HinweiseGenre : Melodic Power Metal
Country : France
Year : 2007

Line Up :

Myléne Genoux (vocals), Joackim Ménard (guitar / vocals), Manu Chauty (bass), Jonathan Ménard (keyboards), Pierre Garcia (drums)

History :

The tale of symphonic Metal band MIDWINTER begins with an antecedent act by the name of NUTSHELL. This former band was founded by the Chauty brothers, guitarist Luc and drummer Manu, in 2000 in union with female singer Stéphanie Ferrand and bassist Fabien Bourcereau. The group recruited a third brother, Pierre Chauty, on keyboards to record a three song demo. Chance then intervened as NUTSHELL were invited to appear by France 3, a French national TV channel, to appear in one of their programmes, airing their songs to an audience of millions. Despite this, Bourcereau departed.

The group re-structured itself as Manu Chauty shifted to the bass role and Christophe Sququet was drafted as drummer. Two more demo songs were recorded in a studio in Nantes prior to the band's first gigs. NUTSHELL then took a decision to upgrade themselves, acquiring soprano singer Astrid Delaunay in place of Ferrand in mid 2002 and re-titling the band MIDWINTER. The new look band entered the recording studios in the Summer of the following year, working with Pierre-Emmanuel Pélisson of HEAVENLY as producer. These self financed tracks were rewarded by a contact with Thundering Records.

MIDWINTER underwent further changes that Autumn as Jonathan Ménard substituted on keyboards, Delauney was "fired" and superseded by Nora Otmane and Pierre Garcia took command of the drums. The band was hit by tragedy on 26th May 2004 when Luc Chauty died. Resolving to carry on, Joackim Ménard, brother of Jonathon, took on the guitar responsibilities. Shortly afterward Otmane exited and was replaced by the eighteen year old Myléne Genoux.

Thundering Records released the Pierre-Emmanuel Pélisson produced album 'The Glassy Waters' in April 2007, this set including a cover version of the GUNS N' ROSES classic 'Sweet Child O' Mine'.

Review :

Let's be honest, the first album of Midwinter was a pure clone of Nightwish. It wasn't bad but suffered of the comparison with the confirmed bands of this trendy musical style. But it's different nowadays, the trend is dying and a lot of bands try to change a bit their sound to survive. Midwinter decided to change a bit too and it's not a bad thing because musically speaking it's really better and a lot more personal and original than on the previous album. That's a good thing…

"The Glassy Waters" is darker than the previous album, "Fountain of Youth" and if you already know this release, you'll clearly hear that the band add a lot of personality to their music since 2003. Without being perfect, "The Glassy Waters" is a lot more interesting (it doesn't sound like a copy anymore) than "Fountain Of Youth" especially in reason of the dark elements that we can find on the songs now like the little progressive touches that you can encounter sometime. It's still Melodic Power Metal but not so easy and commercial than the one on the previous album. I can tell you that Midwinter is growing, that's a fact, the band is more mature now and the musicians wrote a bunch of good pleasant songs.

However I have a big problem with this release… the singer. The performance of Mylène Genoux is more than average and really the performance of previous singer was better. A lot of girls want to sing like Tarja Turunen but they don't all have her voice and here, the voice of Mylène seems to be false and even a bit out of tune sometime especially when she tries to do high pitched vocals. It's problematic because this is the first thing that you'll hear when you'll listen to the album and it doesn't help the music. However, she is young and her voice is not terrible so it should be better with time but obviously she will have to work to improve her vocals.

With a really nice production signed one more time by Pierre-Emmanuel Pellison (ex Heavenly) with a lot of good new ideas and finally a mus!2007-04-25 08:41:29.000!0͸ÛÍ!ÈÛÍÈÛÍ쥎!0ÍèÛÍ!2007-04-30 00:00:00.000‘!Cue-Fix hinzugefügt**n Top 20 + Hot Trackz*se)*)icht)r*komplett*ugefügt - Info lesen! - Staffel komplett*‘0ͨÜÍ쥎ˆ¨Í
9S^š6ìÜÍ0ªÍ wÍè©Íimports)91)¬]ˆîÍ@YÏ0ÎId = '!1x²Îÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ:00.ÿÿÿÿ!!xZÏÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ„³Îÿÿÿÿ!!(HÎÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ.1.ÿÿÿÿ!ˆêÍxA¾_ÔHôÝÍ€SÏhîΐ‰ÎMasterViewAccess