Band:	Seraphim
Album:	Ai
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	February 2004

01. Intro
02. Tears
03. Resurrect
04. Implementation
05. Desperate
06. Can't Take
07. My
08. In The Air
09. Gone
10. Before
11. Is That?
12. Instantaneous
13. The End

Seraphim is no longer one of those weird bands nobody knows, is no longer the valuable collectors-item Metal Cd in your shelf because they're hailing from Taiwan, not anymore, after only 3 albums, Seraphim are a renamed act, and definitively the band that makes Taiwan figure in the Metal map.

Beside that, they're really hard workers, releasing an album per year, and that's not it, because each album gets 2 editions, one singed in English and the other in Chinese, I have the 2 previous albums in English editions, but for the third one, I got the Chinese version of Ai, it can be weird hear lyrics in Chinese, but since English is not my native language, I'm used to hear music in other languages, although I understand English perfectly, but as for Chinese, I don't understand squat!

As always, presentation is flawless, the Cd artwork is very nice (not nice as the other 2 albums though), the booklet is great, nice thick booklet with fantastic layout and lyrics both in English and Chinese.

Let's go back a little in Seraphim history, shall we?, started as a more Gothic act, they moved on to Power Metal terrains in their second album, also, the growling was less frequent in their second album, the only thing remaining in the 3 albums is the operatic female vocals of Pay.

This time, Seraphim can be considered a Power Metal act, with some of their past influences as we will see later in the review.
After a short acoustic intro, "Tears" opens the album with full speed and an overall Nightwish/Stratovarius feel, "Resurrect" begins with some middle-eastern strings, the beginning of this song reminded me of "Karma" by Kamelot.
Just when I was loosing hope of hearing some growls in this album, comes "Implementation" a fantastic duet between the operatic female vocals and the growling, which keeps getting better each album!

One of my wishes were granted in this album , I always wanted to hear some clear male vocals in an album of Seraphim, I now I got my wish granted in track 7 "My" some clear male vocals entered the arena, making the Seraphim experience a fantastic ride for me, the wide vocal array of Seraphim is awesome, you got operatic female vocals, Death/Black vocals and clear male vocals, I hope that the vocal experimentation don't end there, I'll like to hear some more new elements in the vocal department in the next Seraphim album.

The album has some other surprises, like the instrumental "Gone" and "Before" which have some electronic elements and a duet between Death Metal Vocals and Black Metal ones, that's experimentation, snares versus growls, plus female vocals, plus great riffing, equal, an extraordinary song.
For mellower moments try "Is That?", and acoustic ballad, and don't forget the epic closer, "Instantaneous" almost 10 minutes of Power-Gothic-Death Metal Seraphim style!

Is almost scary the progress of this band, in 3 years, they've released 3 albums, and each album is better than the other, each album is very different from the other, I'm afraid to think what the fourth effort of Seraphim is going to sound like, I guess I'll have to wait until next year to find out.