Imperia – Secret Passion (2011)

In the first few months we have received amazing Gothic Metal releases from bands like Sirenia, Dotma, Visions of Atlantis, etc, today is the turn to Imperia and their third full-length release “Secret Passion”. After a 4 year waiting period since “Queen of Light”, the band returns with a very average Gothic Metal release that while not bad at all, it just feels a bit heartless.

As we all know, Helena Iren Michaelsen (ex Trail of Tears), is a very good vocalist and her angelic voice carries “Secret Passion” from start to end. The music is good and the instrumentation is nice, but it just feels very similar to countless other releases we have heard in the past. There are no songs that made us stop and want to listen to the again immediately after there are over, and we consider this a bad sign.

Opening with “Touch of Your Hand”, the band quickly shows that they will be using some weird electronic elements in their sound making them sound a bit too similar to Theater of Tragedy in their electro-pop phase. However, Imperia do not go full-on electronic and keeps the proceedings in a more Symphonic Gothic Metal context. The instrumentation of “Secret Passion” is quite nice, and the different pace of the song makes it for an interesting second track, but nothing super special about it.

In “Fragile” the band uses more the electronic stuff mixed in between nice operatic chorus section. The vocal arrangements through this album are pretty solid and for the 13 songs presented in this release we can’t really complain about them at all. Helena’s deep voice makes for a nice contrast over the majority of the bands using sweet innocent vocalists. After a series of average songs, we hit “Suicide” a track that starts off with bagpipes, weird vocals and a very chaotic nature. This is probably our favorite song since the band shakes things up a bit and delivers something different from the rest.

In the song “Greed”, the band goes full-on Sirenia copycat. At the end of the ‘regular’ release we have “My Sleeping Angel”, a very emotional track feature a male/female duet and piano music. While this seems to be an effective closing track, it feels like a section of a musical and contrasts with the rest of the album. On the digipack bonus track “Mistress”, the band goes full on Theater of Tragedy “Assembly” mode, and will freak out plenty of the band’s fans.

Overall, we have to say that “Secret Passion” is not a bad album, just an uninspired one. The band shows tendencies that they might go the electronic/disco way in their next release, so beware of what Imperia holds for us in the future. Do buy this release if you have money to spare and want another decent Symphonic Gothic Metal album in your collection.

Release: March 25th, 2011

Country: Netherlands