Band:	Whyzdom
Album:	Daughter Of The Night
Style:	Symphonic metal
Release date:	February 29, 2008
A review by:	Bas

01. The Witness
02. Daughter Of The Night
03. The Train
04. On The Wings Of Time

"Once I had a dream, and this is it? - Once there was a child's dream?"
Ah sorry, that isn't it. This EP does start similar though (I had a dream last night, the same dream I've had every night, since I was a child?"). For those that aren't too familiar with it, I was talking about the very beginning of Nightwish's 'Once'. Not only the beginning is similar though, but actually the whole CD reminds me of 'Once'. Anyone who knows me though, knows that in my eyes Nightwish is one of the most overrated bands ever. This is not Nightwish however, this is Whyzdom, this isn't 'Once', it's 'Daughters Of The Night', and even though it's not groundbreakingly original music, it's still absolutely awesome. I'll tell you why.

Originality is an important aspect of good music, but it's also important to recognize quality. I could name you two dozen bands that sound exactly like Nightwish, however most of them are just as boring. Whyzdom however uses absolutely superb orchestration combined with interesting songwriting. Let's stay with the orchestration for a moment. It doesn't only consist out of a regular atmospheric keyboard like most bands in this style use, if you listen closely you can hear all sorts of instruments, flutes, trumpets, violins, even bagpipes. On every song it sounds different, but as far as I'm concerned, it always sounds great. Being a drummer myself I am also fascinated by the drumming on this CD. Just like the orchestration it's constantly changing in a very playful and interesting manner. Actually those two complement each other perfectly and there is hardly any need for guitars at times. They're present anyway though of course, and they do a good job in adding power to the music in certain passages, as well as in some heavier passages with little orchestration. As to the vocals; I think the woman singing here has huge potential. At the moment she's good, but with more training she could become an excellent vocalist, her voice seems fragile at times, at other times powerful. Objectively she's by far not as good as Tarja for example, but that doesn't matter, I still like this lady a lot more! Her voice just sounds very good. I hope she continues to work on her vocal skills, because like I said she has the potential to become a star in our scene. There are some male vocals as well, however I don't like them that much. They're sung kind of "half-aggressive", but in my opinion they'd sound a lot better if they were a bit deeper pitched.

Now to the vocal-lines; in my opinion some parts sound a bit "stretched" and could have been shortened, but only in favour of the excellent and really catchy parts that are also present on this CD! The best example of this would be the last track, 'On The Wings Of Time'. The beginning part is rather long, not exactly bad, but it just seems a bit stretched, but after a bit over two and a half minutes comes an absolutely beautiful part "The tide will wait for me, till I'm ready to be free! Ready to be freeeee!". I think I could listen to just this part the whole day, simply beautiful. Lyrically 'Daughters Of The Night' is far from being one of the best band there is. But they're not bad at all either, I really don't have any reason to complain, there are a few very nice rhetorical passages "Are we all just lost here in this train, in a tunnel with no end?".

Ultimately, this EP doesn't bring anything new to the scene of symphonic metal, there are probably hundreds of bands that sound extremely similar, but I am absolutely sure that over 90% of these are greatly inferior to Whyzdom. Like I said before, music can be good because it's something new and original, but in an oversaturated scene like the world of metal, it becomes harder and harder to do something special, however there is a second way a young band can stand out, it's called quality, and Whyzdom have this factor. Will they ever become big in the metal scene? Time will tell, but as far as I'm concerned, I hope they will and I believe that they deserve it.