Good god almighty, I sure do love the diversity of female metal vocalists. Not only can they growl, grunt, howl, and scream with the best of the men, they have the ability to transcend the brutality of harsh vocals with wondrous clean vocals that are often angelic and operatic.
Ignea’s Helle Bohdanova has harsh and clean vocals in spades and it’s glorious.
Hailing from Ukraine, Ignea is a five piece metal band that consists of the aforementioned Helle Bohdanova on vocals, Yevhenii Zhytniuk on keys, Dmytro Vinnichenko on guitars, Oleksandr Kamyshyn on bass, and Ivan Kholmohorov on drums.
With their second single, “Dunes” from their upcoming album, Dreams of Lands Unseen that will be out on Napalm Records on April 28th, one can experience Helle’s vocal talent as she effortlessly transitions between harsh and clean vocals.
With “Dunes”, the band wanted to compare the Sahara Desert with the Carpathian Mountains and Helle says this of the song,
We continue telling the story of the amazing Ukrainian travel writer and photographer Sofia Yablonska who lived in the XX century. ‘Dunes’ is inspired by her adventure to the Sahara Desert. On this dangerous journey, Sofia’s driver fainted from the intense heat, so she had to take charge of driving and also fix the overheated engine herself. Their troubles didn’t end there, as they also had to escape from hostile locals who tried to shoot them. Our song describes how Sofia saw a mirage, so common in the desert. In our version, instead of imagining palm trees and an oasis, she saw the chilly Carpathian mountains with pine trees and rainfalls…
