"Nothing Left" by Delain from April Rain

"Follow me back home / 'Cause the night is young / And I'm tired of being alone" probably captures "Nothing Left" the best.

Delain's song "Nothing Left" tells of someone who's using alcohol, drugs, and sex because they don't feel like they can breathe otherwise. It can be interpreted where that's all the same person, or where the significant other is a childish junkie so the song's narrator is striking back by having a drunken one-night stand.

I don't see the point or appeal of one-night stands and drunkenness (and have theological objections to them, for that matter), but I keep listening to this song. I cringe at the song's narrator every time I hear it, but I still listen.

I listen because the vocals and music blend perfectly with the mood of the song's narrator. The music has piano, brass, drums in a symphonic blend that sort of reminds me of Within Temptation's song "Ice Queen". (Wait, I haven't reviewed that one yet? Shoot, gotta put that in the queue.)

At any rate, Delain made the song melodic, with a slow tempo, that somehow conveys the feeling of emotional lethargy that the singer speaks of. That singer, Charlotte Wessels, adds to the conveyed emotion without sounding apathetic. It fits perfectly. Marco Hietala from Nightwish even sings the backup vocals.

Overall, if the song topic doesn't offend you and you like melodic rock ballads, you might find this one worth a listen. Or at least you might want to check out some of the vivid creative turns of phrase that are in the lyrics.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 8/10

"On the Other Side" by Delain from April Rain

Every rock album that I'm familiar with has a ballad or two in there, and "On the Other Side" is a rock ballad on Delain's sophomore album, April Rain. It's more on the "rock" end than "ballad" end, though.

Anyone familiar with Delain's first album (Lucidity) probably knows that Delain isn't a band, strictly speaking; it's a music project.

That is, it was a music project. It did well enough that it's become a band. The singer Charlotte Wessels remains, as does the guy who started the entire project (former Within Temptation member Martijn Westerholt). They're even working on their 3rd album.

But back to the 2nd album, April Rain. Charlotte Wessel's Dutch accent doesn't show up in this song, really. She's more articulate than some native English singers. (Granted, some native English singers are intentionally inarticulate.) Her voice is pretty and soft-ish without being delicate—and I doubt a delicate voice would've worked with this song's music.

As befits the gothic half of Delain's symphonic/gothic metal style, "On the Other Side" seems to talk about dying. ("You've said your last goodbyes / And left your daughters mourning") My interpretation is that the song narrator is someone who's dying and hopes she'll find a certain dead loved one when she crosses over.

It isn't quite that simple, though, because the song does say "But God, I'm proud". I choose to interpret that as the song's narrator actually talking to God (which therefore might imply that the person the narrator wants to see is God), but I don't think that's how the song was intended. Though I could be wrong.

Even so, the song has a lovely little background of some quick vibrato-ish strings (I don't know the proper name for that, sorry), melted with smoother longer strings and other things. Add a mellower drum beat and electric guitar, and the result's kinda compelling.

The resulting music isn't all-out jaw-dropping fantastic, but it flows with the song in a way that you can tell is intentional. It also melds with the singer's voice to the point that I'm not sure you could sing the song in a different style and not sound terrible.

Overall, if you don't mind the necessary reinterpretation (if you have a problem with "Thou shalt not take My name in vain"), and you like rock ballads, you probably want to give it a listen. Otherwise, nah.

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Lyrics: *2/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: *7/10 *This song likely misuses "God".

"April Rain" by Delain from April Rain

The title track for Delain's most recent album sets the tone for the rest of April Rain.

"April Rain" isn't as gothic as the tracks of Delain's first album, Lucidity—probably in part because Delain started as a music project not a band—but there's still a gothic feel to the music. It's comparable to Nightwish's "Amaranth" (from their Dark Passion Play album).

Delain's singer Charlotte Wessels has a pretty voice that fits the pop-ish music. Her accent gets a bit distracting, though. Fortune is pronounced "for-chune" and then rhymes with the rest of the line: "smiles on you". That line gets repeated twice in every round of the chorus. The song would be a lot more enjoyable without that slaughtered word. It distracts me every time.

