Band: Sarah Jezebel Deva
Title: The Corruption Of Mercy
Label: Listenable Records
Distribution: Suburban / Bertus
Release date: June 20th 2011
Review: CD

I guess almost everybody knows this talented lady, real name Sarah Jane Ferridge. She’s been (session) singer for tens of great acts, like Cradle Of Filth and Therion. Sarah did also collaborate with Mortiis, Graveworm, The Gathering, Tulus, Creations Tears, Mystic Circle, Trigger The Bloodshed, Covenant / The Kovenant, Mensrea, Mad Dog and so on, and so on, and so on, and she co-operated on (at least) two tribute albums, to Dead Can Dance and to Thin Lizzy. In 2005 she started Angtoria with Chris Rehn (of Abyssos / ex-Evergrey-fame), with God Has A Plan For Us All as recording result (also through Listenable), but a couple of years ago, Sarah decided to concentrate on her self-called solo-project, so she parted ways with Cradle Of Filth, and Angtoria were put on hold.
Sarah’s first solo-effort, A Sign Of Sublime, was recorded with guest and session members she did work with before (or she shared the same band with), like Dave Pybus (Cradle Of Filth, ex-Anathema, Dreambreed, and collaborated with Angtoria), Martin Powell (think: ex-Cryptal Darkness, My Dying Bride, Cradle of Filth, Anathema), Angtoria-colleague Chris Rehn, and Max Blunos (Trigger The Bloodshed). Unfortunately, this album didn’t get the international promotion it should have deserved, but it didn’t scare Sarah to go on.
The sophomore album The Corruption Of Mercy was recorded at Legacy London Studio (not that known at all, yet apparently it’s the new name for the formerly called Escape Route Studios). Again, Sarah enlisted an amazing list of guest / session musicians, amongst whom the Abela-brothers (with guitar player Dan taking care of writing big parts of the music too), Gian Pyres (Cradle Of Filth, yet also e.g. Solstice, Dragonlord, Extreme Noise Terror, Theatres Des Vampires, Christian Death, Gorerotted and tens of others) or Pzy-Clone (Covenant / The Kovenant).
This album makes clear, in case there was any doubt, that Sarah is a great vocalist. She does remind me a lot to Dutch voice-goddess Anneke van Giersbergen (Agua De Annique, ex-The Gathering). No, both women don’t sound the same (at all) – they do have a completely different vocal timbre. I’m referring with this comparison to the diversity in voice and the skilled acte de présence, which characterises Anneke as well. When it comes to the first, the diversity, well, actually Sarah can do almost anything, except for grunting or screaming (maybe another time?). She has an enormous vocal range (several octaves) and she’s able to sing very pure and tone-down both devotamente and vigoroso. All right, Sarah is enormously skilled for her being active as singer for more than twenty years, but she’s so devoted to Music…
When it comes to the songs on The Corruption Of Mercy (which has a total running time of almost forty five minutes) I need to mention ‘variation’ again. This not only goes for the vocals (see former paragraph), yet also for the different spheres and emotions and the varying constructional song writing. When the album starts with No paragon Of Virtue, I sort of expected to hear Cradle Of Filth; those first moments indeed sound as if it were some intro on a new COF-recording. Yet soon the strength of the Sarah Jezebel Deva-project (her collaborators included) gets clear: interaction between rather fast, intense and heavy parts at the one hand (and believe me, some guitar lines do bring the Death / Black-scene to mind!), and operatic or symphonic pieces (both fully bombastic and classical-integer) at the other. Besides, the tracks come with many changes in tempo and melody whole the time. It’s a ‘full’ experience, a collage of elements from many Metal and Rock sub-genres, a conceptual symbiosis of instrumental craftsmanship and vocal excellence.
Obligation to mention: the cover song on this album. What about the Cranberries-hit Zombie, with a so much heavier sound than the original and a splendid grand finale.
Without any doubt, this release will be devoured with sinful pleasure by everyone who likes Symphonic and / or Gothic-oriented (to irritate any masochistic alter-ego I’ll call it female fronted) Metal in general.

80/100

Ivan Tibos.