Dutch symphonic metal crew Delain serve up there fourth album The Human Contradiction, which promises to be step up in scope and ambition in that it is a “concept” album based around the sci-fi novels 'Lilith's Brood' by Octavia E. Butler that delves into Humanities inherent self-destructive tendencies (vocalist Charlotte Wessels explains all here).
Along with the usual array of assorted guest singers (Marco Hietala from Nightwish and Alissa White-Gluz of The Agonist/Arch Enemy being the most prominent) this could have resulted in an impenetrable jumbled mess but they are a slick enough outfit and great songwriters to avoid this pitfall and produce an album packed to the gills with joyful tunes that also ebb and flow with the narrative.
The adventure begins with ‘Here Comes The Vultures’ greeting us with the warm bluesy tones of vocalist Charlotte Wessels narrating in first person backed only by a piano in a vibe very similar to a stage musical until the first RIFF kicks in, and kick in it does in a surprising dynamic fashion! As usually for this genre the guitar work ends up being non-descript filler in the background but here is up front providing serious clout, the stage musical vibe remains prevalent in the song especially in the gothic fantasy inspired breakdown.
After that quirky and dramatic start ‘Your Body Is A Battleground’ reverts back to type by being hook laden up tempo symphonic metal containing further impressive RIFF work, dramatic rhythm’s full of twist and turns and a great vocal play off with Marco Hietala.
It’s also here where they perfectly straddle the balance between delivering the concept and still hooking in the casual listener as the ridiculous on paper chorus refrain of “Your body is a battle ground, chemicals are scattered round, Your body is a battle ground, and you can’t do without, your body is an industry, you can’t break free” actually works and buries into your head.
This carries on throughout as lyrics or choruses that seem nonsensical actually work especially with the very commercialised pop bounce of ‘Stardust’ and the somewhat more traditional symphonic metal of ‘My Masquerade’ which includes a vocal trade-off between Charlotte and a deep male vocalist (sounds like Ville Laihiala from Sentenced/Poison Black ) over further impressive dynamic RIFF work.
‘Tell Me, Mechanist’ carries on where ‘My Masquerade’ finished and also includes djent flavoured RIFFAGE and some rather misplaced growled vocals that along with the VERY pop styled choruses is the first song to lose its way but is immediately rectified by ‘Sing To Me’ which features another appearance by Marco Hietala and has a stronger metallic drive to propel the symphonic elements culminating in a very dramatic ending.
Apart from the initial disco entrance ‘Army Of Dolls’ chugs away without doing anything noticeable and when you think ‘Lullaby’ is heading the same way it incorporates some very Scandinavian doom elements and suddenly builds into a stadium rock crescendo.
Speaking of crescendos…. album closer ‘The Tragedy Of The Commons’ contains an absolute barn stormer of one as they break out into full blown operatic symphonic metal with even Charlotte hitting the high notes, this is somewhat hampered by the appearance of Alissa White-Gluz as the growls are once again misplaced and don’t add anything to the song itself, luckily this appearance is only brief and the album finishes on an epic fade out.
The fact that through these lyrics I now want to read the novels this is based on, must equal some kind of success.
