Delain – The Human Contradiction

Releasedate: 04-04-2014; Label: Napalm Records
By: Gamze Öyünc

Ex-Within Temptation keyboard player Martijn Westerholt founded the Dutch symphonic metal band Delain in 2002. Delain first released an EP called “Amenity”. “Amenity” is followed by their 1st studio album “Lucidity” in 2007. Current lead singer Charlotte Wessels joined the band on this album. In “Lucidity” the band has collaborated with a lot of European musicians and singers, most known of these artists are Sharon Del Adel from Within Temptation, Liv Kristine of Leaves’ Eyes and Marco Hietala from Finland’s Nightwish. And now after 4 albums, Delain returns with “The Human Contradiction” in 2014.

The title of the album comes from Octavia Butler’s Lillith’s Brood trilogy from which front-woman Charlotte Wessels got inspired. The whole theme of the album is based on interrogative and intellectual ideas that can be observed in the lyrics. In this new album, Marco Hietala from Nightwish comes back and contributes to two powerful songs “Sing to Me” and “Your Body Is A Battleground”. Canadian metal singer Alissa White-Gluz (ex-The Agonist, currently Arch Enemy) and Dutch metal vocal George Oosthoek contribute beautifully to the songs “The Tragedy of The Commons” and “Tell Me, Mechanist” which are easily two of the most outstanding and impressive songs on the album. In “Tell Me, Mechanist”, there is a plea for justice, destruction and disorder in today’s world. There’s both clean vocals by Wessels and brutal vocals from White-Gluz and Oosthoek. So, this one is an extremely melodic and rather up-to-date and rich album in sound and theme.
With “The Human Contradiction”, Delain seems to have gone back to their Symphonic Rock/Metal roots as heavily seen in both “Lucidity” and “April Rain” albums which is pleasing for the Symphonic genre fans. The sound is also heavier with shredding riffs but the orchestra element with strings, choruses and Westerholt’s brilliant keyboards are also so much more prevalent on this album. Westerholt himself produced the album and you can feel the artistic freedom they used for the creation of the songs. Wessel’s voice has evolved impressively over the years and now it has become full-grown soprano vocals as it can be heard in the track “Stardust”.

“The Human Contradiction” will satisfy the fans of this genre immensely. The band proves that after more than a decade, they are ready to become one of the biggest representers of the Symphonic rock/metal genre at least in Europe, but the again there is not many female fronted symphonic bands in other places in the world other than West/Northern Europe. Delain will tour and play in festivals throughout Europe, UK and North America during spring and summer of ’14.

Line up:
Charlotte Wessels – Vocals
Timo Somers – Guitars
Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije – Bass
Martijn Westerholt – Keyboards
Sander Zoer – Drums

Tracklist: 01. Here Come The Vultures 02. Your Body Is A Battleground 03. Stardust 04. My Masquerade 05. Tell Me, Mechanist 06. Sing To Me 07. Army Of Dolls 08. Lullaby 09. The Tragedy Of The Commons

Links:
Delain Facebook
Delain Official