Review Summary: "Winsome Scar" is an LP from French progessive/sympho female fronted metal band Heonia. This album features some cool guitar tricks, nice voice and ocassionally great atmospheric fills. Though it might be tiring at times it is worth a listen.
Female fronted progressive is rare, so if there are fans of the genre here - go grab this album without any hesitation! For the others - well, what can we find under the cover?
The first impression is like "great voice, cool guitars though a bit "misty" sounding". The voice is really cool, and it stays so throughout the whole album and even gets better (or maybe it is just me got use to the sound)
But it might also seem very tiring and that is what I didn't like about the beginning of the album. First 4 songs (and it's like 24 minutes of music!!!) are sung in the very same manner. And adding complex progressive structures, growls and really LONG songs it becomes quite an exhaustng listen. The overall feel might seem controversial.
The events dramatically change on the track 5 where there appear fresh melodic hooks, and the whole thing with that "music/show off" balance stops bouncing and settles at a pretty pleasant degree. Further through the album the voice evolves, adding nice backing vocals, becoming richer in dynamics and melodies. I would recommend listening to the album tracks not in straight but in REVERSE order. I really believe that the impression will be much better then). Somewhere around track 5 riffing and soloing becomes steadier either.
There are undoubtedly cool moments on the album. And these are not even the guitar solos which are really great, melodic and rather attractive. Though the lead guitar might seem the main feature of the album in my opinion it is not. The coolest on the album are the moments when the guys stop showing off and start delivering some serious music. Such moments can be heard in "Loneliness", "To Die in Silence", "The awakening". It might seem strange, but what the band does the best, sounds more like acoustic moments, piano fills etc. During such song sections the whole thing becomes more atmospheric and ear-catching.
As I get it it is a debut album, so it's ok for the band to be controversial on the first CD. What I do wait for is the sophomore album by Heonia. Many bands do not make it to the second one but here I can only wish that guys will manage it. It would be cool for them if not to find a fresh way of writing the songs, but try to take 'em to a better studio at least. I know that many bands are pretty tight on a budget, but this music does require a better sound.
