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Xandria: Salome the seventh veil
19/07/07 || Euthanatos
I have quite good knowledge of gothic metal. As I have mentioned before, I jumped on the whole goth bandwagon early on, when it’s mix with doom in bands like Theater of Tragedy and My Dying Bride gave me goosebumps.
Like I’ve also mentioned before, a shitload of bands followed the trend, like they always do, until the style was completely ravaged, butt-raped and tiresome. Everything and anything became goth, even Evanescence.
Xandria is a German band, relatively new one that also rides the coat-tails of the style’s former greats. Their first album caught my attention, “Kill the Sun”, and I even got in touch with them through e-mail a few times, good people, nice album that showed promise. I wouldn’t call what these guys play gothic at all, not then, not now, but hey, let’s follow the market, right?
I didn’t really like “Ravenheart”, the second album, very much. The third one “India” I totally threw up in, what a waste of… whatever material cd’s are made of. A terrible attempt at “Symphonic Metal”. No, I don’t know what that is either. Important thing is, it sucks.
Finally we come to the fourth album, which we’ll call “Salome”, because I sure as hell am not typing “Salome the Seventh Veil” every god damn time. So, “Salome” figures somewhere between “Kill the Sun” and “Ravenheart”. It’s not a bad album, but like we often say here at GD, it’s something that has been done over, and over, and over again.
I like Lisa Middelhauve’s vocals. I think she’s talented, has some nice vocal lines, isn’t annoying. But Within Temptation, Tristania, After Forever, all these bands (which aren’t that good to start with) have the upper hand.
This album attempts to be a heavier effort, but it falls through, and is caught in some kind of almost-rock-not-quite-metal limbo. Surprisingly, the more mellow, piano-oriented “The Wind and the Ocean” is one of the few interesting things here.
I don’t know, in all honesty, I’m pretty sure you have something better to do than listen to this, even if you’re really into the female-fronted gothic metal scene.
The Cover: I’m seriously not even going to mention this. Please.
3 boring red-heads out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Drakkar Records
- Website: www.xandria-gbr.online.de
- Band
- Lisa Middelhauve: vocals, piano
- Marco Heubaum: guitars
- Philip Restemeier: guitars
- Nils Middelhauve: bass
- Gerit Lamm: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Save My Life
- 02. Vampire
- 03. Beware
- 04. Emotional Man
- 05. Salomé
- 06. Only For The Stars In Your Eyes
- 07. Firestorm
- 08. A New Age
- 09. The Wind And The Ocean
- 10. Sisters Of The Light
- 11. Sleeping Dogs Lie
- 12. On My Way
