Tristana
Virtual Crime

Slovak band - that isn’t the most written thing in our reviews or the press releases that are sent to us. Maybe that is because Tristana isn’t the most industrious band out there, or because Slovakia doesn’t produce very many metal bands of value. This band has released two albums, one in 2003 and one in 2010 and now five years later it is time again for their third album that is titled Virtual Crime. I think that this album has one of the best cover artworks of the year, at least this far – it is excellent. If the interior is half as exciting as the artwork we have a great album we have here.

Musically they are a bit hard to place, as they don’t fall straight into a category of the metal jungle. They are using growls and clean vocals but do not fit into the melodic death metal genre as they are not heavy enough for that, and they are not really dark enough to fit the gothic genre despite the fact that they use gothic elements. And they are too heavy to be power metal; I think however that it is the closest to that genre with some progressive undertones. Have you heard the band Eldritch? If you have, you can imagine them, slightly heavier and with some growly vocals as well. Great production, the soundscape is fascinating and very strong, the variation over the tracks is good enough to keep it interesting over the entire album. Dramatic sound as well, I would say that it is a pretty exciting production.

Definitely not a virtual crime, it is much better than that. I really like this album, the songs are all good and the balance between the elements in the music is very strong. If I am to be really picky and find faults I would say that they build up most songs in the same kind of way from intro to end which can be a bit of a letdown if you listen to the albums several times on a row. If you do play it over and over the vocals can also be a bit disturbing with the accent of the singer, I thought he was Italian when listening to the album but I guess that Slovaks and Italians have a similar accent. But these two things are being picky and I would say that the album is without major weaknesses.

Jannie’s Dying is my highlight of this album, such a great song with female vocals, growls and clean male vocals in a sort of duet, just brilliant. The rest of the tracks don’t stand out in the same way but the album holds a very high general standard and I very much like to listen to it. I think they have balanced their sound very well, it is an impressive album and I can recommend it very much to all of our readers.

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