Artist: Deva
Title: Between Life and Dreams
Genre: Operatic / Progressive Metal
Release Date: 29th April 2011
Label: AhhA Music/Black Bone Records
Album Review
Italian DEVA is a band that has built its style upon the operatic voice of Beatrice Palumbo, listeners are mostly used to hear operatic vocals out of their classical bounds mostly in Symphonic Metal but one might be surprised that the orchestral arrangements are mostly absent (and if they’re present, stripped to bare necessities like sparse string arrangement here and there), and the Metal part is of its the progressive subgenre kind, with keyboards adding on the extra touch to the melodies.
‘Between Life and Dreams’ is indeed quite an interesting album with its experimentation to marry off these strands. Sometimes they come off and sometimes they just don’t. What I get from listening to the first quarter of the album is an impression that at times the voice would have really needed the orchestra behind it not to sound far too dramatic for the more subdued music or for the music to get out of being stuck too much in Progressive metal, and could have taken on inspiration from other subgenres of Metal - experiment even more in other words. In ‘Out In Fog’ this point comes to be illustrated by their own doing - they do up the ante on the orchestra part (where they add the strings it’s more thick), and spill out of the Prog sound, it just comes to show that for the music not to be left behind the vocal sometimes broadening the scope of styles can only be a positive approach.
Another great song to take from this album is the following ‘Love and Faith’, maybe more generic along the lines of NIGHTWISH, WITHIN TEMPTATION etc, except the few Prog touches here and there that elevate it above the expectations. ‘Fading from Here’ is remarkable with the guitars and keyboards as they come out beautifully, the slower song adds a melancholy wonderfulness and more depth, more real feeling to be more exact. It’s followed by a concept song divided into parts/movements, narrating stories to express a concept of Karma, you’d expect of course. The intro part has a great and unexpected build up and sounds, feels cinematic and promises something quite epic... the start of ‘1969, Escape’ takes on it with darker guitar riffs, the song’s got its great moments musically, but vocally unfortunately it gets a tad predictable. The second, ‘1947, Open Water’ has incorporated the lately popular oriental sound into it, musically is one of the most experimental and captivating, the addition of male vocal is great, but again, the female one just doesn’t sit too well here, and the lyrics get on a bit of a tedious path.
The last part, ‘1996, In Veins’, is the best, atmospheric and layered, though it carries on some of the previous track’s lyrical cheesiness and Palumbo’s voice steps a bit from the operatic in some parts and she sings it more like a rock song, which carries it off better than had she stayed in the operatic position for majority of it. To summarise about this album, I will say that I think that DEVA is still forging their sound and from that position there are some lose ends to spoil the overall impression. However, it is certainly interesting and shouldn’t really be missed out on as it has all their future promise of great music showing through and already offers something different to a genre which is mostly predictable these days.
Tracklist
01. Breathe – 0.30
02. Your Voice – 4.00
03. Dancing Lane – 7.30
04. New Essence – 4.44
05. Out In Fog – 4.33
06. Love And Faith – 5.46
07. Fading From Here – 6.41
08. Karma pt. 0 – 1.26
09. Karma pt. 1 – 1969, Escape – 7.37
10. Karma pt. 2 – 1947, Open Water – 5.15
11. Karma pt. 3 – 1996, In Veins – 6.33
Line-up
Beatrice Palumbo – Vocals, viola
Myriam Stallone – Bass, backing vocals
Federico Salerno – Guitars, vocals
Thomas D’Alba – Drums
Hyblos – Synths
Websites
http://www.myspace.com/infodeva
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 6
Sound: 8
Total: 7 / 10
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