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Review:
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A suitably grand orchestral intro sets the scene for
this second album, but the first in English, by the Hungarian
trio of Henrik Csató (guitar/keys), Gergõ Kiss (bass) and
Alexandra Urbán (vocals). Then ‘Orphanage’ thunders out
of the speakers like a raging bull revealing an up-tempo,
all-powerful blend of Within Temptation, Sirenia and Cryoshell,
with added prog, synths and electronica. The voice of heavenly
Alexandra perfectly matches the music, a divine mix of Sharon,
Ailyn and Christine. The band’s name means a metaphorical
suit of black armour, when you listen to their music you
don this shell of black obsidian and escape from the real
world into theirs. Every song is utterly mind blowing and
totally faultless, with champion’s league production, exemplary
musicianship including loads of fantastic synth solos, excellent
thought provoking lyrics, more hooks than a pirates convention,
and catchier than a Venus Flytrap (a video for ‘Summoner
of Wind’ is on the Female Voices blog). Most bands would
give their right arms for a couple of these numbers, let
alone a whole album of them, they’d have no limbs left.
The icing on the cake is the 10 minute mega mighty prog
metal masterpiece ‘Misanthropia 2: Eternal Darkness’, totally
awesome. What makes this body of work even more remarkable
is that it is the product of unsigned novices with no track
record (just a few aborted projects) and no financial backing.
They sound like a highly experienced and successful, professionally
and expensively recorded band on Nuclear Blast, it is quite
incredible that they have achieved this level of sophistication.
Obsidian Shell should cause a quite stir in the symphonic
and gothic metal community, and given the right push they
can become major players on the scene. If you love symphonic,
gothic and prog metal then you would be mad not to beat
a path to their angelic asylum at http://www.obsidianshell.com/
where you can download this beauty (there’s no physical
release as yet). All I can say is a stupendous, staggering
10 out of 10.
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