Falling Tears

Lyrae is a Progressive/Gothic Metal band from France that formed in 2005 and released their self-produced debut demo “Falling Tears” in 2007.

The demo starts with the title track, which features a short piano theme, which is soon joined by a symphonic synth melody and a nice guitar riff. The song is quite varied and features upbeat parts, as well as sadder passages with organ and violin sounds. There is also a great heavy instrumental part in the middle of the song. Actually hearing the music makes me doubt completeness of the genre description that is given, there is certainly progressive metal involved (first appearing on the second song, but making a frequent appearance in the form of typical progressive song structures from that time on), but in my opinion there is also a big Power Metal influence, because of the speed that is employed along with the double bass drumming.

Caroline, the vocalist of the band cites genre big shots like Floor Jansen, Sharon den Adel and Simone Simons as her influences. Her voice falls somewhere between operatic and clean. There is some support from a male vocalist (also singing clean) on occasions.

The music is highly Symphonic and quite original. The band is skilled at both song writing and the actual execution, making this demo a pleasant surprise.