Nowadays, a metal band that is ‘female-fronted’ usually sounds like Nightwish or Edenbridge. German heavy metallers The Mystery, founded in 1996, seem to disagree, because their vocalist sounds nothing like Tarja or Sabine. And yes, she’s female. Read on.

This second album features no less than 15 songs, which should be complemented. Although ‘Ascending Souls’ starts out kind of mellow, ‘Take Me To The Light’ shows what this female-fronted bunch is all about. When Korry uses raw-sounding vocals, her sound bears some resemblance to that of Sandra Nasic (ex-Guano Apes) or Doro Pesch (former Warlock, Doro), but it’s not as heavy and tough as that of Kate French (Chastain, Vainglory).
Speaking of Warlock, the 80’s are all over Soulcatcher. The riffs could have been taken off an early Judas Priest album and the guitar lead harmonies remind of early Blind Guardian tracks.
The melodies are catchy and lyrics have been thought through. I’d say they somehow managed to create an own sound, inspired by the major bands from the 80’s. Not very innovative, but still.

Even though the music is quite alright, the production could have been better. The drums sound dusty and stumped, something of which I hope they did not mean to incorporate on the album for the 80’s sake. Luckily, the diverse songwriting somewhat makes up for it.

With ups and downs, Soulcatcher is a good album if you’re into female-fronted heavy metal. If your taste goes out to Nightwish or Within Temptation as far as female-fronted metal goes, you’d better leave this disc be.