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Kilmara: Love Songs and Other Nightmares
Kilmara Love Songs and Other Nightmares CD Album Review

Kilmara: Love Songs and Other Nightmares

Melodic/Heavy/Power Metal
3.5/5.0

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Sony Music
Words by Craig Hartranft,  19.06.2014

I'm guessing most metalheads will be distracted when listening to Kilmara's third album Love Songs and Other Nightmares, focusing more on the smokin' hot chick on the cover, than upon the music within. They're likely thinking, 'Does she have a Facebook page, and more pictures.' I guess some mention should be made of the music within.

Kilmara Love Songs and Other Nightmares Band Photo

Kilmara: take a break.

A quick heads up: you can skip over the first song, Fantasy. Kilmara has some asshat delivering some death vocals. Totally unnecessary. What follows is some basic melodic heavy and power metal, probably leaning more to the former than the latter. Several elements are quite notable: the thick barrage of riffage that swells most every song, the thick drumming, and the sharp guitar leads.

Strangely enough, these don't crush the melody inherent in the song or vocal arrangements. Also, surprisingly, the mix keeps Christian Wolfgang Kohl's vocals above and clear in most every song. A good example is Nothing to Me, perhaps the heaviest and hard charging song here. (It's also a reflection of the loose theme across the album, problems of love, relationships, and addictions.) While the entirety of the album is basically muscle-bound, steroid-injected metal, groove and accessibility is not lost either. Songs like The Devil's Eye, The Break Up, Nothing to Me, and Usual Strangers have some groove and hooks in both arrangements and refrains. However, all this presents a certain dilemma: the formula for most every song, based on the aforementioned elements, is pretty darn predictable. The rare exception is the acoustic guitar at the beginning of Believe. But this merely begets the adage, 'beware of songs that start low and slow,' as Believe pummels with the rest. If you're looking for a heavy metal riff monster, yet with melody and stinging guitars, Kilmara's Love Songs and Other Nightmares is worth your time. Now go back to looking at the girl on the cover. Maybe I should give the album a higher score just for presence.


Kilmara - Cold Rain





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In Short

If you're looking for a heavy metal riff monster, yet with melody and stinging guitars, Kilmara's Love Songs and Other Nightmares is worth your time.

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