Thursday, January 17, 2013

Edenbridge - Shine (2004)

Once upon a time, there used to be a most awesome music store in town, known as "Real Groovy". Every once in a while, I would make my way along their aisles, flicking through the "Metal" section and select 2-3 CDs that for some reason or another caught my eye. Unlike JB Hi-Fi, in Real Groovy, you could listen to your chosen CDs and thus make a spur-of-the-moment decision to try a new band.

That was how I discovered Edenbridge.

It was in the time when Evanescence* were big, and I had discovered wonderful female lead acts such as Within Temptation and Nightwish, but always on the look-out for more. And I fell in love with Edenbridge.

One reason, I think, is because they just sound more cheerful than Nightwish and Elis* and Epica* and most of the other female-lead symphonic metal bands.

The vocalist, her name is Sabine Edelsbacher, is sylph-like and her voice is ethereal and operatic. There is an edge to it (and to the music that accentuates it) that makes my heart soar with energy and light and love.

The album opens with the inspirational "Shine". The music complements Sabine's rich voice, and is laden with positive emotion.

We move into "Move Along Home" with its opening Oriental sounding instruments, inspiring thoughts of Arabain Nights

"Centennial Legend" is beautiful and haunting, with an ephermeral quality.

 "Wild Chase" starts with traditional instruments, giving it a tribal, Indian, feel, before soaring into something that would best be described as folk-inspired metal.

"And the Road Goes on" opens with Sabine's sweet warbling. The lass has beautiful vocal range.

"What You Leave Behind" is followed by the slower "Elsewhere", with its piano accompaniment.

"October Sky" is a rather more powerful and heavier number.

The ethereal "Canterville Prophecy" leads into the epic "Canterville Ghost".

We conclude with the bonus track "On Sacred Ground" which is both haunting and ghostly, the sort of song that lingers in your mind after the last chord has faded.

Edenbridge  are a damned fine band, one of my favourite of the "female lead symphonic metal" genre - rich with emotion and a full array of more classical instruments, blending together to unleash a sound that is at once melodic and beautiful, haunting and ephermeral. I will give this album my first 10/10.


* Why, do you think, so many of these bands start with "E"? Is it to make my decision on which E CD to listen to first more difficult?

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