Phantasma – The Deviant Hearts (November 20, 2015)

To introduce Charlotte Wessels to any connoisseur of symphonic metal would be like carrying coals to Newcastle – she is, after all, since 2005 the vocal figurehead of Dutch grandees Delain, who celebrated a spectacular debut with Napalm Records in 2014 with their latest and fourth album The Human Contradiction. Whether melancholy, atmosphere or brute force: The quintet presented itself musically and vocally from its hitherto strongest side. It is therefore not only surprising but also even more gratifying that Charlotte now even found some leisure time, to let her new solo project Phantasma rise phoenix-like from the ashes! Although Charlotte was on tour with Delain, they went to the States with Sonata Arctica and all around Europe with Sabaton, she managed to find some time to create an excellent gem that answers to the name of The Deviant Hearts. However, followers of Charlotte‘s main band won’t be snubbed, you can see the title as a thematic thread alone, a silk fiber with which Charlotte very sensitively weaves the equally comforting and grief-stricken stories of her solo debut. Especially with Phantasma the Dutch Queen can let her beautiful and variable voice run free like the wind, sometimes tender like on “Runaway Gray”, elegiac on “Let It Die” or gently-consuming on “Carry Me Home”. The almost duet like “The Lotus and the Willow” makes Charlotte‘s passion for Nick Cave abundantly clear, since it even matches the intensity of “Where The Wild Roses Grow” (with Kylie Minogue). “The passion for music is that main thing that makes you a musician”, muses Charlotte and instantly delivers with The Deviant Hearts the acoustic proof of this. Q.E.D. (from Amazon)