This is my personal favourite Female-Fronted album of 2015.

With that name and the suitably esoteric cover featuring snow, wolves and a woman in a fairy-tale dress, it's not remotely surprising that Last Days Of Eden are another Female-Fronted Symphonic band. It's a genre that is ever expanding, as people with large collections of Tim Burton films and Anne Stokes prints look at Nightwish and think "I could do that". It's now the turn of Spain to take on the chilly European countries at their own game and, against all odds, doing a bang up job.

There's one thing that needs to be said straight away though... 'Ride The World' is basically 'Dark Passion Play Part 2'. Vocalist Lady Ani sounds exactly like Anette Olzon, and the music is scarily like that of Nightwish on that album. With that said, '...Play' is my favourite Nightwish release, and I loved Olzon, so whilst I seem to be doing constant double takes as I listen, I can't help but enjoy this album more and more.

Second track 'Queen Of The North' stands out early as an instantly catchy piece, whilst 'Ride The World' introduces pipes to the mix, just to heighten the comparisons. 'Land Of The Rain' amps up the pipes and brings a more Folky feel to proceedings.

They even have a go at the epic, with the sixteen minute 'A Game Of War', and come out pretty good at the end, having thrown all sorts of time changes, theme changes and Rocking melody at the listener. At over seventy minutes in total, it's a solid testament to those involved that 'Ride The World' doesn't disappoint in any way.

I suspect that Last Days Of Eden may attract some criticism for basically being Nightwish version 1.1, but I absolutely love them because they do it so bloody well. Without a doubt, this is my personal favourite Female-Fronted album this year* as well as being the best I have heard since '...Play'.

So, if (like me) you loved that album then this is a 100% must buy; its good enough to make even a Goth smile (and more).

Alan Holloway

(* this review was printed in Fireworks Magazine #73, published at the end of 2015)