Xandria - Kill The Sun
Drakkar
Gothic Metal
10 songs (39'48)
Release year: 2003
Xandria, Drakkar
Reviewed by Jack
Surprise of the month

Another gothic metal female fronted band. This time from Germany. I already hear some of you complaining about another newcomer to the gothic scene. Don't go away though, because the band's debut effort is really worth listening to and some of you might like it as much as I do. OK, I know that when it comes to gothic female fronted bands, I might not be the most objective guy, but again this time around all I can do is to bow. My teammate Chris sent me this promo a couple of weeks ago telling me I might enjoy this stuff. Do I have to tell you I had never heard of Xandria before ? In fact I bet 99 % of you haven't heard of them before, have you ? So I played this stuff... again and again and again. Yeah this thing has been in my CD player or my computer (it all depends what I am doing) since then and let me tell you I am not going to take it out soon. I will try however to be most objective.

The opening track Kill The Sun says it all. Just like a good bottle of wine, Xandria's romantic metal is of the best vintage. I know that if I tell you that Lisa's voice is of the sweetest and most beautiful female voice I have ever heard you are going to say that I have said it many times before, but she indeed has one of the sweetest and most beautiful female voice I have ever heard (at least my detractors will have something to complain about... again.). Anyway, I know many of you reading my reviews share the same taste as I do. At least when it comes to gothic metal. Of course not everything in perfect such as on the Evanescence album (I know I should have waited a bit more before publishing my Evanescence reviews... time makes you become a bit wiser, doesn't it ?). After a trio of great tunes Kill The Sun, Mermaids and Ginger, the band gets a bit out of breath on the next couple of songs She's Nirvana and Forever Yours, although they are more than decent songs and not fillers at all. Feel reassured, it was only to get stronger on the next one Casablanca. The bands sounds a lot like Theatre Of Tragedy's Velvet Darkness They Fear on that one although they do not reach the intensity of songs such as Der Tanz Der Schatten or And When He Falleth, but maybe is it just an attempt to pay tribute to one of the forerunners ot the genre ? The band succeeds in keeping the listener's attention until the end with the last four songs being quite diverse and entertaining especially Isis/Osiris. Even though these guys aren't the precursors of a new submetal genre and they will not revolutionize the genre, they know what they're doing and they do it well. So much better than most of the forerunners do it now.

On the whole, this is one of the finest hunks of heavy metal I have had the joy of reviewing this year, but the year is not over now and I strongly believe there's more to come. Hopefully it will be as good and refreshing as the music delivered by this young talented band.

Why then did I only give it a 85 / 100 when I gave Evanescence and the latest The Gathering a 95 / 100 ? Because I promised myself to be a bit harder on my quotation system, otherwise I might not be able to quote albums under a 100 / 100.

Killing Songs :
Kill The Sun, Mermaids, Ginger, Isis/Osiris
Jack quoted 85 / 100
Other albums by Xandria that we have reviewed:
Xandria - Fire & Ashes reviewed by Andy and quoted no quote
Xandria - Sacrificium reviewed by Joel and quoted 90 / 100
Xandria - India reviewed by Ian and quoted 86 / 100
Xandria - Ravenheart reviewed by Jack and quoted 85 / 100
3 readers voted
Average:
 86
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are no replies yet to this review
Be the first one to post a reply!