That was pretty mediocre in every way there is.

I will be politically correct with my take on Sonja, while I don't find their music remarkable in any way, I respect and promote that we get more female fronted bands keeping our genre more open to women.

So what would you be saying if you weren't being "politically correct"?

That the band blows, but I didnt say that, at least not in those words.

They don't, though.

You don't have to beat around the bush San. If think it blows then just say it.

I just wanted to be nice my man, I dig Absu and like that women are getting more involved in the scene.

No worries. There’s nothing wrong with not liking the music, obviously. I was just concerned the “politically correct” part was signalling something worse.

No she definitely needs to find someone who can sing. She is a good guitarist who brings fresh ideas to the whole current goth mixed with trad metal thing. However if you are even worse than the guy from Idle Hands who was off key for the entire gig when I saw them it is time to cut your losses and find someone.

I like her vocals a bunch, and I think the music itself is totally awesome and metal as hecc. I really don't have any complaints at all with anything Sonja have put out thus far.

They fucking destroyed live last night - best set of the night, though Wayfarer wasn't any slouch either. Thought she did fine on the vocals live, had a good raw sound, sang the songs like they were on record. Really massive, pummeling fucking riffs all set long.

My thoughts on her vocals is that she's good on the studio material, less good live (only seen em once but yeah).

Maybe if she keeps working on them she'll get better at the live stuff. If she got a 2nd guitarist, what if her riff-writing dropped off? But I think she sounds great on the recorded material, so.

Also @Emp I read your post after I posted mine, interesting we had different experiences of her live vocals. I hope she is improving since I saw her last year!

I just think she has an interesting, ghostly sort of tone - it's not your usual metal voice, and the fact that some of these lyrics seem very personal to her, it might not be good if somebody else was singing them. I think she could find a different singer if she wanted, but I'd still want someone with that kind of distinct, somber tone... it wouldn't work if it was somebody too wailing or high pitched or anything.

They seemed to have the guitars cranked up over the vocals in the mix, but she delivered all the choruses and lines pretty much exactly like they were on the album.

I saw them live in Los Angeles last weekend, Melissa's vocals sounded great, the whole band sounded great, was extremely impressed with the drummer, dude had a great stage presence.