Princess of the Emerald Garden

I've only recently come across this release and implicitly this band, even though I see they've been around for quite some time. What we have here is a promising gothic metal act.

The opening track, "The Painter", I consider to also be the best on the album. The vocals heard here are pretty much what you can expect from the whole release and they are interesting for the most part. A weird tonality at first, but the rest of the song is quite good, the instruments are very well blended and there are also flutes and violins which, even though not a constant presence, add a lot of goodness to the album.

The second track, "Emerald Garden", also has a very nice rythm to it and catches on pretty fast. Harsh vocals appear for the first time on the album. It continues with a calmer piece, "Coming by the moonlight", only to burst into a much more rough song called "Game". By this point it's mainly just guitars, drums and vocals, with subtle flute or violin parts but the release looses none of its charm continuing to please with all the songs.

The only parts of this album that I do not like are the tracks "Fire in the tunnel" and "Genesis". "Genesis" has a sort of "something" to it, but "Fire in the tunnel" just doesn't live up to the rest of the album. Other problems include the sometimes poor english which might bother some and, at some points, the ambiguity of the lyrics.

Overall this is a good release and the band itself shows a lot of potential and I'm very anxious to see what their next release will be like. Disregarding the eventual imperfections, any fans of the genre should give this release a listen.