Amid all the electronic festivals, summer beach parties and Daft Punk tribute acts hitting Malta this summer, any metal head residing on the island might be wondering where all the heavy music went. With Coconut Grove and Remedy closing down, and only sporadic gigs by local fan favourites and the occasional festival to look forward to, it must be looking pretty bleak, even for the average metal head.
Luckily, the girls are here to save the day, with the awesomely named Voices of the Succubi (VOTS), Malta’s premiere female-fronted heavy metal festival. Saturday will see seven bands from five countries head to Razzet L-Aħmar in Mosta to summon the essence of succubi, sirens and sylphs to serenade Malta’s metal scene well into the night.
With a history of talented, female-fronted bands in Malta – like Weeping Silence and Martyrium, who will both be part of the festival – VOTS will demonstrate how a strong, frontwoman can add depth and dimension to a band.
“The intention behind creating this community was to bring together female-fronted metal bands from all over Europe. These are either established, or currently climbing the ladder quite quickly with the promise of delivering a crushing, memorable show,” says Pandemonia, known to her family as Annemarie Spiteri. Pandemonia’s soaring vocals can be heard in the blackened industrial metal of Martyrium, the atmospheric doom metal of Deluge of Sorrows, and the progressive metal of Viper Soup Complex.
Martyrium were part of the Female-Fronted Metal Extreme Festival that took place in Belgium this year, leading to Pandemonia and the VOTS team to create a similar event in our country.
With bands like Arch Enemy, Nightwish, and Lacuna Coil reaching international acclaim, and female-fronted Maltese bands having a nice catalogue of tracks, it does make sense to focus on this subcommunity of the metal scene.
“Undoubtedly, each member enhances and provides a different sort of tinge, texture and colour gradient into the band’s overall musical palette. As a result, I think that it’s always important to learn how to best use each and every member’s unique texture in the best way possible.
“With an open attitude whereby each and every member is not afraid to change, grow and learn from his or her band mates, a band can continuously re-create itself anew while living and offering a different sort of musical experience to itself and to the audience.
“As a result, having a female fronted woman in the band is like having any other instrument (imagine having a saxophone, or flute), and like any other instrument one needs to learn how to best use it for the best possible creations,” says Pandemonia.
Unlike the electronic scene, the practically openly sexist hip hop scene, or most music scenes, the metal scene has been able to achieve a greater gender equality than most. Maybe it’s removing sex as the main factor in the lyrics and music videos, or the more accepting attitude of the average metal head (as long as you are wearing black and can circle headbang, that is), but heavy metal’s scene is unburdened from the weight of overt harassment and attendees looking for someone to pick up, two issues that many other scenes are afflicted with.
That said, Malta’s females have been making waves in several scenes for a while now.“I think that, as the time goes by, there are more female-fronted bands emerging on the scene, and female vocals are now ranging in style,” says Pandemonia. “We can see female vocalists growling, singing jazz and swing (Swing Nuages), signing different sorts of cleans, female sopranos (Weeping Silence and Rising Sunset), punk (RAS)… these are but a few. So, in all honesty, while I do believe that this scene is mostly represented by men, my own personal experience with Maltese underground bands is that they adopt a very open and accepting attitude towards female vocals.
I do believe that the underground metal scene as a genre is still very much stereotyped by the public and mainstream
“Add a little pinch of curiosity from metal fans, (who would usually want to know what sort of vocals the female vocalist will deliver) and this can also be applied to our metal audiences.”
The curiosity might bring in the crowd, but the quality metal is what’s going to keep them, and the front person is a key player in communicating the band’s message.
“The popularity of a band doesn’t only depend on the front person,” says Pandemonia. “Besides the singing, the front person is usually the bridge between the band and the audience – even more so, when the band is performing live on a big stage). As a result, I think that no matter who is fronting the band, it is important to have a front person who is able to transmit and convey the narrative and the whole kaleidoscope of the band’s emotions to the people, not only through singing, but also through movement, theatrics, drama and any other form of expression.”
“The magic happens at the exact point when both the audience and the band connect and share the same experience, while both are lulled into each other’s universe.”
The VOTS universe will include bands from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, and Belgium and will be offering everything from death metal, to gothic doom, to straight up horror metal, courtesy of Cadaveria, the festival headliners. To top it all off, Malta’s own burlesque queen Undine LaVerve will be hosting the event, bringing her signature sassiness to the stage between bands.
“Undine is a talented performer and her image and outgoing personality are a perfect fit for the VOTS festival. Without a doubt, she will keep the fire going strong in between the bands. She will present each band by sharing a brief review of their music with the crowd as she did in the Voices of the Succubi promo video. She is definitely no stranger to the stage, as she is an international performer. And, who knows, maybe she will perform a number or two herself,” says Pandemonia.
With VOTS, the variety in female-fronted metal will be on full display for metalheads, and curious music-goers, to enjoy. “Expect a great show, with great emerging and established bands and a varied selection of music that will keep the audience pumped through the night.”
That said, there still remains some ignorance in Malta as to what metal is. Visions of Satanists, rituals and all sorts of mad things mar the perception of the metal scene. It’s all good to rock out, and we all love AC/DC, but let’s not push boundaries, shall we? This seems to be the over-riding idea.
“Unfortunately, I do believe that the underground metal scene as a genre is still very much stereotyped by the general public and mainstream. This on its own pushes both musicians, as well as people from both sexes, away from the genre. So I do believe that to be performing and listening to metal one needs to put all the judgement away and see if the music really and truly resonating with him/her.”
Voices of the Succubi takes place on Saturday between 5pm and 2am at Razzett l-Aħmar, Attard. Tickets are available online.
https://www.facebook.com/votsfestival/
http://www.votsfestival.com/