Ignea – The Sign Of Faith Review

The Sign Of Faith is the debut album from Ukranian oriental metal band Ignea, and it’s a pretty good listen with some real high points!

As a big fan of Whispered (a fellow oriental metal band), I’ll quite readily admit that I was drawn to Ignea in the hope they’d be stylistically similar, and what’s good is that whilst the two bands have some similarities, Ignea’s path is another unique one. The music features clean vocals in a lead role, which juxtapose nicely against the harsh vocals in more of an accompanying role, and the music as a whole is fairly hard-hitting for the most part, with lots of opportunities to bang your head along to it.

Admittedly The Sign Of Faith doesn’t grab you immediately, as the opener Şeytanu Akbar is one of the albums weaker tracks, but things pick up nicely with the following track Alexandria, which features some wonderful melodic oriental lines that will definitely wind up stuck in your head, and the two very different vocal styles both lend themselves well to the song. Another great inclusion is penultimate track How I Hate The Night, which is a slower, more ballady track and the softer approach gives the album a bit more variety, mixing things up for the listener somewhat before bringing the piece to a close with the mighty and powerful final track Leviathan.

Ignea have done well with The Sign Of Faith. This is a largely exciting and engaging listen that will definitely leave you wanting to come back for more.

8/10