Delain has just made the best album of their whole career! Of course, every album since their first one Lucidity was already better than its predecessor, but Moonbathers seems to surpass all others. It’s clear from the opening song Hands of Gold that Moonbathers is a very heavy metal album. The low and heavy guitars in this song are present throughout the whole album and have a lot of energy. It feels like the band is entering a new chapter and I like it. The beautiful banshee-like grunts of guest vocalist Alissa White-Gluz take this first song to a higher level. I would not think for a second that the band had some bumps in the road upon getting the album released in time. No chaos is present at all. All elements are carefully pieced together and the band put much consideration in the order the songs appear on the record. Heavy metal songs are switched off with beautiful ballads at precisely the right moment.
And then of course there are the vocals. All I can say about that is that Charlotte Wessels has grown a lot over the years! She found and developed her voice further and further to a point where she knows exactly what she can do with it. From high to low and back, without even breaking a sweat? There is nothing the passionate Charlotte Wessels can’t handle, and I haven’t even started talking about the amazing ballads yet.
Chrysalis – The Last Breath is without a doubt my favorite Delain song on the album. On this track, Charlotte Wessels confirms that telling a story and reaching the listener while doing so, is a big part of the Delain philosophy. The closing song on the album The Monarch is very tasteful and melodic and serves as the perfect closer.
The song Scandal, a cover of rock legends Queen, deserves special attention in this review. The hair in the back of my neck stood straight up once I learned that Delain was going to cover a Queen song on the album. Never have I ever been impressed by people that tried to cover Queen in the past and no let’s keep our mouth shut about Adam Lambert please, let’s talk about how Charlotte absolutely nailed the song and did what very few people have done before her! I am extremely proud of the fact that a band from my humble little country the Netherlands has managed to cover Queen in such a gracious way and in the process turning it into a Delain song without harming its essence! Wessels fully respects Mercury’s vocals and makes them her own. It’s absolutely phenomenal! We can only guess if Freddie Mercury would be as proud as I am now, but I think he would have great respect for it!
Thank you Delain for this amazing and groundbreaking album!
Read our interview with Martijn Westerholt from Delain here.
Read our interview with Charlotte Wessels from Delain which is about Phantasma, a project she’s also part of, here.
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