Band:	Streben
Album:	Wild Enchanted Gardens
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	December 2009

01. Embrace Of Nostalgia
02. Aesthetic Faintness
03. Wild Enchanted Gardens (Where Daylight Dwells)
04. Painfully Seduced (By A Truthful Reverie)
05. Delyrium Lies At The Core Of Wisdom
06. Soul Poetry

Streben belong to the rare breed of Black metal bands that feature women in their line-up. Yeah, there's of course LSK of Secrets Of The Moon and others, and there are the Care bearssss of Astarte, but that's about it. Streben now joins them and Cristina Hagalaz, the woman in question, is not your average "the-real-reason-i'm-on-stage-is-because-i-have-boobies" female musician. No, she took care of the vocals, bass, synthesizers, song writing and lyrics on Wild Enchanted Gardens. Pretty cool huh?

I bet all you male pigs out there (myself included) expect some romantically-themed, sugary-styled half-assed attempt at Black metal, right? Well, you couldn't be further from the truth. Yeah, there are a few 'soft' nature/organic influences, but Miss Hagalaz is certainly no barbiegirl. Her shrieks are so raw they'd make Nattramn ( Silencer go insane... oh wait. My bad, Mr. Axewielder. Anyway, they're pretty hoarse and croaked, even slightly over-the-top extreme. But you'll get used to them. The riffs are often a light and airy version of Depressive Black metal, which work quite well with the lightly-dosed synthesizers. Streben knows how not to overdo it. As for the production... Wild Enchanted Gardens is a very raw release in terms of sound and production. It never bothers though, as we're used to quite a bit and it suits the essence of the music pretty well.

Once again, the over-the-top croaks may prove to be a bit of an issue the first few plays, but everything else is quite decent. It's not terrible original or unique, but it's good for a debut. Let's see if Miss Hagalaz can up the ante on a possible follow-up. And if we can finally get a few more women in our sausagefest-genre...