Germany is known for its Manschaft, its Oktoberfest, and its Tyrol. Within the confined world of heavy metal, Germany is is known for all its mid-eighties thrash metal bands such as Kreator, Sodom and Destruction or for its late-eighties power metal bands such as Helloween, Gamma Ray and Primal Fear. For the last three years it has been mostly known for Rammstein, but in another way it is known for its gothic metal acts. I don’t mean our German metal brothers have to play either thrash or power metal, but at least this might help them a little bit to get out of the grey.

Eisheilig’s second album will definitely not revolutionize the world of gothic metal, neither will it help its creator achieve the status of metal superstar. First of all, their gothic metal isn’t any better or worse than any other gothic act. Secondly, the use of the German language might not be a real asset for the band. Thirdly, why don’t all gothic metal acts have female vocals ? Like I mentioned in one my previous gothic reviews, I think it was my On Thorns I Lay's one or in my Kemet's one, the use of male vocals confines any band within given boundaries, while on the other hand female vocals afford bands to reach out for the stars. How would Nightwish sound without the transcendental vocals of Tarja Turunen? How would sound Within Temptation without the vocals of Sharon den Adel ? Eisheilig’s gothic metal is rather pleasant to listen to, but once the album came to an end and you have removed it from your player, you definitely don’t feel the urge to put it back again. So, it might well remain on your shelf and get covered with dust after one or two years until you have to dig it out because you want to review their new album. That’s exactly what happened to their first self-titled debut album. At least for me.

It’s not easy to review those kinds of albums, because although they’re not bad at all, they remain pretty much uninteresting due to the lack of female vocals. As for myself, I probably won’t listen to it again as they are so many other things I have to listen to due to my duties here at Metal Reviews, but also because there is soooooooooooooo much other stuff much more interesting than this one.