Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Forever Slave - Alice's Inferno - 2005 - Armageddon Music

Track Listing1. Lunatic Asylum 2. Reminiscences 3. In The Forest 4. Equilibrium 5. The Circles Of Tenebra 6. Dreams And Dust 7. Aquelarre 8. Across The Mirror 9. Tristeza 10. The Letter

I'm normally not the sort of guy to sit down and listen to anything that doesn't have a real sense of melody and power, with most of my taste either lying in the power metal realms or sitting firmly in the front of hard rock. I've been known from time to time to enjoy the classic death metal or extreme album from time to time, and I'll have to say one of those times is now. From Armageddon Music arrives Forever Slave, a gothic symphonic band led by the beautiful and talented Lady Angellyca (www.ladyangellyca.com). Forever Slave is a Spanish band that mixes in tons of symphonic orchestration, female vocals, and some spoken male parts combined with death/black vocals. The result is a wonderful affair that should please fans ranging from Novembers Doom to Within Temptation.

"Alice's Inferno" marks the band's first album, a promising debut that hopefully will lead to more recording and possibly some large scale touring over the globe (including the US). This album is conceptual and the theme should please fans of King Diamond and horror in general. The storyline has our main character, Alice, in an insane asylum after the murder of her parents. All theories lie in the path of Alice killing her parents. She doesn't remember much about the incident, and this record is basically her struggles through her own subconscious mind, with the material here changing through Alice's different mindsets and moods. The opening track sets the mood with some classic musical elements and eerie atmosphere. That introduces us to an album filled with symphonic arrangements and Lady Angellyca's soothing, operatic vocals. Fans of Nightwish and The Gathering should enjoy Angellyca's warm delivery.

Along with that vocal approach is of course the male counterpart in the form of Servalath. The music itself is mostly mid-tempo with some faster, more thrash metal arrangements thrown in a good bit. The keyboard and synths are the major part of the band's sound, and with Lady Angellyca on board with the quality vocal appearance it really soothes the listener into a whole new level of thought. This type of experimentation really works out well here, and Forever Slave is probably the most surprising metal album of the year for me! This should appeal to just about any metal fan.


--EC 11.17.05