Band:	Akentra
Album:	IV.IV.IV
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	April 2009

01. Do My Best
02. Daddy
03. Alone
04. Just Close Your Eyes
05. Gimme Your Gun

This is not easy to find real Gothic Metal acts when it comes to talk about female fronted Metal bands right? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not talking about Symphonic bands, we all know that we have good bands in this category, no no, I'm just talking about real Gothic Metal bands. Akentra could be one of them, sure they're not true Gothic, but their music is quite similar to the one on the last Paradise Lost albums, so maybe that we have a winner here. "IV.IV.IV", their first EP is not the best album ever released, but it's promising and I will let you know why right now!

When you'll listen to the first song of the album, "Do My Best", you'll quickly understand that Akentra plays real Gothic music. The melodies are dark, the riffs are loud and depressive and the keyboard lines are clearly inspired by Paradise Lost's music. It's not bad at all, at the opposite and the music is quite attractive and even interesting in reason of its deepness (we even have a really nice guitar solo). The voice of Lucia Ferreira is not amazing and lacks a bit of power but still it's ok and doesn't follow any (now dead) trends at least. It's not easy to have a fair and definitive judgment when you can only listen to five songs but those five songs are solid and I can say that "IV.IV.IV" is promising debut.

Despite the fact that the voice of Lucia is a bit weak, and that her way to sing the lyrics can be a bit cliché sometime, I clearly think that she can be good. With a bit of time, this problem could be fixed. Also, the keyboards and guitars are played by two members of Headline so of course this is really well done and technical. The mixing and recording is good, only the cover art is a bit "already known" but all after all this is just EP and a self-released album so?

We'll see in the future if the upcoming first album will confirm what I'm saying but "IV.IV.IV" is good start and Akentra seems to be a good band. We'll see but I have good hopes for them and if you're looking for real Gothic Metal (not talking about stuff a la Dark Sanctuary but more a la Paradise Lost as you may know now) maybe that it could be a good idea to try this band!