Atargatis - Nova (2007) - Interesting elements but not straight or catchy - 71% (20/12/10)

Only one year after their first official disc, the band came up with a new record. Basically, nothing has changed: Stephanie Luzie sounds as good as on the last record, the topics about nature and environment are the key eleents of this record and the symphonical or folk instruments still sound more innovating than the weaker guitar parts. Only two things changed with this album: the sound and production is better than on the first record and you can clearly listen to the fresh vocals but the songs are not as catchy as the older ones. at lest, the sing along parts have been erased from this record.

There is another problem with the new album. After the introduction, the first two songs sound really weak and like ordinary Symphonic Metal without soul but later on, the album gets better and more diversified. "Riven" is the first song that is quite diversified, very well sung and where every single instrument is audible and easy to distinguish. Short and sweet songs like this one or the modern and yet atmospheric "When the ice breaks" add something new and straight to the band's universe and those ones are the highlights on this record. My favourite tracks are though the folk orientated, dreamy and insightful ballad "Green lake's ground" as well as the inspiring and tender "Stars are falling" with its great violin parts and catchy chorus.

Most of the songs have the problem that they have a very interesting introduction or beginning just to build an ordinary and cheesy average Symphonic Metal song upon it. The cover version of "Crucified" surprises with spoken word parts and adds something completely new to the band's sound but in the end the same lines are endlessly repeated and destroy the interesting flow. "The marching of the Fey" begins like a bombastic film score just to turn into another average goth pop song. "Firebird" begins with some nice bass guitar lines, a very dark sound and some harsh vocals before Stephanie Luzie begins with her part and all the heaviness and atmosphere falls down. That's why it is difficult to enjoy most of the songs on this record as a whole.

All in all, only the sound got better on this album while interesting musical elements are just small patterns and not profoundly developped. The band could have created something fresh and diversified but they didn't have the courage to do this. Let's hope that they will honour their creativity and imagination a little bit more on the following effort. From a personal point of view, I slightly prefer the first album but this one isn't a bad one, too.