My enjoyment of Tarja-era Nightwish led me to branch out and
explore the world of female-fronted symphonic metal. Leaves’ Eyes seemed as
good a place as any to begin this journey, and it turned out to be pretty much
exactly what I expected. This style of music tends to be very song-driven (much
like power metal), so when it’s good, it’s really good. There are a couple of really
cool tracks on “Symphonies of the Night”. The opener, “Hell To The Heavens”, is
definitely the strongest song, mainly because of its chorus. There are a lot of
similarities to Nightwish on this song: the classic heavy riffing style without
much substance, operatic vocals at times (the chorus), male vocals as support.
These male vocals are definitely on the harsh side though. It provides a pretty
good contrast to Liv Kristine’s clean vocals, particularly when they sing in
tandem. Speaking of her vocals, she is actually a really talented vocalist. The
reason she’s so effective is because she can do both a more typical singing
voice and an operatic voice, so it provides some nice variety on the album. In
fact, these two sounds are often harmonized, not unlike bands such as Deicide
that use a similar tactic (albeit in a very, very different style).
My issue with “Symphonies of the Night” is that it simply
doesn’t have enough quality content to justify its playtime. It’s easy to see
how fans of the style will enjoy this, but I consider Nightwish’s “Century
Child” to be the pinnacle of female-fronted symphonic metal because there is no
filler. Unfortunately, Leaves’ Eyes struggles to maintain the same level of
quality throughout “Symphonies of the Night”. Even if there were one or two songs
that weren’t up to par, it would be ok, because it’s a fun style of music to
sit back and listen to. The problem, however, is that there aren’t many tracks
to look forward to on here aside from the first couple, so once you reach the
midpoint of the album, it can be rough to get through the rest. To rectify
this, it would be nice to see some better interplay between the male and female
vocals; it is this tandem and aggression that it creates that makes “Hell To
The Heavens” such a potent track. One surprising thing that is a bit of a nice addition to this album is that the symphonics are not overbearing. They definitely exist, but they don't dominate the record the way you might expect. Instead, this is a vocally driven album. Nonetheless, it will definitely appeal to fans of this sound, but otherwise, it's probably best off sticking to Nightwish.
Highlights
"Hell To The Heavens"
"Fading Earth"
Final Rating
3.6/5 or 72%.