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Carved in Gold is a progressive female fronted band from the Netherlands. In general I don't review demo's that are more than a year old, but in this case I'd make an exception. I saw the band live in a little club in Sneek and spoke with the drummer of the band about music, drumming and the band. He gave me the CD-demo and I promised him to listen to it and to review it.

Maarten Langeree (ex Glass Moon) started the band and together with other ex-Glass Moon members and with drummer Mark Mulder, the line-up was completed. The style of the band is a progressive one with a rock sound and sometimes in the faster parts a little bit leaning towards metal. Listen for example to the second part of the song "Monsters" and you here some metallic parts there. On the other hand the track "My Fire" is in a more ballad form with at the end; a heavier part and ends with a fast and furious guitarsolo. Variation enough on this 6-track and with a better production and a bigger budget it would all have sounded even better.

Hanne-Merel Lakerveld has a normal singing style, not the opera-like vocals a lot of female-fronted bands have. She does a respectable job, but she has still to work on her clear singing, sometimes it almost tends to being a little bit false. The song writing is o.k. but there is not a song that is really above average. An o.k. demo for a young band that sounds promising, but has still enough things they can work on.

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