Band:	Edenian
Album:	Winter Shades
Style:
Release date:	December 15, 2011
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. Decadent Blossoms (Intro)
02. Thy Heavens Wept In Mourn
03. Winter Shades
04. The Field Where I Died
05. When I Gave Her My Eden
06. Embittered Silence
07. Beauty Entwined
08. Fall The Dusk
09. Burning Horizon
10. Beneath An Abstract Sun (Outro)

Let's get the obligatory facts out of the way, shall we?

Edenian are not related to the Mortal Kombat franchise, but are rather a gothic metal band hailing from Kharkov, Ukraine. Wanted to clarify as the bulk of Bing/Google results directed me to Mortal Kombat wikis rather than metal sites. They are a goth metal band, not a cadre of assassins descended from pixelated deities.

As with many of the bands in this vein they opt for the "beauty and the beast" vocal approach, which is to say angelic female clean singing countered by the evil, dark growling male. Musically it is similar as well, clean tones while the femme fatale sings, crank the distortion, chug and thud away while the dude rawrs away.

Musically for the most part everything sounds good. Musicians are competent and the production is swell, giving the heavier bits some oomph. The biggest drawback is while I haven't listened to terribly much of this genre, based upon the album cover and imagery I knew exactly what to expect. It's just not terribly exciting. If I've listened to just a handful of goth-meets-doom metal albums and wasn't surprised, I'm sure this will just be color-by-numbers old hat to those more in to the genre.

The vocals are more problematic. As with the music, the shifts from siren call to demon growls are pretty much as expected. They also employ the occasional clean male singing as well, so I guess there is a slight curve ball tossed in. The growls are adequate, and are the best of the vocal approaches. In an effort to play nice (I really do not like wafflestomping young bands), I'll simply state that the female vocals are significantly better than the rejects who flame out of American Idle during the ridiculous first try-out phase, but in no way come close to the Tarja's or Simone's of the metal world. At times they sound great, others they just seem off.

If you are one of those types that gets a hard-on for all metal female fronted, give it a shot. If you are not, Winter Shades is not the place to start.