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Artist: SNOVONNE
Album: It's Sno, Baby - Not Sugar
Year: 2009
Snovonne is a band based in England led by frontwoman Snovonne. Having already a music carreer behind her in her home region Czech Republic and Slovakia, supporting bands such as Alice In Chains, Scorpions, Cradle Of Filth and Fun Lovin’ Criminals, she moved to England to continue her passion. 'It’s Sno Baby - Not Sugar' is the long awaited debut release of Snovonne and her band.
The release opens with 'If I'm Not Me Then Who Is'. It contains diverse drumming, hard riffing, wellplaced keylines and accessable vocal lines, resulting in a powerful opener of the release. 'My Sweet Fiend' is built on decent midtempo drumming, repetative keylines and a bouncing bassline, while decorated with gentle vocal lines and wellplaced riffing. Overall a pretty easy going wave track with gothic influences. '2 Damn Years' comes with orchestral and neo-classical touches, showing a different face of this band. It is constructed around simple though decent drumming and beautiful keylines, bringing in recogniseable vocal lines and subtile and powerful riffing. Despite it's title, the next song isn't 'Useless' at all. It comes with powerful riffing and drumming, wrapped around an overall wave attitude. The keylines are an essential part of this track, taking care of more atmosphere. 'Things I Can't See' follows. It's one of the more surprising tracks on the record, with the experimental drumming and keylines that seem to come straight out of an Oliver Twist kind of movie, and the sing-a-long attitude of the vocal lines. The wave chorus give the song a darker touch. 'Tired' is another catchy track, with a sticky chorus and easy going couplets. It's existing of excellent keylines and powerful drumming, subtile sampling and hard riffing. The title track 'It's Sno Baby Not Sugar' includes a heavy bassline, decent drumming and probably the best riffing of the whole release. The keylines are a little less present than on the other tracks, making this sound like one of the more heavy songs on the release, without losing it's wave attitude. 'Cradlesong' is a beautiful ballad likely track, built on a spine of diverse keylines and well synchronising vocal lines and guitarpicks. The drumming is powerful though very gentle and accessable, same goes for the riffing on the chorus. 'Fatalism' is my personal favorite track on the release. It mixes wave with tiny touches of electro and straight to the point riffing, resulting in a powerful and more than decent song that would fit in both the wave and the electro metal worlds. 'Life Needs Fools' contains repetative electro samples, cold keylines, subtile riffing and gentle vocal lines - resulting in a decent gothic metal track. 'Temper' is the track that has the most metal influences on this release. It mixes strong riffing and bashing drumming with essential diverse vocal lines and wellplaced keylines, resulting in a heavy sounding though still very accessable track. '(Sleep Well) Jermaine' is a decent gothic metal track, showing a good way of mixing midtempo drumming and heavy riffing with a goth attitude on both the key- and vocal lines. 'Dressed In White' is the longest track of the release, with nearly five and a half minutes. It mixes touches of wave and neo-classical music with the harsh power of metal through the riffing and the drums, all wrapped together in an accessable package with recogniseable and diverse vocal lines. The release ends with 'Tears Are Pretty'. It's a track with a slightly theatrical sound, mixing tiny tiny touches of folk with wave and even a little synth pop.
The main thing that drives the music is, despite the many musical influences and decently built tracks, clearly the vocal lines. Not only do they sound very mature, as well they bring diversity in both the vocal lines itself and the music. Another remarkable thing of this release is the choice of tracks. Mostly the albums in this genre start more heavy to end more softly, but in this case it's the other way round. A very surprising thing indeed. One thing that could get a little improvement is the production. Maybe it was intentionally raw - but I think that with a little more clean production this band could reach even further.
So, a very promising debut release of this band, that fans of bands such as Evanescence, Omega Lithium, Volkmar and maybe even Dol Ammad will definitely dig. If you consider yourself a fan of these bands, you can buy this one blindly without any risk for a dissapointment.
Vote: 86 / 100
Review by: Gerardo
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1. If I'm Not Me Then Who Is
2. My Sweet fiend
3. 2 Damn Years
4. Useless
5. Things I Can't See
6. Tired
7. It's Sno Baby Not Sugar
8. Cradlesong
9. Fatalism
10. Life Needs Fools
11. Temper
12. (Sleep Well) Jermaine
13. Dressed In White (The Last Supper Song)
14. Tears Are Pretty (Epilogue Version)
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