One of the positive things about the internet is the ability to discover new things. It’s true that the internet is an important tool for musicians who want to showcase their work and who probably don’t have the backing of a record label to do so.
One such case is Kings Winter, yeah I know the name doesn’t make much sense, who I literally stumbled upon while surfing YouTube. The band from Germany has been on the road since 2018 and this is their second full length album as an independent release.
“The Other Side of Fear” is just under 40 minutes long and is an interesting mixture of power metal, a more classic sound but also several modern touches. So, we are dealing with 8 compositions with a quite varied sound. From the first moment it is clear that a very good job has been done on the guitars. The tracks are quite rich compositionally with well written melodic lines. The result is clearly quite tight with none of the compositions lagging behind the others.
I found Jule Dahs’ voice really interesting as it has a lot of grit and blends harmoniously with the material. I could say she reminded me of my favorite Doro with her performance. There are some minimal extreme vocals which don’t spoil the atmosphere but I could live without them. As a whole the compositions are quite strong but I would have liked a bit more speed to them. The production is fresh and modern, everything sounds crystal clear, while the cover artwork of their work is also very nice.
Kings Winter definitely have the background to belong to the roster of a good label but it seems that they do very well without one. “The Other Side Of Fear” is a work that will surely interest the fans of the more modern sound in heavy metal.
