It’s clear in Harpia Deiis’s music that the band takes a huge inspiration from bands like Leaves’ Eyes, Theatre of Tragedy and Nightwish. Using the “Beauty and the Beast” (male and female vocals) concept in their new album Collapse, Harpia Deiis show that even a small band from Austria can sound as ferocious as a bear, but yet so elegant as a rose bud at the same time. By combining fast aggressive thrash metal style guitar riffs, catchy lyrics and brutish melodic death metal vocals. Harpia Deiis have now got in their repertoire ten great tunes that kick out the gothic/folk tinges present in their peers music, and is just pure heavy metal at its best!

 The riffs on this album are gargantuan and to say the least are balls heavy. It’s brilliant because the aggressive, rip-roaring guitar riffs and the loud sonic powered bass drive, really goes well with Marco Cudan’s death growls, making great tracks like ‘Rise of Blades’, ‘December’ and ‘Into the Fire’ sound like a baby being mauled to death by a rabid Rottweiler! It’s extremely aggressive, heavy and best of all fast, making it a great album to head bang to. Just a shame, you will probably end up damaging your neck to its musical mastery.

The great thing about Harpia Deiis is that both male and female parts have an equal importance in each song. Unlike Leaves’ Eyes, the male vocals can be heard a lot more in songs like ‘Mirrored’, ‘What Have I Done’ and ‘Embrace of Anubis’. There is enough harsh growling on the album to make sure the beautiful melodic voice of lead singer Chiara Dezi compliments it- but also adds a new dimension to the music, making it sound progressive and diverse, constantly pushing forward the Beauty and the Beast concept in the music interludes and bridges between songs.

There isn’t a dull moment of Collapse and it’s an album which you can play time and time again without getting bored of it. There is so much musically going on in each song, keeping the listener hooked with each note, each growl and each melodic sound. It’s a great album for those who think female fronted metal is all soft and girly, because when they listen to this, they WILL realise that bands like Harpia Deiis make bands like Cannibal Corpse sound like mice compared to them!

Great things are yet to come from this small Austrian band, and with an album such as the amazing Collapse under their wing (get what I did there), Harpia Deiis prove that even if you are fronted by a woman, you can still sound as heavy as a ten tone weight! [9/10]