New Finds – XLIX
Since there were two other bands that I meant to include in the previous post in this series, before ending up making it about bands from Estonia, I’ll start this one with them. And since it’s another rushed one, as usual, the third band will also be picked from those that I ended up checking again at that time, when I was looking for bands that tackled environmental topics, even if they haven’t released anything new since 2018 and can probably be said to no longer actually exist. Either way, none of the bands from this post are new finds in any way, but at least the first two do have new releases within the past year.
Asylum Pyre actually tackles environmental topics as well, my pick of an older song, On First Earth, making that very clear, and that’s a good part of the reason why I’m adding them, and possibly why I put them on the list in the first place, since the sound of many of their songs isn’t one that I’m particularly fond of. But the newer song that I picked, Fighters, is actually pretty good, so they’re definitely not here just because of the topics that they tackle.
The next band, Borealis, is perhaps more unusual for me, since they have male vocals, and they’re not operatic either. Still find the sound quite enjoyable, however, which likely means that they’re actually very good and someone who doesn’t focus on female-fronted symphonic metal as much as I do will probably have an even better opinion of them. Even so, while my pick of a newer song, Ashes Turn to Rain, should be “fair”, it might be said that my second pick, The Journey, is far less so, because it also features female vocals. But, again, my picks are just the songs that I prefer, they’re not supposed to be representative.
As for the third band, that’s Crysalys and they seem to have gone silent after their EP from 2018. Then again, that seems to have been their first and only release since their one full album, which was released back in 2011, but with their vocalist working with Therion and apparently being involved in other projects as well, it seems unlikely that they’ll return. Either way, there are just two songs that are posted officially, The Awakening of Gaia and Moonlight Encounter, so that makes it easy when it comes to my picks. There’s such a massive evolution between the two that it’s hard to believe it’s the same band, but the only new band member seems to have been the male vocalist. Admittedly, he also makes quite a difference, but everything else is also so, so much better, all of the obvious potential that was wasted in their early years on a sound that could make you cringe finally being brought to the surface and allowed to shine.