Katarzyna NINa Górnisiewicz | Detailed or mini-review submissions: song, EP/album | Suggest an artist

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Phobos Corp. - This Divine Tragedy (song review) |self-released, Felicity EP, 2012|

She was a young sensitive being who devoted herself to a man she literally loved to death. However, her jealous father couldn't stand the way his beautiful daughter was looking at her lover. He hated every minute she was spending with this stranger to a point where a horrific plan was born into his mind. Her father became convinced that he must stop their suffering.
The girl returned soon after this wicked revelation. A shaking shadow had been seen in the corner of the room where her father had been locking her up... and where he killed her. None of this could make her stop seeing her lover. She was shifting along with the warm summer air in the garden after dusk; where she kissed her man the very first time. A murky glance in his eyes had already told her there would be a dark secret to keep. She thought she could deal with it because the power of their love could protect them from any disaster.

The above script is a fictional story. When you look at the cover art of this release you'll see an exhausted young girl who's laying naked on the floor of an abandoned room. A dark image that illustrates the idea behind this concept EP very well. A fictional character named Felicity is the focal point of this album. She was once killed, but now returns as a ghost to tell the story of her tragic love through four symphonic metal songs.

"This Divine Tragedy" is song number 3 on the tracklist. It begins with an instrumental introduction that would perfectly match an RPG fantasy video game such as Skyrim, Witcher or World of Warcraft. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the entire song was a continuation of the intro.
After such a magical beginning, the composition brings angelic female voices and chunky guitars that are accompanied by bass and drums. The track also includes a guitar solo near the end of the song while keyboards and a violin occasionally interlace with the arrangements. We're not talking about songwriting aspects that comprise the fury of a storm here, but compositional structures that are built in a safe way that avoids deviation.

On the other hand, the song is surprisingly short and lasts less than 4 minutes. For such an orientation of orchestral arrangements, "This Divine Tragedy" could have been extended in a manner that would be fitting to tease with a listener's emotions. This could be done by building specific moods that rely on ascending peaks and descending hollows which lead to accumulative climaxes in certain segments. In fact, it would be great if Phobos Corp. could get a full symphonic orchestra to perform this track live.

Spyros Papadakis (keyboards) is the open minded leader behind Phobos Corp. He writes orchestral arrangements and mixes them with metal music. This genre has been the target of his interest since he was 12 years old, while his knowledge of compositional techniques applied to both styles of music allows him to experiment with the cross-over dynamics of the instruments. Technically speaking, he usually begins writing arrangements derived from melodies and chords, including orchestral scores for string instruments.

Spyros is a native of Greece, where he set up Phobos Corp. in 1995, but he continues to branch out to a worldwide audience in terms of musical cooperation as well as acquiring fans for support. Thus, Felicity was recorded with the help of soundtrack composers such as Jon Ong & Zach Lemmon (orchestral arrangements), Shoi Sen (guitar), Mark Jones (guitar, bass), Chris Sutherland (drums) and a professional female vocalist named Tara. The EP was mixed & mastered by British producer Dave Chang who worked with artists such as Orange Goblin, Dagoba, Earthtone9 and Stampin' Ground.

We've heard a lot about the economic disasters happening in Greece recently, so hopefully Spyros can make his ideas come to fruition while cooperating with a worldwide network. This may lead to his dream of scoring movies to come true. The band has not made plans to tour at this time since Spyros intends to release either a few more concept EPs or a full length album to have more songs for the purpose of live performances.
"This Divine Tragedy" has possible hit potential, though the best chance if the track is illustrated with a matching music video or finds it's way into distribution as a song from a movie soundtrack.

(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz, Fabryka Magazine, May 31st, 2012. Proofreading: Scott M. Owens)

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