Delain – Lucidity (2010)

Four years have passed since this album’s original (and European only) release. During this years Delain, which started as a project of Martijn Westerholt, has gained worldwide acclaim and recognition. Martijn then decided to make this a full-time touring band and has since released “April Rain”, the band’s second full-length album. Going back in time when Delain only consisted as Martijn and Charlotte Wessels as the permanent members, they recorded “Lucidity”, a majestic Gothic Metal masterpiece.

“Lucidity” features guest appearances from some of the most celebrated musicians in the Gothic Metal scene. We have Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot) on vocals and bass guitar, we also have the appearance of Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation), Liv Kristine (Leaves’ Eyes), and George Oosthoek on growling duties in some of the tracks. As you can expect from this impressive lineup, “Lucidity” is a pretty strong first-release for a band.

Revolving around majestic Keyboard compositions, “Lucidity” takes off where Martijn left off when he had to quit Within Temptation because of health issues, back in 2001. His composition skills are un-paralleled, and in “Lucidity” he creates 11 very solid songs. It kind of sucked that he had to leave Within Temptation before they got ‘big’, but if we would not had Delain if he would have stayed with WT.

As of know, you can image this album is only keyboards and angelic voices, but not quite. Martijn recruited on guitars Ad Sluijter (ex-Epica), Jan Yrlund (Imperia), Guus Eikens (ex-Orphanage), and on drums: Ariën van Weesenbeek (Epica). As you can see this name-dropping is impressive and the music does justice to this great gathering of musicians. We have strong guitar riffs and some great solos. This adds power to the music, much needed for contrasting it with the keyboard melodies and magical female voices.

During “Lucidity” we are treated to great duets between Marco and Charlotte (most notably “No Compliance”), Charlotte and Sharon (also “No Compliance”), Charlotte and Liv Kirstine (on “See Me In Shadow”), and Charlotte and George (on “Frozen). Trying to pick a favorite song in this album is almost close to impossible for us since we love each track.

If you already got the European version, what reasons do you have to get this American re-release through Sensory records? We have to say that you have 5 good reasons why. This digi-pack includes 5 bonus tracks. (Deep) Frozen and Silhouette Of A Dancer (acoustic version) which we already had in our Japanese edition of this album, also there are acoustic versions of Frozen and See Me In Shadow, and the Charlotte on vocals only: No Compliance. All these extra tracks add a good value when considering getting this re-release.

After reading our review, you can easily figure out that we LOVED this release, it features great music and beautiful vocals, what else can you expect. Releasing on June 22nd, you should pre-order yours as soon as possible, since just the extra tracks are worth the money.

Re-release: June 22nd, 2010

Country: Netherlands