24) Beautiful Sin – The Unexpected (2011)
Tracks to try ...
Take Me Home, Lost, Brace for Impact
RJ smoked all my expectations with this one in my roulette. While he discovered this all on his own, he piggy backed and exploited the success of a previous submission that also had Magali Luyten’s vocals. Well, now she’s got a whole album to shine... and shine is exactly what her voice does here. Having done some work with Ayreon (Ride the Comet is all hers), this was definitely something straight up in my wheelhouse. She’s got a voice like no other female I’ve heard - having a Jorn-like gravelly tone to it, and it works so nice, producing a sound that I can only describe as powerful, emanating somewhere from deep inside her. All of the tracks are quick hits (only one song on the main release tops 5 minutes), and mostly upbeat/up-tempo – which is just the kind of tune that has turned my crank for some time now. Give me a double base and charging rhythm section, strong and aggressive guitar melodies, subtle keyboard touches and a pair of headphones ... all the ingredients I need to be sonically satisfied. Supposedly there are keyboards here on this album, but beyond some nice background chords here and there, this is largely a four-piece effort. Without the headphones, they’d barely be noticed. Throw in a bonus track with Luyten singing in her native (French) tongue, and I (and RJ) just went from 6 to 12 – who wouldn’t get a stiffy from a hot metal chick singing in French? I just usually skip the weird farm animal noises at the end of it.
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23) Nemesea – The Quiet Resistance (2011)
Tracks to try ...
Afterlife, Caught in the Middle, High Enough
Two in a row from a female fronted band, and the similarities don’t end there. This was another progstreaming.com discovery - just a completely random choice. I thought ‘cool band name, cool cover, sure... why not?’. Like Beautiful Sin, this is a down and dirty, meat-and-potatoes, heavy and melodic metal album, with some really, REALLY great vocals leading the way. Nemesea’s previous two releases (Mana, In Control) were a little of the same, but vocalist Manda Ophuis displays a much greater range on this release vs staying in the high end of her register on the earlier releases. It reminds me a lot of what Nightwish/Tarja went through. The first couple of albums really showed off her operatic range, but then with Century Child she brought it down and kept it in a more subdued (and accessible) range - which is exactly what I hear happening on The Quiet Resistance. Wiki describes Nemesea as ‘symphonic/goth metal’. I’m not really sure where the ‘goth’ part comes in ... here or on their prior releases. The first track starts off with a very odd 52 second whisper/chant about ‘The Quiet Resistance”, and then (insert Emeril sound effect) BAM! Caught in the Middle hits with a sharp and precise foot tapping guitar riff, then lets loose like a running of the bulls. The rest of the album keeps up that pace for the most part, with the appropriately placed softer/slower tracks that truly highlight Ophuis’ voice. Damn she’s smoking hawt too!
Topic: Jingle.boy's Top 50v2 - Stick a fork in this .... It's done! (Read 47971 times)