Aonia – City of Shadows

Aonia are a band from the East Midlands who play metal with female operatic vocals.  While vocally the influences may be the usual suspects – Nightwish, Within Temptation, After Forever, Epica etc, the musical influences are less typical for a band with female operatic vocals – Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, Black Sabbath; giving the music far more of a traditional heavy metal feel than a symphonic metal one.  That mix of heavy metal guitars mixed with the keyboards and operatic vocals you’d expect with symphonic metal means that Aonia do stand out more than they would if they’d gone fully down the symphonic metal route or the heavy metal route, and that can only be a good thing – far too many small bands fail because they just don’t stand out as offering anything different.

While the vocals are primarily what can best be described as operatic, at times the vocals are slightly different. During “Gift of the curse” for instance there is more of a siouxie and the banshees feel at times before they return to the operatic style.

This is a very good EP and fans of female fronted metal bands should certainly take the time to check out Aonia.

Rating: 7.5/10

Aonia are:

Vocals: Melissa
Guitar: James
Guitar: Paul
Bass Guitar: Gary
Keyboards: Wanted!
Drums: Tony

Track listing:

1. City of shadows
2. Gift of the curse
3. Prophecy of the fallen kingdom
4. Liberate mae
5. Down the rabbit hole
6. The song

About Ant May

I spend half my life at gigs or festivals and the other half writing the reviews and editing photos, and somehow find time for a full time job too. Who needs sleep - I've got coffee.