DELPHIAN – Unravel

Delphian is a five-person band from Holland that has three titles in their discography thus far: a five-song demo, and the full-length releases Oracle (2005) and now Unravel. Unravel is made up of eight songs and runs for about 55 minutes.

Like a good number of heavy bands from Europe, Delphian features a female vocalist; Aniek Janssen does the singing for Delphian, and also plays the flute on a few of Unravel‘s songs.

Unlike some of Europe’s other lady-fronted bands, Delphian refrains from trilling operatic tendencies and bombastic, over-the-top theatrical influences in their music, concentrating more on keeping things heavy with lots of strong, grinding riffs from guitarists Coert Bouten and Marcel Volleberg, and a deep rhythm section backing up Janssen. It’s a time-tested approach, and it works fairly well on Unravel. Janssen’s flute playing is quite good also, and makes the songs stand out a bit.

Delphian does some good things on Unravel … as mentioned, the riffs are quite heavy, and Janssen is a solid vocalist, possessing good tone and range, never overdoing it. The album moves along decently from one song to the next, and it isn’t a boring listen.

What keeps Unravel from being a true standout album is a lack of variety. Nearly every song sounds the same as the one that came before it. Consistency is good (Unravel is a very focused and “tight” album, if nothing else), but it becomes a bit of a problem when you know what the next song will sound like before it starts playing: mid-tempo pacing, pleasing female vocals, heavy riffing, with the occasional solo and flute passage thrown in. Predictability doesn’t kill this album, but it does keep it from being all that it could be. If Unravel was on a vinyl LP, you could drop the needle in a random location on the record and it would take you a minute or two to figure out which song you had chosen.

That being said, Delphian has recorded some solid songs that keep this album from being a waste of time. “Sleepless Lullaby” and “Black & Blue” are solid tracks, with some strong playing, good grooves, and nice melodic vocals. The best song is the 10-minute semi-ballad “Air,” which closes the album; it’s a duet with Janssen and Leon Brouwer, and features some atmospheric melodies and instrumental passages. It finishes the album on a strong note.

Unravel is not a bad album and Delphian is a band that’s obviously talented, but this one doesn’t quite connect as much as it should … or could.