Artist: Leah
Album Title: Otherworld
Reviewer: Jaysen Gold
iMoveiLive rating: 3 out of 5
Celtic Metal. Almost as off the musical grid as country rap. I can remember in sixth grade some kids in my class talked about the band Primordial who, as it turns out, serve as the patriarch for this type of genre. Fast forward to 2013 and the Canadian artist Leah. There is no question she’s got killer vocal chops. At times she sounds like early Charlotte Church mixed with late 90s “girl from Evanescence,” but those vocal licks just seem to be a tad out of place with the instrumentation on this record.
The EP opens with a beautiful and heart wrenching ballad called Shores of Your Lies which contains almost no drums. The song showcases Leah’s amazing vocals and actually is a quite calming track. The serenity is interrupted when your digital media player begins track two “The Northern Edge.” The orchestration is really tight on the song, and throughout the rest of the album, but the double bass drum pedal with a highly distorted set of guitars just doesn’t match the vocal style of Leah.
Tracks two through four may confuse the listener a little bit, but the string of internal questioning ceases when you hear the last track. “Dreamland” is a duet with Testament’s guitar player Eric Peterson who screams out half of the lyrics to the song overtop traditional metal accompaniment. The track is very well produced and arranged. Though Celtic Metal and this reviewer probably will never meet again, if you enjoy Celtic Metal, this is a great album to listen to the next time you’re on Spotify.