Despite the gothic influences, the song's actually encouraging. Even when life's hard, even when all your plans end up "scatterbrained" and "hurricane"s, life is what you make of it. If you watch, you can make things better—but if you don't watch out for when "fortune smiles on you", you'll just "dig that hole deeper" and sink further into despair.

The music video illustrates this with a cloaked woman fighting her way across a rainy bridge before it collapses, to be pulled to safety by the singer, Charlotte Wessels. The cloaked woman then removes her hood to reveal that she herself is also Charlotte.

Overall, fans of pop-ish metal music should enjoy this, and it has a good message.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 8/10

"See Me in Shadow" by Delain from Lucidity

"Standing by the paintings of your dreams that you have awoken, and all the purples and the greens have turned to black…"

Okay, yeah, it's a bit of a dark song at the first glance. But it's admitting how we're all imperfect and have dreams that must be released at some point. It's a very sweet song, like Nightwish's "Eva" and Evanescence's "My Immortal".

The language is very clean, and "See Me in Shadow" admits how no one's perfect, all "our lives do have our imperfection". Having "eyes wide open but still blind to see what really matters" is sadly more common than we like to remember.

I'm not sure, though, if "Forget yourself and who you are; another life is not that far" is meant to refer to restarting one's own goals in life or a reference to reincarnation. The music video has the wedding-garbed singer looking over the holdovers from her wrecked wedding before heading into a lake. So literally, the song might be talking about reincarnation, but it might be intentionally symbolic. The listener will have to decide how to accept that.

For anyone who's heard "Frozen", it's similar instrumentation. "See Me in Shadow" mixes rock music with the lovely piano and violin that opens the song and covers the verses, with electric guitar and such appearing for the verses.

Charlotte Wessels has a nice voice that is only slightly hindered by her Dutch accent. It mainly appears in slight sounds that she has an accent, but it's no biggie. Her voice sometimes echoes or changes a note in a verse to suit the song.

If you've liked such songs as "My Immortal"—this is better melded than that one's band version—or "Eva" I suggest you check it out.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 9/10

"Frozen" by Delain from Lucidity

Delain isn't strictly a band. The only permanent members are the ex-Within Temptation member Martjin Westerholt (who had to leave Within Temptation from chronic illness) and Charlotte Wessels (who was an accidental find). Various songs on Lucidity have aid from a "wish list" of artists from other bands. The CD is more of a project than an album, a project for gothic metal with Charlotte's lovely popesque (albeit accented) voice.

Perhaps since Delain was started by a man who was both in Within Temptation for so long and the brother of its founder, the music style is very similar to that other popular Dutch band. Though Delain is slightly different, listeners unfamiliar with the style of music likely won't be able to distinguish Delain's gothic metal from Within Temptation's symphonic metal aspect.

The music is still very good. A music box (which you see in the music video) opens the song's basic line. It all melds beautifully, without anything that makes you grimace from poor mixing. Martjin Westerholt chose skilled artists to work with for his project.

"Frozen" (to be distinguished from the like-named songs by Within Temptation and Voyage) is a ghost story. "Misty windows hide your empty eyes…" (Note that Delain's "Frozen" and "Deep Frozen" are identical except for the chorus, which is very different.) The narrator is haunted by a ghost who wants her to "Answer me" and "Please let me in! The nicely-done music video shows Charlotte trying to track down what haunts her (though the reversed time-lapse pictures I found a bit obvious).

An interesting aspect to the song and music video is that the song narrator evidently doesn't know who is haunting her. She's as confused as anyone else.

Charlotte Wessels haunts the listener with the "Answer me. Until the day you do, I'll be one step behind you!" The vocals make you think of a haunting without necessarily thinking a horror movie was in order (like Evanescence's "Haunted"). Nonetheless, I unfortunately found her accent distracting. Her voice is lovely and prettily suits the gothic metal.

The song "Frozen" and its music video can currently be found on Delain's official MySpace page.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 9/10