Jan 09, 2003 Lords Of Metal The chunky riffs of Machine Head meet the virtuosity of Paul Gilbert while the sister of Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia passed by to serve hot coffee. This family party turns into the formation Amaran. That’s the story it could have been… The truth is: this band in formed in 2000 when guitar players Kari Kainulainen and Ronnie Backlund went looking for musicians to play their songs. The Swedish Amaran was founded with members coming from different musical backgrounds. Their first demo was recorded without a drummer. Good reviews resulted in a record deal with Listenable Records. In 2002 they recorded their debut ‘A World Depraved’ in the Aabenra Studio in Denmark. The songs they wrote after that sounded heavier and in April 2003 they went to Sweden to record ‘Pristine In Bondage’. The CD sounds as a thunderstorm and singer Johanna DePierre remains standing up in between all this musical power. But don’t get me wrong: this is not a gothic singer with wings of elves but a female voice with power who is absorbed by the frisky, rocking base of her fellow-musicians. The album opens with two heavy rocking tracks. In ‘Coming Home’ the vocals are intimate and poppy and we have some slower parts too. It is very catchy and it is a summary of everything Amaran stands for: thrashy riffs, melodic solos and full of emotion. In a track called ‘Inflict’ it is exactly the contrast between the folkloristic vocals in the beginning and those heavy chopping riffs that make it special. And the marriage between those opposites works out well in a freshening result. There is a video of this track. You can download it on the websites of the band and the label. Suddenly looms up a surprising male grunt in ‘Katharsis’ and in ’24 Pills’ this man offers us some dark spoken fragments to create a mysterious atmosphere. Every song has an unexpected diversity so we can conclude it is an exciting release. And don’t forget…this has to be played at high volume! Rating 80/100 /Vera Jan 08, 2003 Tempel Of Metal This band had already impressed me with their first album. “Pristine In Bondage” is their second album and it’s another sweet surprise! You see while most bands with female vocals are mellow or they are “tuning” their sound to mellower directions with time Amaran strikes back with a really heavy album, 10 times heavier than their debut!  The speeding guitars in the opening track “Atropine” with the brutal brake in the middle gave me a good taste of what’s to follow. Indeed most songs in this album are fast and technical while the atmospheric parts of their debut work have a less share in the band’s sound. Not to mention a track with brutal vocals, male of course! Then you get the exceptional vocals of lovely Johanna. Let me tell you something about this gal: she got balls! I mean she is not a travesty or something but when she sings (even though she adopts a quite melancholic tune most of the time) you can understand she is a volcano ready to explode! Probably one of the most brilliant voices in metal today!  Another impressive thing about the eleven tracks in the album is the dissimilarity between them. It’s quite hard these days to find an album with so many good and diverse songs in it. “Pristine In Bondage” (what a title!!!) comes with a nice artwork and flawless production. For me this is a must have work! Michael DalakosDec 16, 2003 Metal Invader Amaran - Pristine In Bondage (Listenable Records) Total Time: 43:34 AMARAN are a Swedish band that plays thrashy heavy metal with delicate yet powerful and punchy female vocals. Now I really hate bands like EVANESENCE and although Vocalist Johanna DePierre sounds a bit like Amy Lee she is a much more versatile and evocative singer also reminding of Anneke Van Giesbergen (THE GATHERING) at times. Also the bands music is guitar driven and nowhere as boring and repetitive as EVANESENCE’s. The clever arrangements make the music flow freely but it’s the mix of the vocals that really gives the band a sense of real uniqueness. There are a few places were there are male “rough” vocals but they’re really minimal and they don’t overshadow the female ones. The production which was done at the underground studios in Sweden is clean and well balanced. This is the bands somophore effort after their debut “A World depraved” which was quite a success, when it was released last year and I ‘m sure that it will introduce the band to even more fans as well as raise their profile quite significantly. What I heard is real encouraging and I wouldn’t be surprised if the band achieves much more in the near future given the current commercial trends. Demetrius “Rockavlon” Fatouros