Leah- Of Earth & Angels (2012)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Leah is the name of a new symphonic metal band with charming new world and Celtic folk. I would describe its music as a mixture of female fronted metal bands such as contemporary Delain as well as old Elis, Evanescence, and Xandria, mixed with more eclectic world music acts such as Enya or Loreena McKennitt for example.

The beautiful and talented band leader, Leah McHenry, wrote the songs independently over two years prior to the album’s release. She performs ethereal vocals and also plays the keyboards and piano. Three young men support her on bass guitar, lead guitar, and drums.

The debut, Of Earth & Angels, takes the listener on a colorful and relaxed trip to a mysterious past filled with passionate love tales, mystical legends, and some spiritual passages. From slightly Oriental tunes like the opener “Prisoner” (which sounds like Edenbridge), joyous Celtic rock anthems like “Old World”, (which could appeal to fans of Gwyllion), and on to more symphonic ballads like “Ex Cathedra”, this album develops a very enchanting atmosphere.

Some listeners might argue that the record doesn’t really have an outstanding anthem, that the guitar work isn’t very dominant, and that this album is not hard enough to be called a metal release. While I perfectly understand these points of view, I must admit that I find almost all songs very catchy and enchanting, so that the record doesn’t need a true hit single in my opinion. The guitar work is as laid back as the rest, and gives the wonderful orchestrations and the angelic vocals enough space to unfold in a perfect way. Some songs, such as the touching ballad “Ocean”, sound better to me than anything Enya has written over the last ten years, and include beautiful guitar solos as well. You just need to give this album some time, and you will discover how detailed and passionate every single song is despite its appeasing spirit. This isn’t the kind of record you can simply listen to while you’re on the bus, during a dinner with your best friends, or in between a Nightwish and a Krypteria album while you chat on your computer. Of Earth & Angels deserves to be fully and profoundly discovered. It will open up to you and make you dream far away. In times of more and more dramatic and almost megalomaniac orchestrations and high-pitched divas in exchangeable female-fronted symphonic metal bands, Leah’s natural sound really stands out and represents a truly intriguing alternative in my ears. It’s by far the best female-fronted album I have heard in years. I invite you to give this release a fair chance.

4.5 // 5

Éric Lapointe- Jour De Nuit (2013)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Éric Lapointe is the most famous rock performer in Quebec, and has been around since his surprising debut record, Obsession, almost twenty years ago, which made him very famous even though many radio stations refused to play his songs at first, due to his raw vocals. The mixture of sweating hard rock anthems, country songs, emotional ballads, and a couple of well chosen cover songs created a wide fan base around the charismatic performer who unites old country fans, housewives, and younger generations of my age or even younger. Despite his image as a bad boy due to his alcohol problems, this l’enfant terrible has become everybody’s darling over the years.

During recent years, his music has become somewhat predictable despite a few recent hits. Éric Lapointe tried to add something new to his back catalogue with two compilations entitled Ailleurs, composed of rare songs and collaborations with artists such as Quebec’s biggest pop icon Céline Dion, pop singer Isabelle Boulay, and the charismatic First Nations’ performer Florent Vollant. He performed with the critically acclaimed Montreal Symphony Orchestra and put out a live record with them. He also released a new album entitled Le Ciel De Mes Combats that had its moments, but didn’t get as much attention and success as his previous releases. The rebellious rocker had become rather mature, sophisticated, and even slightly boring in the eyes of many.

The new record, Jour De Nuit, was announced as a more authentic record with a rawer and more hard rock-oriented edge that would go back to the roots. I was eager to discover this harder side of the singer that I had always preferred in songs like “Priez!”. In the end, Éric Lapointe didn’t change the formula at all. The opener “Donnez-moi Du Gaz” is a tight rock song with sing-along passages and a lot of energy, but the music, the vocal performance, and the lyrics immediately recall several past efforts of the singer’s. Despite some similarities to past successes, this track is the most convincing one on here, along with the catchy country rock anthem “Faire Et Refaire” and “Tout Ce Que Je Veux”, a warm and catchy rock ballad with string passages, a shy guitar solo, and hooks somewhere between The Police and maybe Turbo-era Judas Priest.

