Seraphim

Seraphim

Seraphim is a Taiwanese symphonic power metal band. It was formed in 2001 in the city of Taipei, Taiwan. They recorded their first song, Love Hate, for a demo weeks after their formation. They began to gain notice and eventually they were offered a contract from Magnum Music in April of 2001. Within a month they recorded their first album entitled The Soul That Never Dies. The album was released in August of 2001. Following the release of the album they did several shows in order to promot the album and by November they started writing new material for a second album. In January of 2002 they were invited to perform at the Kung-Ming music festival in China. Soon afterwards they began recording their second album, The Equal Spirit. Their debult album also gained a European release through the independent label Arise. The Equal Spirit was released in Taiwan on the tenth of September in 2002. After doing local shows to promote the album, Seraphim’s guitarist Dan Chang lefet the band and he was replaced by Lucas Huang in December. An English version of The Equal Spirit was released in January of 2003 and after a European release they participated in Taiwan’s Midsummer Night Tour later that same year. They were Announced for Germany’s Dong Open Air Festival in January 2004 and they released a Chinese edition of their third album, Ai, in February of 2004. Quinn Weng replaced Seraphim’s lead vocalist, Pay Lee, on March the fourteenth of 2004. By that time Seraphim was invited to several more festivals for the summer. To name a few of these festivals…Savage Metal Fest in Russia, Metal Kingdom in Japan, Asian Rock Festival in Seoul, South Korea. On July 2nd they released Ai in Europe. By June of 2005, Seraphim had a new drummer, Van Shaw. By March of 2006 they performed with popular German Power metal band Edguy in Taipei and Hong Kong. Quinn Weng was featured as a guest on Beto Vazquez Infinity’s Flying Toward the new Horizon album. Seraphim plans to release their fourth album, Rising, in 2007. It will be the first Seraphim album to feature Quinn Weng as the lead vocalist.

Discography (That I Own)

1. The Soul That Never Dies 2001 – The debut album by Seraphim. The music is firmly based in power metal with a few sidesteps here and there into a thrash area. The musicials are pretty good and they have a tendency to play hard. Meanwhile the lead female vocalist, Pay Lee, delivers sweet beautiful vocals and she proves that she has a very operatic voice on most of the songs. At times it feels as if the lead vocalist is having a friendly dual with the music itself. This is the sort of album that grows on you, but you may not find it fantastic the first time you listen to it. It’s still pretty good for a debut album.
2. The Equal Spirit 2002 – The second album by Seraphim. This time the band does not lean so heavily on the gothic metal genre, but instead leans a bit more toward classical heavy metal with gothic metal influences. The band also added a few more progressive elements which display themselves in a bit less easy guitar and melody lines. Again lead vocalist Pay Lee displays her beautiful operatic vocals to stunning effect.
3. Ai 2004 – The third album released by Seraphim. Yet another good album by the band from Taiwan. Ai contains mesmerizing operatic female vocals, accompanied by a fanstastic display of melodic guitars, classical piano pieces and stampeding drums. This album also features clean male vocals in a few of the songs. Of course Seraphim still keeps the harsh and growling male vocals that appear on their first two albums as well.

In Conclusion
Seraphim reminds me a bit of bands like Nightwish and After Forever which happen to be very good bands! I would not call Seraphim a clone of these bands though. They prove repeatedly with their three albums that they have their own style, their own quirks and more importantly good music to offer. I came to really like the operatic vocals of Pay Lee while listening to these albums. I do hope that Quinn Weng will be able to bring a good contribution to Seraphim. We shall see sometime later this year!