Delain Albums Ranked

Delain are a metal group I’m really fond off. I discovered them through Within Temptation’s Wikipedia page. Stephen King fans may recognize the band’s name as its name of a kingdom in his novel, The Eyes of a Dragon. They’ve been one of my favourite bands to see live and I thought it was cool that the lead singer, Charlotte had the same birthday as me.

Delain fans received heartbreaking news that almost all members, bar one had left the band. What started off as a passion project after Martijn left Within Temptation turned back into a solo project. Delain was planned to be a musical project featuring guest musicians whom at the time where well loved figures in the metal scene. This worked really well because Delain already had a lot of high profile links to the music industry.

Delain were full of energy when I saw them in concert at the HMV Institute in Birmingham. It was so fun to see. My friend Vee had seen them live before, and she told me on Facebook that they sounded better live. I saw them about ten years ago, a day before my birthday. It was a concert that started off countless road trips for gigs.

Hearing about the semi-break up, saddened me. I was disappointed to hear other reviews that meet and greets and concerts were not as great as they could be. This was before the pandemic hit. Apparently there was a lot of tension and musical differences going on behind the scenes. This is important stuff to take into consideration when I rank their albums.

Moonbathers

Just because I rank this at the bottom dosen’t mean that I think it’s bad or terrible. It just means that I like the other records better. What I also like about Delain is their consistency. Their songs are always full of great ideas that are always developed well. Suckerpunch is my favourite song of the album because it stands out for me. Out of all the Delain albums, I think I listen to this one the least an the songs don’t grab me like a lot of their ealier work do.

Apocalypse & Chill

I actually think Apocalypse & Chill is the same quality and consistency of Moonbathers. I ranked it higher, purely because I think the title and the cover is awesome. I also love the inspiration behind it. There’s deep destruction going on in the world, meanwhile there’s influencers taking selfies in designer shades as if everything is perfect. The theme of contrast is played on perfectly on tracks like Combustion, Let’s Dance and Chemical Redemption.

The Human Contradiction

Stardust and Here Comes the Vultures are my favourites from this album. Stardust reminds me of the late David Bowie because of his alter ego, David Bowie.

April Rain

This was Delain at it’s prime in my opinion. They Already had an amazing debut and April Rain was a wonderful follow up. I love the melodies and I think Charlotte’s vocals are utilised well on this record. I really like the build up In Stay Forever and Control the Storm.

We Are The Others

This album means a lot to me because of what the album represents. The theme of self-acceptance, anti-bullying and the perfect blend of synth and rock.The Sophie mentioned in the title track was a real person that was killed for being different. Sophie’s tragic story heavily inspired this work. So much, that it brought Charlotte to tears. It’s a very personal album that really touched me, but has some great tracks like Get The Devil Out of Me and Babylon. I love the guitar solos in Milk and Honey. In this album they proven that they can also stand out on their own even when the guest musician aren’t as prominent as a lot of the other albums.

Lucidity

Their debut album is gorgeous. It’s blatant fan-service, but it’s great qualit. It was released in 2006, but it still sounds fresh, iconic and relevant. Lucidity has aged like fine wine. When I first listened to this album, my favourite song from the album was No Compliance because it’s a duet between two of my favourite singers; Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation and Marko Hietala from Nightwish.

Overtime, I’ve started to love other songs like See Me In Shadow which features Liv Kristine who was the original lead singer in Theatre of Tragedy and Leaves’ Eyes. It’s a really lovely ballad.

The song, Frozen really reminds me of Princess Anna and Queen Elsa from the Disney film, Frozen. It makes me wonder if any of the makers behind the film had listened to this album. The song really makes me think of the scene in Frozen where Anna wants to come into Elsa’s room, but Elsa is shutting her away because she’s embarrassed about her powers.

It’s going to be really weird having the next Delain album without the others, but especially without Charlotte’s voice. I‘m sure Martijn will continue to keep Delain’s spirit alive with new members and fresh ideas.