Venturia
The New Kingdom

Release date: April 21st 2006
Label: Lion Music
Provided by: Lion Music / Intromental Management

Website:
www.venturiasite.com
Style:
Melodic Progressive Metal

Rating: 75/100
Reviewed by: Kenn Jensen
Date: April 5th 2006

I cannot give you a reasonable reason why I like this album so much, because basically it's just a solid piece of melodic progressive metal like we've heard from a lot of bands before.

The vocals are shared between female vocalist Lydia Robin and male vocalist Marc Ferreira, who in the softer moments on the album reminds me quite a bit of Darren Hayes (Savage Garden), just take a listen to "Words of Silence" and you'll know what I mean...

The first few times I listened to the album, the only thing standing out was the brilliant instrumental track: "Candle of Hope through a Night of Fear" (some title for an instrumental, huh?), where they really let things rip! But I didn't give up that easy and slowly things started to open up, and now I do like the album a lot.

So I ended up with an album that nicely combines softer and melodic parts with some more heavy parts, the combination of the 2 vocalists is cool, and we are clearly dealing with some very skilful musicians, who show on this album that they are capable of writing good tunes.

The statement that the band is "the future of metal" in France is however overdoing it quite some. But it is a solid effort worth checking out and this little gem will without a doubt spread much joy among fans of melodic progressive metal.