ENEMY OF REALITY – “Arakhne”
Like their debut album, “Arakhne” is based on an ancient Greek myth – the myth of the spider’s creation. Arakhne is a young girl with a talent to weave. She also thinks she can do it better than Athena, a goddess. You can imagine how the story continues!
ENEMY OF REALITY manage to put operatic vocals in their songs without overdoing it. Iliana’s voice isn’t that dominant as we know it from other opera metal singers – it is a part of the music and not automatically the ear catcher in the songs. Only in some parts, her voice dominates the music, accentuated. “Arakhne” in total is a very powerful album. The music tells the story and one song blends into the next one. It’s really fun to listen to the entire album!
Symphonic metal in a different way.
Especially in ‘Reflected’, Iliana plays with her vocal styles, changing from a ‘normal’ voice to opera and back in one singing line. The duet with Fabio Lione is really good – two singers on an equal level, goosebumps guaranteed! ENEMY OF REALITY use a lot of symphonic elements, but I wouldn’t call it symphonic metal. The sound is different, the focus isn’t set on the orchestra. The band itself describes their music as progressive metal and I think that fits!
‘Weakness Lies Within’ is a song you won’t get out of your head for hours! One of the best songs of the album with a poppy attitude and cool guitar riffs. Really impressive is the beginning of ‘Nouthetisis’ in which Iliana sings a capella, showing all the beauty of her voice. Especially in ‘Showdown’, the guitars are played like it’s tipical for many death metal bands. Nice combination! ENEMY OF REALITY seem to have no limits in what they try out. In this longest song of “Arakhne”, Iliana shows her vocal range and sings really high.
Best version of themselves?
There are famous guest musicians on the album: Jeff Waters from ANNIHILATOR takes part in ‘Nouthetisis’, RHAPSODY OF FIRE’s Fabio Lione sings a duett with Iliana in ‘Refleced’ and Chiara Malvestiti can be heard in ‘Showdown’. I don’t know how ENEMY OF REALITY want to top this album. In this style of music, they tried out almost everything and widened the limits of both symphonic and progressive metal, melting the two into an impressive piece of music. The only thing they can do in the future is to take another metal genre and melt it with symphonic/opera metal. The band seems to be fearless in this field and the potential is there to revolutionize the scene a bit.
ENEMY OF REALITY seem to be able to sound like everything they want to – ‘Taste Of Defeat’ sounds a lot like XANDRIA! In some other songs, they remind me of DARK SARAH and as I mentioned, in ‘Showdown’ the guitars could have come from ARCH ENEMY. The last song of the album, ‘A Gift Of Course’, could be on older DELAIN albums. I think, we can always count on this band if we are looking for something special.
“Arakhne”-Tracklist:
01. Martyr
02. Reflected
03. Weakness lies within
04. Time immemorial
05. Nouthetisis
06. Afraid no more
07. Showdown
08. Taste of defeat
09. In hiding
10. I spare you
11. Gift of curse
