DOL THEETA

Dol Theeta is a project of the Greek space metal hero Thanasis Lightbridge. He acted before as a creator of another, more metal and more gothic space project: Dol Ammad. By the way, both Dols: Ammad and Theeta, linguistically don't mean anything. Phonetically, they sound quite interesting, so no problem with that. Dol Ammad is (was?) a more heavy equipped affair, a full scale electronic gothic metal space ship, with a 14-headed operatic department, may be even suited for a devoted head-banging during the flight. Dol Theeta is evidently a lighter shuttle, stripped to just one opera singer Kortessa, the Ammad co-pilot and guitarist Dim and of course, the captain Thanassis, behind the keyboards and drums.

It's an ideal elevator music for a metalhead. But if you listen to it too closely, you could find some compositions too long and may be not varied enough. So, choose the moment for listening it with care.

The Dol Ammad/Theeta bands is based in the goth metal tradition. Take one piece of operatic like female vocal and put that over some medium harsh goth house rhythms. Add some progressive metal electric guitar solos and male vocals to this mix too and you get this band. A very effective combo which will give you access to the Nightwish/any metal band with a female vocalist market. A very lucrative market.

The music here is pretty good too. The goth house is not as hellish extreme as on the Godess EP. The emphasis is creating mood on this album. A good development, I have to say. But there is still enough goth house here to entertain the fans of this music. The female vocals are great though.

The music is good enough for me. I am not overawed by the lack of a killer track or five. But this album is still well worth investigating.

3 stars

I guess this is called something beginning with Cyber. The rest is unknown. Cyber-Goth perhaps ? Well, this is not my usual fare for sure.

Dol Theeta very much uses the full use of modern electronics. Keyboards, drum machines and samples. Female vocals is then added. Most of the stuff is like Senmuth with added female vocals. That and a lot of goth and cyber effects. But Senmuth is a good reference, yes.

The quality of these seventeen minutes is not that great. The female vocals are great, but they are also twenty on the dozens type of vocals. The rest of the music is pretty dire with the exception of some bagpipes sounds at the end of this EP. There is no dynamics here and very little value. This one is close to being dispatched to the stuffed turkey yard, but is saved by the vocals. A very weak two points is awarded.

2 points

And the seven tracks of the album serves up some pretty intriguing creations; where massive electronic textures are woven, embellished with metal riffs and spacey textures in grandiose and majestic compositions - and the operatic vocals adds just the needed amount of power and contrast to the slightly cold instrumental cascades.

The rest of this production contains songs with more sparse instrumentation; and less focus on richly textured segments and themes. And although nice enough, the tracks get too repetitive without the additional musical embellishments found in the first half of the album - and unless you're a big fan of operatic female vocals these 5 tunes will probably be less interesting.

A mixed affair overall - but worth checking out for the first 7 songs.