Review Summary: Symphonic Metal from the land of Spain
I will admit, the first thing I thought of while listening to Diabulus in Musica’s album
Secrets was their obvious comparison to Nightwish, the standard of female-fronted symphonic metal. The similarities are there, but this Spanish 4-piece try’s hard to differentiate themselves, with minimal success.
Vocally, Diabulus’ lead singer sounds like a combination of both singers in Nightwish’s discography. She has the pop sensibility, but also the operatic ability when it is necessary. She is not by herself an amazing vocalist, but with the music she gets the job done. This band differentiates itself in the world of symphonic metal by having a harsh vocalist who does vocals on songs like Ishtar, Come to Paradise, and others throughout
Secrets. His scream alternates between a shrill screech and a growl, which adds a nice assortment of variety in the vocal department.
Musically Diabulus in Musica stays in standard Symphonic Metal territory. There is the standard drumwork, keeping the rhythm, but not doing a whole lot else to make itself known, aside from the very short drum intro to Lies in Your Eyes. The guitars and bass tend to play power chords and once in a while will break out a riff or short solo, which breaks the mundane sound up a bit. Their sound is mainly led by the keyboards, which tend to play backing atmospheric sounds and provide the most sense of melody in the whole album. They’re not up to the level of Nightwish, but they do a good job of bringing some variety to
Secrets.
The biggest thing that will draw me back to this band is the combination of harsh vocals and clean singing. Although bands like Royal Anguish also employ this method of vocals, Diabulus’ vocalists are both good and provide a reason to check this band out. I would recommend this if you are a fan of Symphonic Metal, but otherwise you would be better off getting into this genre with a more defined and better band like Nightwish.
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