’t say that Art in Exile has a completely different kind of style. There are other bands who utilize a roughly similar approach to their music. However, not many of them are female fronted, and none of them utilize the broad range of styles presented here. Most of the variety is, of course, in the vocals. And that is a pronounced level of variety. However, the instrumental supports this vocal style and results in one of the most diverse musical offerings I have heard in a long time. You won’t get bored with this one.

8.5 / 10