Sara Hammerzmith

Polish heavy metal heroes Crystal Viper is finally back after their long hiatus following health issues of singer and founder Marta. Before the hiatus they released five albums under a six years period of time, making them recognized as one of the most hard working bands in the industry. Ready for the comeback, they are now releasing “Queen of the Witches”, an album that deals with the concept of witches and true evil.

The album starts off with a classic heavy metal scream as an intro for the first song, launching us into what I feel is just SCREAMING the vibes of what classic heavy metal is to me. Fast riffs, good melodies and a strong voice. The album continues that way – strong melodies, fast riffs and crowdfriendly choruses. There are small differencies here and there, such as the more bass-based, groovier song “When The Sun Goes Down”, which also gets calmed as the song goes by, making it a perfect transition into the first of two ballads on the album – “Trapped Behind”, where I really discover the core of the voice of Marta. I really just love her voice. That kind of power, you know?

The second ballad of the album is “We Will Make it Last Forever”, which features Steve Bettney as the co-singer. It’s a beautiful song and the vocals work together in fantastic harmony, which doesn’t stay for long as the most aggressive song on the album – “Rise of the Queen Witch” is the one who follows. A direct contrast that wakes up anyone who fell into dreaming in the previous song.

Over all, the album is solid, but a little plain, if I can put it that way. Aside a song here or there, all the songs sort of melt together as one long song, which is on the one hand the point of concept albums, but it also makes the album fall a bit short, perhaps not an album you’d bring out the first thing you do. BUT – it does have all the elements we are all looking for in a good album – crowdfriendly, headbangfriendly songs with great riffs for an epic celebration to all heavy metal.

(Label: AFM Records)

CDON I Amazon I Ginza

// Sara

This entry was posted on February 1, 2017 at 11:30 pm and is filed under CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags afm records, crystal viper, in cooperation with, queen of the witches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.