Artist: Delain
Label: Roadrunner Records
Released: 2009
Running time: 45.46
Rating: 5/5
Delain, the Dutch symphonic gothic metal outfit, caught everyone off guard with their 2006 debut “Lucidity”. You wonder what there’s even left to say in this corner of the genre, and then you end up biting your lip. Let’s start with the mark that women can leave in this style. There are still way, way fewer girls in metal than guys. When it comes to handling lead vocals, that can give a band something really special. A girl out front can catch you off guard more easily because, like I said, there are fewer girls in metal than guys.
Delain, being Dutch, see the whole idea of melody a tiny bit differently than the Finns, who are the driving force in this genre, but it’s all still so close-knit it’s like talking about brothers and sisters by blood. With “April Rain”, Delain have rocketed in very short order from a more individually driven bunch of enthusiasts, who just wanted to announce with their debut “Lucidity” that there’s a new band in town and hoped the masses would take to their music, to a fully professional machine that tries to squeeze every last drop out of its talents and potential.
The album “April Rain” comes with fantastic production that brings out the bombast of pompous, dramatic melodies to the max. It’s a perfect coexistence of all the building blocks. From the orchestral elements, fanned by a wash of keyboards and touches of classical piano, to the warm, meaty guitar riff foundations and a dynamic, lively rhythm section, where the double bass drum “bursts” make a great undercarriage that stokes Delain’s embers. And on top of it all stands the central, commanding vocal of the excellent singer Charlotte Wessels, who, as part of the band, takes complete primacy over everything else in Delain’s sound. Marko Hietala’s guest vocal on Control The Storm or the closing Nothing Left feels totally overshadowed, and actually, if you look at it from another angle, the band thinking it a good idea to bring in a duet with a male vocal was really an unnecessary move. Charlotte does everything that matters entirely by herself.
The songs practically compete over which one will take the crown for bombastic, infectious choruses. It’s probably worth singling out On The Other Side, the only one written entirely by Charlotte Wessels. The girl has that fragile, flawless touch of innocently pure female vocals, which comes through especially in this song, where Delain break free from the obligatory “chopping”. So the ballad direction really suits Charlotte. The more gently the band plays, the bigger the effect of her vocal in underlining the depth and sensuality of the emotions themselves. Check out this side of Charlotte on the power ballad Start Swimming or the pre-chorus of I’ll Reach You.
Delain are also one of those bands that aim all their creative firepower first and foremost at finding the perfect melody, which pays off thrillingly in polished choruses that are the atmospheric peaks of the songs. Even though it’s a young band (as far as its formation goes), it’s full of seasoned musicians who know exactly what they want and how to serve it up. The creative driving force and author or co-author of the vast majority of the new album’s songs is former Within Temptation keyboardist Martijn Westerholt, who simply poured his know-how into a new quality in the new band.
“April Rain” offers (by now well-recognizable) a hefty dose of that “first-spin” experience of highly infectious melodies that get under your skin in a flash. Even the opening title track is toxically invasive! Despite this commercial orientation, which the album cover itself hints at in passing (the beauty Charlotte up front, the rest of the crew in the background, in complete shadow), the album offers an exceptional amount of dynamics in the way it strings together many different moods, stemming from the basic axiom of building varied core motifs. So the band is bursting with creativity, which is why the album feels fresh and inspired, and it doesn’t just fill and satisfy the listener by hitting the required quality minimum, it convinces them that Delain are a band that doesn’t mess around. Within generic foundations they successfully carve out room for their own recognizable musical niche. And that’s the point every band worth its salt should follow. “April Rain” puts Delain on equal footing with the bands of this genre. More than that. With this quality step up from the debut, Delain have the potential to take the lead among symphonic gothic metal bands.
| ENGLISH VERSION: |
Delain, newly born rising star in symphonic gothic metal genre positively surprised the scene with their debut album “Lucidity”, which was released back in 2006. Nevertheless that the way of understanding, consuming, decoding and composing the basic topic “melody” makes some significant differences between some Scandinavian bands (as the main creative force now days in aforementioned genre) and Delain (from Holland), you cannot miss a thing, if you still call them blood brothers.
“Lucidity” was more than just promising start. While debut album was firm, yet comfort beginner’s step in the world of music, with main goal, to achieve recognition between musical masses, “April Rain” proves further growth and evolution for the band. This time Delain approached even more strongly focused to capitalize all talents and creative enthusiasm in pure professional fashion.
“April Rain” is truly great record because of its fantastic production with maximum clarity and crispness. A big, alive and constant dynamic communication between all instruments, well dressed in big and pompous orchestral arrangements and multilayered Charlotte’s vocal harmonies, coexists in great symbiosis throughout this record. Production is still alive, nevertheless you can feel cold breeze which is a legacy of Delain’s creation of dark and melancholic atmosphere. Charlotte with her exceptional voice is somehow main engine that convinces listener to fall in love with “April Rain” at first sight. Her tender angelic approach groves in tenderness even more as band becomes mellower in certain moments of this record. Especially in songs like On the Other Side, Start Swimming or in pre-chorus of I’ll Reach You. On this parts of the album Charlotte’s vocal expressions get even more active exposure, by leaving very strong emotive impact to the listener. The tender they (band) play music, the stronger it gets (Charlotte’s vocals). And I think this was one of the band’s main goals. Authority of Charlotte’s vocals get sometimes so much presence, that even Marko Hietala (Nightwish bass player) as a special guest, remains in shade, as he joins to lay down some duets in songs such as Control The Storm or closing Nothing Left.
There is always strong feeling on this record present, which gives an impression that Delain invests a lot of their time and creative energy in search for melody perfection. Members are well armed with experience and knowledge, and are strongly focused in creation of big pompous bombastic sound production that tries to investigate and fulfill every inch of musical space. Atmospheric peaks are always positioned in catchy melodies inside choruses. These perfectly detailed melodies define a strong attractive attribute of Delain’s music. So there is no doubt, that Delain has a potential for a big commercial success, too. Song April Rain was already released as a (first) single from this album. And there are a lot of other candidates to get future single release. Next one that I would personally choose for single release is Go Away!
This album runs in great dynamic changes throughout its recording time. There is great diversity between main motives in songs and therefore great dramatic changes in so created atmosphere. This instant search for perfectly combined composition in melodic sense proves, that Delain rides on a big crest of a wave full of inspiration, creative energy, and that this band is strongly focused in realization of their goals of musical expression. Center positioned Charlotte’s vocal approach in production is also one of key factors, that creates new niche for Delain’s musical expression, which convinces in self reconcilability (uniqueness) in more or less generic and sometimes overexploited field of symphonic gothic metal. “April Rain” is by no means one of the finest releases in its genre for year 2009.
Lineup
Charlotte Wessels – vocals
Martijn Westerholt – keyboards
Ronald Landa – guitar, growl (track 6), vocals (track 3)
Rob van der Loo – bass guitar
Sander Zoer – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS
Marco Hietala – vocals (tracks 4 and 11)
Maria Ahn – cello (tracks 5 and 6)
Guus Eikens – guitar (tracks 4, 5, 6 and 8)
Production
Martijn Westerholt
Tracklist
1. April Rain
2. Stay Forever
3. Invidia
4. Control the Storm
5. On the Other Side
6. Virtue and Vice
7. Go Away
8. Start Swimming
9. Lost
10. I’ll Reach You
11. Nothing Left