As soon as the second song, “Homme Sauvage” kicks off, one realizes that this is another predictable record from a predictable performer. After the rawer opener comes the epic atmospheric ballad with string sections for the bored soccer moms, whose biggest dream is to escape from their everyday lives by spending Christmas and the New Year in Mexico, Cuba, or Costa Rica. In fact, Éric Lapointe has by now given several concerts in those places for the exiled Quebeckers who try to escape from the winter each year.

In the end, Éric Lapointe offers ten solid but highly predictable songs, and even the usual couple of surprises included on the previous album can’t be found here. A true hit can’t be found here at all, and it’s definitely not the lifeless country ballad and first single “Ça Me Manqué” that sounds like a stereotypical and weak copy of “La Bartendresse”. Jour De Nuit is probably the singer’s weakest release to date, along with the overrated À L’ombre De L’ange. Despite its obvious flaws, I still happen to like this record because I’m an old fan and can’t help but find the singer’s unique vocals andimage quite addicting and even charming. As a fan and collector, I will purchase this release as I have done with all his other works, but occasional or new fans should ignore this record. The compilation record N’importe Qui is good enough for anybody who just wants to own one record with the singer’s greatest hits. If you prefer a real studio album, go for the groundbreaking Invitez Les Vautours to start with. As it is now, the new album lacks a true highlight and is only solid average at best.

2.5 // 5

Iced Earth- Plagues Of Babylon (2014)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Iced Earth has always been a hit and miss band for me. The thrashy American power metal institution has released a few very great, underrated records, but also some overlong and overrated disasters. The band seemed to be reborn from its ashes again with the arrival of Canadian singer Stu Block on Dystopia. The record wasn’t a masterpiece, but it sounded fresh, passionate, and straight enough to call this release a return to strength. That’s why I was eager to find out how a new singer, another new bass player, and a new session drummer might have brought a wind of change to the band on Plagues Of Babylon. The new release has, as usual, a whole lot of positive criticism from the predictable and dependent (for the label) big-name magazines and websites and not from truly independent writers such as myself.

To tell you the truth, nothing has changed at all because Jon Schaffer constantly does everything on his own. Sounds to me like he’s back to his Something Wicked storyline once again here. The new and old band members don’t really bring anything new to the sound, either. The first five songs sound old-fashioned and exchangeable. We get to hear mid-tempo to mid-up-tempo power metal with thrash metal influences that are all too familiar. Schaffer recycles some worn-out riffs, and the vocals are less unique than before, sounding like a Matt Barlow clone. The first two tracks in particular drag on far too long with unnecessary introductions. The pseudo-epic choruses are so predictable that it’s almost as amusing as a Manowar album. Fans might argue that the first five songs are typical Iced Earth anthems, but I find this rehash extremely boring.

There are a few guest vocalists on this record, but they don’t really add anything to this rather ordinary album. The background vocals by Blind Guardian frontman Hansi Kürsch are almost inaudible, and can be described as a complete waste of talent. That being said, the collaboration with Symphony X vocalist Russell Allen and Volbeat’s Michael Poulsen on “The Highwayman” is also quite faceless and ineffective. The fact that the band included two cover songs on this album, plus a laughable and completely unnecessary outro only shows off Schaffer’s lack of ideas.

The album gets a little bit more imaginative towards the middle part. I hoped that “The End?” was the end of theSomething Wicked storyline, but instead it’s a decent mid-tempo track with a few dynamic changes and an atmosphere reminding me of Iron Maiden’s epics of the eighties. This song would have been an average song on some of the band’s past efforts, but is this record’s stand-out, which tells you a lot about the quality of this release.

Some songs have a few great moments but can’t convince me as a whole. The smoothly evolving “Peacemaker”, with its diversified vocal performance and a very cool guitar solo, is almost great until the chorus is repeated way too often towards the end. “Parasite” works the other way around, and starts with another predictable and exchangeable half-ballad tone before the gripping vocals in the chorus really save this song. Many songs have similar structures, and only a few individual efforts such as the vocals and a few emotional guitar solos put these tracks above an ordinary average level.

In the end, a few good tracks in the middle of the record save this album from being a complete failure. Nevertheless, it’s already a solid candidate for one of this young year’s greatest flops. This release is for die-hard fans and collectors only. If you want to hear similar music of a higher quality, go for the last Shadow Host album.

2.0 // 5