****We interrupt your regularly scheduled slate of death and black metal to bring you this female fronted symphonic/power metal review***** 

I’m a very cyclic music listener and reviewer, I do a lot of my listening and reviewing in batches; a 4 or 5 death metal albums in a row, 4 or 5 black metal albums in a row, just so my ear is in the right frame of mind. However, once in a while, I go off on  tangent and need  a break or a reset and crave something different, and one of my guilty pleasures is symphonic, epic, female fronted metal. Despite the large amount of bands out there in the style, my usual fall backs are Delain, Amaranthe and Epica, but some recent promos grabbed my attention, Russia’s Icewind Tales,  US act Dialith, the Israeli band Scardust , and this, the debut from Italy’s Moonlight Haze.

Featuring members and ex-members of Temperance, Elvenking, Sound Storm, Teodasia and Overtures, there is some experience here and it shows on this confident, uplifting, soaring debut that has all the elements of the genre is spades, and more importantly, is very well written.

The three above mentioned bands  are a good reference point, especially Epica (Mark Jansen even makes a guest appearance) as this isn’t really super cheesy gothic metal, but a heavier beefier, power metal (check out closer “Goddess”) base chock full with loads of sweeping orchestration and choirs. And of course the focal point of this kind of music is the front woman, and here, Chiara Tricarico does a solid job being emotional and powerful without being too operatic or soprano, though she does veer into soprano here and there  (i.e “Time”-unless that’s guest vocalist?).

Folks, this is happy, bombastic peppy music. The first two tracks “To the Moon and Back” and “Ad Astra” are catchier than hell, especially the mid song orchestral break in “Ad Astra”. ” Odi Et Amo”, delivers a soaring chorus and “Time” ups the operatic element a bit, before “Dark Corners of Myself” slows things down to a more moody mid pace chug, though not the requisite full on ballad, that’s left for penultimate track “A Shelter from the Storm”. Admittedly, by the time “Deceiver” rolls by, I’ve about had my fill of the style, but the fact I made it this far and chose to do a review shows that these guys stand out from a saturated genre (just look on the above video and subsequent videos on youtube ). Good job.

****We now return you to your regular schedule of brutality***** 

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments