VELVET THUNDER

That cannot be too many rock genres that have grown as much over the last few years as the female fronted symphonic rock band which has seen numbers rising exponentially. In the fledgling days almost exclusively the domain of the giants Nightwish, Within Temptation and After Forever but now every new day seems to bring another name to the table. Such a one is Ireland’s Ravenlight, a band formed in 2018 and one with an enhanced reputation following several Irish gigs supporting the impressive Evergrey.

On record they are a three-piece with operatic vocals courtesy of Rebecca Feeney, all guitars and keyboards from John Connor and Michal Bugajski supplying the drums. Project Genesis is the band’s debut album which is very much a powerful, symphonic metal affair with Connor showing himself to be a most accomplished musician indeed with swathes of keyboards and some great riffs and lead breaks. The music is very atmospheric and grand over which the operatic Feeney gives everything that she has to give.

In many respects, Ravenlight seem to have taken Nightwish as their template and done their best to create a Celtic version of their Nordic counterparts. The music is hook laden and user friendly with Michal Bugajski providing an immense sense of power and rhythm with his almost show stealing hard work. However, there is something missing and maybe it is just that certain magical spark that some bands have and others do not. It is obvious that Feeney has a clear and distinctive work but it just doesn’t quite match with the music and maybe this is just a production or engineering issue but some work does need to be done here.

Project Genesis is probably exactly what it is called, a work in development and it is a reasonable start but the band has some work still to do to develop into the band they clearly want to be.