It’s just not fair – another band whose album reminds me of all the festivals I’ll be missing out on this year! Talk about rubbing my face in it... The fantastically named Crystal Viper are absolutely perfect Wacken material, despite the fact that they do not hail from either Germany or Italy! This prolific yet underground Polish female-fronted heavy metal band have seen fit to grace us with a `kind of’ live album of their gutsy, epic and powerful brand of metal, after a whole load of demos, appearances on various tribute compilations to other metal bands (Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol to name just two; maximum metal points scored there!) and two studio albums. The album itself is a mixture of live tracks and some new and previously unreleased tracks; a mixture that you would assume would be just for the fans.
I’m not normally a fan of live albums, especially live albums from lesser known bands. The live tracks on this album however, are remarkably well produced and really seem to capture the powerful sound of the band live. All instruments are really clear, well balanced and in my opinion makes you want to have been at that gig! This is certainly not something I’ve encountered on listening to most other live albums!
One thing that really stands out is the power of frontwoman Marta Gabriel’s voice – she can really belt it out with the best of them, and hit the most incredible high notes as well. This is no gothic, sugar-coated female-fronted warble-fest, but pure balls-to-the-wall heavy metal (I may yet win an award for the most hyphens in one sentence!). Marta’s voice has a huge amount of guts, and occasionally reminds me of Federica de Boni, ex-lead singer of White Skull, but she also has her own distinctive sound, which really enhances Crystal Viper’s pure metal sound. Naturally the live tracks are a little rough around the edges, and on a handful of occasions Marta drifts out of tune, but this doesn’t seem to affect the response from the crowd, or the confidence of the woman herself, who comes across as a strong and affable frontperson.
The four studio tracks are a bit of a mixed bag; `Secret Of The Black Water’ (taken from the forthcoming studio album) seems to lack a bit of impact in comparison to the other tracks, and is a little too keyboard-heavy for me, hinting at a more commercial direction possibly... The following two tracks; `The Wolf and The Witch’ and `Stronghold: Under Siege’ however, are complete heavy metal anthems full of rip-roaring riffs, and lung busting choruses, sounding like it came straight off a classic NWOBHM album. The final track is a cover of Virgin Steele’s `Obsession (It Burns for You), which pretty faithful to the original – but I would rather have heard another Crystal Viper song.
All in all, considering the slightly random collection of material on this `half-live’ album; this a good, enjoyable metal release which is not just for fans of the band, but is likely to win them a few new admirers (and not just because of leather-lunged, guitar wielding Marta). Crystal Viper play heavy metal loud and proud; fans of Iron Maiden, Helloween, White Skull, Blind Guardian and Domine would do a lot worse than check this band out.
http://www.myspace.com/crystalviperofficial
