Band:	Midwinter
Album:	Fountain Of Youth
Style:	Gothic metal
Website:	http://www.midwinterworld.com
Release date:	2004

01. Immersion
02. Fountain Of Youth
03. Time Waves
04. The Book Of Lamentations
05. Cradlesong
06. Last Breath
07. White Coffin
08. The Fall Of My Realm
09. Ad Nauseam (A Wanderer's Epitaph)
10. Eternal

At the first listening of the first album of the young French band Midwinter, you will have the feeling that you already know this sound. Why? Well, just because Midwinter is more than inspired by the leader of the Heavy/Power Symphonic Metal, Nightwish. And this is maybe the real problem of the album, the lack of originality? but at the opposite, for a first album, this is well done and also promising. Let see all that in this review?

"Fountain Of Youth" is the first album of the young band Midwinter, and it's funny because when I listen to it, I really have the same feeling that when I listened to "Angels Fall First" some years before. This is not perfect, there is some problems due to the fact that the band need more maturity but there is also some really good points.
In general, the songs of this album are catchy and well written, and the musicians are more than honest. The singer, Astrid Delaunay sings evidently with a nice symphonic voice, but of course everybody can't be Tarja Turunen. This is not pure like the voice of the queen of Symphonic metal, but with work I'm sure that one day the voice of Astrid will be near of the one of Tarja, and that's more than promising?
The only problem of the band come from the fact that some time this is more a clone of Nightwish than anything else. It's a shame because for sure the band has a great potentiality. But this is the first album and this problem of originality will change in the future? I'm sure of it.
The production of the album is really good too. The recordings are really good, and we must congratulate Pierre-Emmanuel Pelisson [Suxeed, ex Heavenly] who did an excellent work for the band. At the end if "Fountain Of Youth" sound good like that, this is certainly due to Pierre-Emmanuel Pelisson too.

At the end the first album of Midwinter suffers of a lack of originality, but not of a lack talent. These guys are promising and with more personality and maturity in their compositions, we could have in the future something really good. This is not perfect but promising, and then I will follow for sure the trace of Midwinter.