Delain is dead, long live Charlotte Wessels. The famous Dutch symphonic metal band had bowed out after an excellent vintage, 'Apocalypse And Chill'. Its singer Charlotte Wessels had announced her intention to devote herself to a solo career a little closer to her desires. For her first album, enriched with a beautiful cover, Charlotte wanted to open a door to the beyond with these ''Tales From Six Feet Under''.
On her first solo effort, Charlotte Wessels programs, plays all the instruments and interprets the songs (except for 'Lizzie' where she shares the vocals with Alissa White-Gluz). Her enthusiasm and hard work are already evident on 'Superhuman', an atmospheric track with a strong symphonic feel and a confident voice that strangely recalls some of Dolores O'Riordan's (The Cranberries) intonations. With the exception of 'F.S.U' close to Delain, the sounds of the album are combined on the atmospheric pop-rock modes rather surprising. Charlotte's vocals is always bewitching and Delain's fans will be happy to hear their favourite singer in great shape. Her voice, sometimes fragile, sometimes confident, opens the doors to an intimate universe. 'New Mythology' gives us the impression of discovering a new face which was however familiar to us, 'Source Of The Flame' plays with the listener's expectations with a final explosion as unexpected as enjoyable. The young woman even tries other languages with success: 'Afkicken' is a track entirely interpreted in her mother tongue and 'Victor' is sung in french.
Nevertheless, Charlotte does not avoid certain pitfalls. The listener might be disappointed when listening to the cover of 'Cry Little Sister', featured on the soundtrack of Joel Schumacher's vampire movie "Generation Lost" even if the orchestrations are successful and Charlotte provides energetic backing vocals. The aforementioned 'Lizzie' has flavors of "The Sound of Music" but with a certain lack of panache. Charlotte Wessels also tries a commercial approach on two occasions with a not always convincing result ('Soft Revolution' and 'Masterpiece', with rather flat percussion effects and a chorus as phoned as pushy).
Charlotte Wessels conceived from A to Z an album that resembles her, moving away as much as possible from her old habits, far from what we could hear in Delain. In spite of a handful of tracks that are a little slow, Charlotte Wessels' intimate universe certainly deserves to be explored and these ''Tales From Six Feet Under'' announce a promising solo career.