Christian Mistress - 'Agony & Opium'

A breath of fresh air; a female fronted American band playing traditional melodic heavy metal.

Christian Mistress are playing a genre of heavy metal on their debut full-length album Agony & Opium, that no one else (except for, perhaps, Huntress in Los Angeles) these days is even close to. Straight up, traditional heavy metal with clean female vocals, two guitarists that play off of each other with licks and leads, an audible bass, and a generally mid-paced tempo is the approach on this short debut from Christian Mistress.

There are a few bands out there currently making waves by playing forms of traditional heavy metal, most notably Enforcer and Armour, but, except for the aforementioned Huntress, there’s no other band out there that I’m aware of playing this female-fronted genre from yesteryear.

Two things immediately stand out on Agony & Opium. First, Christine Davis’ vocals really work here with a mid-range, melodic voice that has just a hint of nasally inflected gruffness. Although seemingly just starting out, her voice sounds mature, definitely gives the album great personality, a certain amount of warmth, and lacks, for the better, some of the rather corny faux menace of ancient releases from Bitch and the glam-oriented Vixen (I’m also reminded of a pre-Sebastian Bach Madam X; although, the vocalist was male).

Second, the dual guitars play off of each other quite well, resulting in catchy songs that are lifted right out of the early‘80s. However, the music seems fresh, and does not appear to be some sort of attempt at jumping on a retro bandwagon. The guitars do suffer from a weak production, though, and should have greater depth.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I’ve heard thus far from Christian Mistress. As Davis’ vocals undoubtedly continue to grow, and with a deeper production, there’s a great deal of promise to be had on future efforts from Christian Mistress.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.