The Wrath of the Women

Yes, the saga finally draws to a close. My complete refusal to stretch this even further has led to further cuts from my shortlist, and a special longer than any thus far. Featuring everything from old-school Heavy Metal to death/thrash, upbeat prog metal to slow Doom, feast on the final part in this trilogy.


Liva – De Insulis (Opera Metal): The closest I’ve found to a 50/50 split of the two genres.

Crystal Viper – Curse of the Crystal Viper (Heavy): Heavy Metal done the way it should be.

Murkrat – Murkrat (Doom): Bordering drone, distant clean vocals create something chilling and unusual.

Evenfall – Cumbersome (Gothic/Melodeath): Unusual this one, aggressive, dark, prominent keyboards and no
trace of Gothenberg in their sound.

Shadowside – Theatre of Shadows (Heavy/Power): Mostly for the vocalist, who is simply superb. Emotional but with bawls.

Opera IX – The Black Opera (Melodic Black): Not a lot else to add. Fairly straight up Meloblack.

Darksky – Crimson Butterfly [EP] (Prog): The bitch to classify. Displays many elements, from thrash, power, neo-classical, symphonic and black, but seamlessly integrated. Unnoticeably so in fact, until you sit down and think about it.

Decadence – 3rd Stage of Decay (Death/Thrash): Who would have thought someone called “Kitty” would have such a roar…

Lyriel – Autumtales (Celtic Folk/Rock): Half Carved in Stone, half Eluveitie. Plenty of violins, but little aggression.

Blood Ceremony – Blood Ceremony (Heavy/Doom): Think Sabbath, except with Flutes…and Organs…and…errr…a female vocalist. So not really that much like Sabbath after all.

Powers Court – Nine Kinds of Hell (Power): Staccato Power. A real oddity tbh, I can’t think of anything to really liken it to.

Astarte – Doomed Dark Years (Symphonic Black): A band of three women that probably should have been remembered right along there with Darkthrone and
Emperor.

Adorior – Authors of Incest (Extreme Thrash): Too evil for Death, too Tech for Black, too aggressive for thrash. Nope, this sits happily between all three.

Wykked Wytch – Something Wykked This Way Comes (Prog Death/Thrash): Welcome to their nightmare. Latter ‘Death’ era guitar work meets the woman from hell.

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