Forever Slave - Alice's Inferno

*=Staff's pick	Lunatic Asylum Reminiscences In The Forest Equilibrium* The Circles Of Tenebra Dreams And Dust Aquelarre Across The Mirror Tristeza The Letter

Genre	Black/Goth Metal	Lady Angellyca	Vocals
Tracks	10	Servalath	Guitar
Runningtime	54 Min.	Oswalth/Ignacio	Guitar/Violin
Label	Armageddon Music	Michael	Bass
Release	26 Sept. 2005	Edward	Drums
Country	Spain	Leal	Keyboards
Similar artists	Cradle Of Filth, King Diamond

Forever Slave was formed in Valencia, Spain in the year 2000 by the gothic vocalist and art student Lady Angellyca and guitarist Servalath. The purpose was to create metal with female gothic vocals combined with heavy guitars and symphonic elements. These ingredients lead the band all the way to the headquarters of the german Armageddon Music label. The result is spelled Alice's Inferno, produced by Lars Ratz at the Tornado Studios, Hamburg and Mallorca.

Alice´s Inferno is a concept album that tells the story of a teenager, who in the story are found next to her dead parents all covered in blood and a knife in her hand. The young woman gets accused for the murder of her parents and ends up at an asylum. This album tells us her thoughts and lets us know the story and journey in her inner mind. That's the story about the foundation of this album. With several intros and instrumental arrangements I would say that Forever Slave has managed to create really interesting vibes at a first listening. Lady Angellycas' voice is something out of the ordinary. Light and fragile, still strong and in some way beautiful, and always performed together with the dark voice of the drummer Edward. Something that makes me thinks of the early days and arrangements from the british vampire colleagues in Cradle Of Filth. If we only would talk musical aspects in a technical way, there would be no reasons to hesitate that this album is monumental. But in order to play any kind of metal there has to be at least some of the following important ingredients; depth, heavy tunes, aggression and speed. This album has nothing or very little of these essential elements.

There are various and excellent classical choices like Dvorak, Verdi and Vivaldi to listen to if you want drama in music. If you want drama in metal, I guess that Alice´s Inferno could be an option. This is a slow, mid-tempo kind of metal with the angelic voice of Lady Angellyca. That's all. I find it hard to get excited over this material. Even though the musicians and the arrangements sometimes are extremely good, there are very few moments that you afterwards can recall as really good. As said, if you pick pieces from this material and look at it each one at the time there are some great performances such as the vocals, good technical works by the guitarist and on the violin, but as a unity Alice's Inferno are a bit plastic and hollow. It's kind of sad cause the intentions are not bad and Forever Slave must have the potential to play more intense and heavier. The production is ok but also without depth and soul I would say.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
6	7	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Tim