OPHIDIAN - The Awakening

11 songs
56:58 minutes
***** ****
Vacuum

Bandpage

Ophidian were one of several revelations at the 2003 Emergenza newcomer contest in Luxemburg. While Luxemburgish metal bands often only play tributes to the golden eighties, Ophidian emerge with a very fresh and weird kind of metal. The opener New Shores starts rather melodically, but still contains lots of complicated breaks. The combination of darkness and bombast is absolutely overwhelming. Singer Caroline once again proves how much variety is in her voice. If David Chastain heard this record, he would immediately take her as the new singer for his next record. But Caroline is not the band's only highlight. Bass and drums are creating an extremely intense rhythm section that you won't find twice in Luxemburg. Ophidian play guitar solos that really rock and that don't sound as clumsy as on other Lux metal records.

The album is full of highlights and tops the self titled debut demo which was released 18 months earlier. There are fast, angry songs, always on the verge of well calculated chaos, like Weak, Freedom Denied and Agony, a new version of a song from the demo. Unlike on the debut, Ophidian are much more open towards mellow tunes which you can for instance hear on Wrong Time, Wrong Place, drawing parallels to The Gathering. A Change Of Direction is another softer song which has real hit potential. At the end, you'll find an acoustic song called Not Yet Found.

I have no other choice than speaking all my praise towards Ophidian for this great album. In my first review, I mentioned that the musicians came from different musical backgrounds (punk, pop, metal). The new bass player Philip Ries makes no exception and as unbelievable as it sounds, he was once a member of the evil Satanic pop priests CorrXion who were so bad that they had to be crucified and burn in hell now for all eternity.