Band:	Ignea
Album:	Dreams Of Lands Unseen
Style:	Oriental folk metal, Progressive metal, Symphonic metal
Release date:	April 2023

01. Téoura
02. Dunes
03. Camera Obscura
04. Дaлекі Обрії
05. To No One I Owe
06. Incurable Disease
07. Nomad's Luck
08. The Golden Shell
09. Opiumist [feat. Tuomas Saukkonen]
10. Zénith

It's safe to say that the "female-fronted" symphonic metal that dominated the 2000s is kinda saturated and there's few bands that still rouse interest other than the already established names. Well, Ignea never had much problems sticking out.

I wouldn't really say that we're living in a symphonic metal renaissance or anything like it, but it at least seems like some of the saturation has dissipated. For a couple of years just the mere thought of more symphonic metal was ridiculous. But now, maybe because musclassia has been reviewing some more albums in this genre, both by newcomers like Ad Infinitum and older bands, (plus I myself reviewing some), I don't feel the same repulsion as I did a couple of years ago. And to be fair, I was huge into symphonic metal in my teens, and maybe that's why I also feel like it's hard to outdo what Epica and Therion and Nightwish already did, so the only way forward is to not really sound like any of those. Well, Ignea are definitely not clones of any of those.

In truth, Ignea's creds as symphonic metal are doubtable anyway, since the presence of symphonic elements is pretty light and not exactly conventional either. That's the case with a lot of symphonic bands which feel like they have the symphonics added to their power or gothic metal, and here as well they never seem like something that's as in focus relative to the rest of the music. Well, the underlying skeleton of Ignea's music is not power metal, and gothic metal is just a nuance. Instead, they take the extreme metal tendencies that acts like Epica have into a more expansive melodeath fragment of the sound. The melodies have an intricacy to them that's specific to prog metal, and the overarching nuance that seemed to be prevalent over their previous albums was an "oriental metal" one, giving a strong folk side to it as well.

For what it's worth, Dreams of Lands Unseen might be Ignea's most symphonic focused album, both in terms of the more conventional orchestral stuff and the folkier side. I don't necessarily want to use the term "oriental" or "world music", since the vibe of the folk that Ignea lean into is a bit harder to categorize, moving between something more Myrath-y, to something more Jambinai, and they even had a Nordic folk cover on the last album, so their reach is more universal than any label I could attach to it. Plus, this is an Ukrainian band, and the moments where they do sing in Ukrainian and the ones where the folk leanings seem more local to them are some of the most impactful.

And the blends of sounds and genres are nice and all, and Ignea are certainly set apart by how they approach the sound they craft. But their strength lies in how their melodies sound so accessible, how the cleans vocals sound sultry, and the heavier moments so chuggy, all without necessarily sounding saccharine or like it forcefully tries to stick to genre convention. And a huge part behind why the sound is so intoxicating is due to Helle Bogdanova's vocals. I know calling a symphonic metal band's vocalist good is so self-evident that you might as well say that the sky is blue, but the combination of her clean vocals not relying on the operatics of more boastful power metal singers, instead relying on a more quiet sultry tone, and the fact that she does both the cleans and the harsh vocals (expect for the ones on "Opiumist", where Wolfheart's Tuomas Saukkonen is guesting), makes it just unique enough.