NINO HELFRICH
Shadow Empress
Nino Helfrich has really got to be one of the luckiest men in metal, not only is he a superb multi-skilled song writer and musician, but with his fourth solo studio album “Shadow Empress” he has also had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented female vocalists of our times.
Thirteen may be unlucky for some, but not for NINO HELFRICH (or us in this case) as each track on “Shadow Empress” offers up something exciting and new, as many different avenues within the metal genre are visited, explored and blended for our listening pleasure. With many of the vocalists also showing us a slightly different side to themselves compared to what we would normally expect from them with their regular bands, “Shadow Empress” is indeed worthy of further investigation. Every single song on “Shadow Empress” is a standout, standalone composition making this a pucker “all killer no filler” album in every sense of the word!
Hard hitting and uncompromising tracks like “Our Remedy” featuring Vicky Psarakis (Sicksense), “All Must Die” featuring Britta Görtz (Hiraes), “Broken” featuring Rachel Aspe (Cage Fight), and “Running Out Of Time” featuring Iris Goessens (Three Times Royal, ex-Spoil Engine) form the brutal backbone to this proper kick ass album.
Combined with symphonic elements, “Untimeliness” featuring Helle Bohdanova (Ignea), and “Don’t Look Back” featuring Noa Gruman (Scardust) allow NINO HELFRICH to add that little bit of class(ical) to the mix. Whereas “Revival” featuring Secil Sen (Thwart / Warkings) introduces a more traditional scope of metal to the party giving “Shadow Empress” a very broad bandwidth with which to tempt us.
Also featured are modern and beautiful sounding songs such as “Outrun The Storm” featuring Maja Shining (Forever Still), “Rise Up” featuring Emelle Elizabeth (Eternal Frequency), and “Invisible Beast” featuring Nastassja Giulia (Enemy Inside) which are totally bang on point with current trends in the genre. “Shadow Empress” really is an album for all seasons.
Finally add to that the gothic leaning “Thousand Faces” featuring Sofia Schmidt (Ethereal Kingdoms) and the industrial influenced “Alive” featuring Sanna Sola Solanterä (My Favourite Nemesis) and you have an album that just about ticks every single box. “Alone” featuring Laura Guldemond (Burning Witches) highlights a much softer side to the vocalist that completely took me by surprise in a good way. Hence, I cannot pick out any individual track to be my favourite because they literally all are, period!
“Shadow Empress” is a refreshing and exciting compilation with something for everyone no matter what your preferred sub-genre is. We are talking traditional, gothic, melodic, death and modern metal with many tracks crossing several borders. Nino Helfrich has created something truly special with “Shadow Empress” that is extremely difficult to quantify in words. However, if you take “Shadow Empress” as a musical slice of a specific moment in time then it must indeed be a defining moment. Future metalheads will ask: “who were the best and most outstanding female vocalists of that period?” and we will be able to answer: “there you go, check this out.” Very Highly Recommended!!
Mark Waight