"Stop my heart" CD by Dark Princess

by Sonja Angerer (21.11.2007) Russia is not only the origin of several interesting Fantasy-series currently (e.g. by Sergej Lukianenko), also more and more extremely thrilling Rock music comes from there. Like, e.g., of Dark Princess. Behind this not very original band name you encounter the exceptional singstress, Olga Romanova in a classic Gothic Metal line up including keyboards. What this quintet delivers on this album is very excitatory: in the opener, "Cry", Romanova's variable voice beautifully winds around melodic Hardrock riffs with a stamp of the early 90s; details, like spoken word passages kill every monotony and cliché alarm immediately. Of course, there is enough pathos, too: "Close to the sky", almost a hymn, has a great, emotional side to it. Yet, here, too, some strange chord here or a surprising change there make this song another example for the band's fresh and very catchy sound. Especially beautiful is also "Join me in life", a dramatic power-duet. But also "One last goodbye" with its sensible piano intro deserves the predicate "recommendable"!