Released By : Self Released
Genre : Melodic Metal
Links : http://www.myspace.com/heoniaband
Tracklist :
01. The Chase
02. Requiem For The Night
03. Desire
04. Fears
05. A World Is Collapsing
06. Broken Toys
07. The Awakening
08. Despair
09. Mirror Of Life
10. To Die in Silence
11. Loneliness
I don’t know what it is, but lately it seems that every second band I review comes from France. Go back a few years before I started getting serious about reviewing music and I would have been lucky to be able name more than three French bands, but now I know a whole slew of them.
My latest French find is melodic metal band HEONIA, and their new album WINSOME SCAR has been rotating through my playlist for a week or so now, so no time like the present to try and etch out a review for it I guess. While the melodic metal is certainly the main back bone of the bands sound, they also manage to successfully add elements of progressive metal, not so much as to be able to call themselves a prog metal band, but just enough to keep things interesting. I also hear a bit of a traditional heavy metal vibe within some of the tracks which I did enjoy too.
The single thing that may make or break this band is the fact that they have a female lead singer. Now I’m not sexist or anything but there is a certain stigma with chicks fronting metal bands and I know a lot of people will stop reading right now because of that single fact. Obviously this kind of melodic metal with lush keyboards is the perfect garden bed for a female singer, but the fact is that Marieke has a voice that I just can’t really gel with. Look, she’s not a bad singer at all, it’s just her approach is a little too nice and clean on this album. Musically the album is a pretty good achievement and you can hear that these guys have done their homework on the melodic metal genre, but unfortunately it falls a little short. I would like to hear these guys go back in the studio and try and add a little more oomph to the vocals here and there just to take a little bit of the artificially nice sheen off the top and give a few songs a bit of an edge, but for now this one will surely please anybody that listens to a lot of female fronted metal and is still a worthy listen in its own right.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 6/10
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