The Failing Light 2005

"I cannot be impartial about this album because I was party to its conception and birth, I partook of its recording and production and even produced the artwork for its demo release - I've know the musicians who played on it for many years, they are friends. Yet I can be impartial about the music - I never created that, I never played it, I just enjoyed it for what it was - damn fine Symphonic Gothic Metal in the European tradition but with a strong English accent.

So, what do you get for your money? 6 tracks: a couple of doom-like head-banging riff-heavy drive-by pounding metal anthems, a Gothic Rock stomp with a guitar & organ counter-play riff that will get your feet bouncing, a lost and lonely lament to bring a lump to your throat and a 10 minute prog epic, with one of the sweetest harmonic guitar solos you'll ever hear.

And you get the remarkable voice of Becki Clark - none of your psuedo-operatic wailings, none of your throat-wretching female screeching, this isn't a girl with balls trying to fit in a man's world - this is 100% girl making metal her world - a female voice that actually fits in with grunching guitars and double-kick drumming and doesn't fight against the music - a female voice that is trained in the classics but doesn't try and inapropriately shoe-horn them in where they don't belong."