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Cardiant: Verge

Melodic Metal

4.0/5.0

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Inverse Records
by Craig Hartranft,  05.09.2013

Here's a surprisingly interesting and entertaining metal band: Finland's Cardiant with their third album, Verge. One thing that captures your interest is that they blend several genres into their sound. The larger category is melodic metal, but the band offers more than this.

Cardiant:: looking up.

There's a distinct rock groove underneath most every song here. Yet, there's also classic heavy and power metal, with some symphonic and progressive nuances. You'll hear some of the latter within Thought's Inception and Heaven's Calling.

For this album, the band has recruited a female vocalist, Outi Jokinen, for background vocals. But she also gets some lead work, often in duet, as on Ever Since, which compliments Erik Karhatsu's traditional metal vocal style. On the closing piece, While The Ice Is Cold, a soaring anthem, Jokinen gets the primary lead vocals. She clean and smooth style, avoiding the extremes of harsh or operatic vocals common in the genre. Her addition is definitely a compliment to the band's overall style.

The strength of Verge comes early, in the first five songs, and then bottoms out in the middle with Believe, rather flat and fuzzy, and Beat of Heart, which only gets going in the second half of the song. From Love's Not On My Way to the end, things improve quickly with Stranger in Me and the aforementioned While The Ice Is Cold the top tracks. Even with a few bumps, Cardiant delivers some engaging and entertaining melodic metal. Recommended.

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Cardiant's Verge offers engaging and entertaining melodic metal with a strong rock groove and peppered with symphonic and progressive nuances.

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The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]