Delain
Dance With The Devil
Napalm Records
When I was a young thrasher my peers and I used to view keyboards as spawn of Beelzebub, something more in tune with Bon Jovi and Howard Jones rather than a rowdy form of music. The likes of Fear Factory soon showed me the error of my ways, proving that synths could be heavy and add rich texture, and that’s precisely the aesthetic into which Dutch symphonic metal band Delain tap. Featuring new cuts and fan favourites reworked, the band’s second release with a new line-up finds them honouring the past whilst forging a new future. It’s the title-track which is Dance With The Devil’s opening gambit and finds the group in rude health, especially Diana Leah who has made the microphone her own and stamps her big personality on ‘Sleepwalker’s Dream’. What follows are nine live tracks and then some studio instrumentals and this makes the sequencing of the album rather strange. While there’s nothing wrong with the live cuts (in fact, they’re rather good), you can’t help thinking they’d be far more powerful as a stand alone release and the same goes for the studio tracks, as it is they feel like an afterthought. Dance With The Devil is full of good music even if the order of service takes some getting used to.
Review by Peter Dennis.