Gallia – Everflame
Album Review By Rainer Kerber
I have many happy memories of Belgium. Thirteen times, the Metal Female Voices Festival took place near Brussels. I participated in seven of these festivals. Belgium also has a lot of good metal bands. Recently, I’ve received the promo info of another band. Founded a few years ago as a pure project, Gallia soon became a real band. I could not determine an exact foundation date. In the press release I could only read that singer Elyn joined the band in 2015. It took more than four years for the first ever EP “Everflame” to be released. This is not uncommon for bands who take care of their own recordings, production and distribution. Reason enough to listen to this first work.
The Belgians are committed to symphonic metal, you can hear it from the beginning. But already “Rain Starlight” shows that they are working much heavier than many other bands of this genre. And with vocalist Elyn Vandenwyngaert they also have a real raw diamond. She does not even try to slip into the opera singing. Her rock voice goes very well with the harder sound. The two guitarists provide this with powerful riffing. There are also strong guitar solos. The orchestral bombast pushes something into the foreground. Without nominal keyboarder, this one certainly comes out of the computer. “Devil’s Cry” then sounds a bit mainstream. Here, the focus is probably on the catchy melodies. There are then at “Rise Of The Fallen” something more metallic heavyness. And Elyn mostly sings in the lower mezzo soprano. After the rhythmic rocker “Papercuts” follows the power-ballad “Fight Of Fools”. The shortest and probably best song follows at the end. Although has only 3¾ minutes of playing time, “Frozen Sun” is epic despite. Elyn’s singing is very varied here. My promo EP contains all six songs even in purely orchestral version. This I found to be quite irrelevant and have them deleted after the first watching. As a bonus for fans, the six encores are quite OK.
Gallia offer here Symphonic Metal of the better sort. Even if the orchestration has a great influence on the sound, these acts rarely overweight. The rhythm section is clearly set the tone and ensures that the genre name “Metal” is rightly called. “Ever Flame” is an EP on which the band can build up.
Gallia – Rise of the Fallen: https://youtu.be/UspDFW3KNL8
Lineup:
Elyn Vandenwyngaert – Vocals
Yannick Maris – Lead Guitar, Compositions
Davy Coningx – Rhythm Guitar
Laurens Vandebroek Bass
Dieter Vantilt – Drums
Label: self-release
Out: July 20th, 2019
Playing time: 26:40
Track list:
- Rain Starlight
- Devil’s Cry
- Rise Of The Fallen
- Papercuts
- Fight Of Fools
- Frozen Sun
Rating : 8/10
MHF Magazine/Rainer Kerber
