Band:	Amaran
Album:	Pristine In Bondage
Style:	Gothenburg metal
Release date:	January 2004

01. Atropine
02. Revolution Without Arms
03. Coming Home
04. Inflict
05. Without Stains
06. Katharsis
07. 24 Pills
08. Wraith
09. Crow Me
10. Primal Nature
11. As We Fly [slipcase version & Japanese bonus]
12. Seven long Years [Japanese bonus]
13. Nocturnal [Japanese bonus]

Amaran is a young melodic Heavy/Death band from Sweden. The particularity of this excellent combo is to have a female singer Johanna DePierre but without symphonic voices a la Floor Jansen or Death voices a la Angela Gossow, just a classic but such nice and beautiful sing. That can be strange but the fact that a female singer doesn't do symphonic music or something like Arch Enemy is very original. After all, can you explain to me why a girl who do metal must absolutely do something like the majority of the bands of today, and not sing "normally"? For that thing and because that guys are just excellent musicians, Amaran can be considerate certainly like one of the most promising newcomer of the metal scene.

I must admit that I know Amaran since a few time, 2 or 3 months ago maybe. After having listened some samples on their website, I was sure that this band was not common? just good? The answer to my question was during the "Metallian Festival n°1". Well this [too short] live confirmed to me that Johanna and her guys know how to play a very good Metal, and give with their music a lot of good feelings?[yes I must also admit that it was very hard for me to resist to the "call" of their new cd on the stand of the gig?]

"Pristine In Bondage" is the 2nd album of Amaran, and woaw, for a 2nd album this is really good? The very interesting part of this album is that each tracks are very good, for their musically composition but also for their lyrics. Ok the structure of the songs is not very original yes there is a lot of classic Heavy/Death riff but I don't know why [it's certainly the fault of Johanna ] the tracks of this new album are very attractive. And at the end, it's very hard to stop to listen this cd.
"Pristine In Bondage" is very well writing, and damn the voice of Johanna is great? It's certainly the strong point of Amaran, as I say before, her beautiful voice give all the power to this album because yes I can talk about power with the voice of Johanna who is very beautiful but at the same time very heavy and powerful and the result is a damn album which rock as Hell. Not need to sing with a very specific [Death or Symphonic] voice to do something great; doing things very naturally could be better sometime?
The production of that cd is also very good, the sound is heavy, but clean; the voice of the singer is very well mixed with the instruments of the band, a really good work for a 2nd album.
At the end all the songs of "Pristine In Bondage" are very catchy and it's good to see that some young bands can good music again.

"Pristine In Bondage" is a really good album of melodic Heavy/Death metal. I recommend it to all the fans of that music, and also to the ones who like bands with a woman at the sing [or for the ones who like the both].
Please keep an eye on that band and support them, when I see that album I'm sure that their future productions could be amazing.
With "Pristine In Bondage" Amaran is one of best newcomer of this beginning of the year, a real good surprise, a great album of Metal?