CD Info
2010
Self Released
9 Tracks
Italian / English Lyrics

I was in a bit of a hurry to get this review in before the end of the year, even though I just got the CD a week ago and had at least 3 other reviews started. You see, I kinda like it, listed it immediately as one of my top 5 releases. . . in the WORLD this year, ahead of some truly great music. There’s been a lot of great stuff released this year, but really nothing I could honestly say I like more than this. The band is Spanish, from the Canary Islands, specifically Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. For the most part, they do a somewhat traditional brand of symphonic B & B, they just do it better than pretty much anyone else. And, they do some of it in a language other than English, which works for me.

The band’s name comes from the ruins of a Greek fortress at the Jerusalem coasts. An interesting choice of terms, given the truly dark nature of the music. But, that seems to be the nature of much of the Spanish Gothic music these days, and there is a lot of it out there to be enjoyed. According to the band, the two preceding EP releases saw the band go from dark to darker, to the present release, which combines those Gothic oriented lyrics with strong, melancholic melodies. And, they achieve that musical direction with a duel male, female vocal lead that is among the best I’ve heard this year or any year. The vocalists are Sonia Hernández who handles the soprano parts and Jorge Afonso who handles both keyboards and male vocals, mostly of the harsher variety, but not entirely. And, both are outstanding. There are the customary guitars and drums, and each has a part to play in this strong instrumental composition. But, the symphonics tend to drive the show, along with those strong vocals. I generally comment on the female vocals in this type of music, there generally isn’t all that much variation between male growlers assuming you appreciate that direction. But here, I have to comment that the male vocals are some of the best I have ever heard, and I very much like both the "clean" and harsh vocal approach to music that we get here. When combined with the soprano parts, they produce one of the best B & B, and traditional duet sounds you’re likely to come across, and that includes the Northern parts of the continent.

The music is probably the first thing we need to address here, lyrics are strong as well, and the delivery of those lyrics presents some interesting topics to explore, but, with this release, it’s the music that has to take top priority. You get a real range of sounds, both across the individual tracks and even within those tracks. Hernández has one of those voices that capture your attention immediately, but it does so with a variety of styles. She seems to have the ability to sing according to the dictates of the music, and, at times, you almost think there are multiple vocalists. We don’t get that overabundance of "overlaid" vocals we often get with this type of music, not sure why, she sure has the stuff to work with. But, there is still a lot to appreciate here. And, one of the first things I appreciate is a band that doesn’t do the entire work in English. Now, being from a Spanish speaking culture, you might expect that we’d get a Spanish lyric here for that "non-English" speaking component. But, and here’s a new one on me, we get a Spanish band singing in ITALIAN. The song is Angelo Nero, and we’ll get to those lyrics directly, but it’s the actual music that catches you first. The song begins with a subdued guitar, with the symphonic joining the music to present a haunting undercurrent. The first vocals are clean male vocals, really outstanding vocals, in Italian, as I may have mentioned. The female vocals join in shortly thereafter, extreme classical soprano here. The background continues to be driven by keyboards, both symphonic and piano sounding. If you like some of the Rhapsody stuff, you’ll like this, it’s similar but with the addition of a killer classical female vocal, all in Italian of course. You can almost see the classical Italian opera house as you’re listening. Of course, this is metal, and we do get a bit of that towards the end, but even this is keyboard driven, and here the male vocal goes to the growling sound, and Alfonso may be the best at this approach I have ever enjoyed, sorry Norwegians. Now, I have to be honest, my Italian isn’t all that great so I’m not certain what it all means, but, Italian is not the kind of language you have to understand to appreciate. Those lyrics, for those of you with a broader linguistic capability than my own appear as follows:

Sento la vita fuggire tra le mie dita
Per caso è arrivato il tramonto della mia esistenza?
Non voglio perdere ciò che ci unisce
Potrà il tempo ammazzare il nostro amore?

The music has its share of the beautiful. Butterfly Agony has to be one of the most beautiful songs I have had the pleasure to listen to this year. It pretty much has it all. The composition is outstanding, but, it may be the approach to the delivery that is even better, hard to make a call. Initially, the track begins with some almost electronic sounds that lead to those over the top symphonics that seem to drive so much of this work. The drums provide a bottom, and our initial vocal is the soprano. Again, this is pure beauty. The male vocals are harsh here, and again, I don’t know anyone who does harsh vocals with such a strong musical quality. There’s a little overlaying of the soprano vocal, but the interaction of the vocals, which includes a different approach to the instrumental for each vocal, is nothing short of perfect. Lyrically, we are NOT disappointed:

Memento mori! Life is a Mirage / You’ll be alive for agonize!
Don’t waste your time in suffering, / Death always follows your sign!
Life is fleeting and death is eternal / You fly over delirium
Existence is not only carnal / Find the light in your blindness.

Interestingly enough, the song, strong as it is throughout, provides an even stronger final minute or two. The beauty is pumped up by a stronger keyboard, and we get something of a choral component, with the vocalist providing a completely different sound that leads to the final female vocal, again, with a completely different sound. Classic.

I could pretty much go on about every song with the same level of compliment. There’s just not a bad note on this work, not one. But, it’s always nice to talk about something a little harder, and we get that with Swan’s Lament which begins softly, but here we get to hear a little of the band’s harder potential. A little more guitar, a harder keyboard, a little more metal flavor. Hernández’ vocal, while still lovely, is a little more metal in flavor on this one. It just seems to fit those throbbing guitars. And clearly, the band is no stranger to this form of metal; it’s about as good as it gets, but always with that classical undercurrent. The beauty is not lost on the lyric:

Now it's time to go, / My time in the earth is over
All dreams I had, now becomes smoke,
My hope is nowhere…
My last dance, / My last sigh,
All is lost… in this infinity madness,
I won’t suffer.

The final track, The Garden of Lies, provides possibly the most interesting sound. Again, hard to describe it since it moves in so many different directions. You get the hard stuff, with harsh vocals, you get the classical with the beautiful soprano. You get lyrics to take you to that final Gothic moment where the eternal brings clarity to our senses.

There is a way to the unknown / No matter what is said
Far away from here / At limits of your faith

Now face the fears of your heart

And you get a perfect completion to a musical moment that I will not soon forget. I have rarely listened to a work that presents so much of what I appreciate in this kind of music, and does so with such a degree of excellence. I suspect we may be hearing a lot more from the Canary Islands.

10 / 10

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