Xandria

Live at The House of Blues

Los Angeles, California

September 29th, 2014

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Xandria is a German symphonic metal band that started out in the mid 90's and gained a serious European following just after the turn of the century with the hit release "Ravenheart". The band has had numerous lineup reconfigurations over the years, the lead singer being the most often changed, but with a new voice and a brand new album, they finally reach our shores.

Xandria's newest album, "Sacrificium" proves to be their most epic and powerful release to date. Their current singer, Diane van Giersbergen, not only is gorgeous on stage, but her magnificent voice brings a dynamic, operatic quality that blends with the bombastic metal assault and uplifting symphonic pieces in a way that illustrates and defines what this genre of music is about.

Xandria were the opening act for the Finnish cult act, Sonata Arctica and with Dutch symphonic metallers, Delain also in support. I first found Xandria in 2001 and have been waiting for nearly fourteen years to have a chance to see them perform. Their newest lineup is better than I imagined, Diane at once has a captivating stage presence with her appearance and outfit but then the magnitude of her voice is quite something to behold.

They opened the set with "Nightfall" off of the newest release, which is an epic tale that has many power metal influences in terms of the elements of fantasy and the imagery of their lyrics. The songs are uplifting powerful journeys, at times tragic and others victorious.

They followed up with "Blood on My Hands" off of their previous release, "Neverworld's End". It would turn out that they would focus on these two latest releases for their entire set list as they only had so much time as an opening act.

"Forevermore" was the third song of the set and Diane would gesture and articulate as she sang while the dual guitars and bass built a driving force. You could see the entire band was loving being on stage and the response from the Los Angeles audience was very enthusiastic to the music as the crowd was swept up in the flood of energy.

The time was running out on the set but we would get a couple of more songs from them before they would leave us. They did "Stardust" off of the latest release and then finished up with the excellent "Valentine".

It was a great performance and made me love Xandria even more than I did before the show. Any fans of Nightwish, Epica, or any female fronted symphonic metal will greatly appreciate their talent.

They perfectly combine the beautiful operatic vocals with a driving metal assault layered on top of moving symphonic orchestrations. I wish they would have had more time to play, as I would have loved to hear more songs such as "Soulcrusher" as well as some of their older material like "Ravenheart" but hopefully, with the excitement the audience showed, they will be persuaded to tour again soon.

Click the banner above

to return the navigation page of the

Virtual Night Angel

website