Austrian band Siegfried is the project of Bruder Cle and "Drachenherz is their debut album following a demo released in 2000.
Labeling is one thing I don't like, but it comes handy when you try to give to someone an idea about the sound of an album. Well, Siegfried is one of the few bands really difficult to categorize. They play dark metal for sure, mostly on the gothic side, but with strong doom and folk elements.
Nowadays most gothic metal bands use keyboards, brutal male/soft female vocals and most of the times it is a success. Siegfried chose to include more elements, such as folk musical instruments like flutes and pipes, brutal vocals towards the black side and symphonic, sometimes epic (I even liked them) parts. So I guess the term epic gothic folk metal (!) belongs to them.
Ok, so they did something different. But different doesn't always mean good right? In Siegfried's case, the question is not "bad or good, it's how good. Obviously this is not the case of a mind taking first release. In some parts, the production by Roland Wurzer is not the best they could get; I was especially disappointed at some points where the male and female vocals over lapsed each other, as if they were trying to sing together but they were running out of air so they had to breathe again. Some other times the instruments' volume got to high or too low, as if someone was playing with the console's controls without any sense. This is one of the few times I complain about the production, so go figure that out.
The concept is mainly inspired by the the Niebelung Saga and other historical events. It is well implemented with fast outbreaks followed by tranquil parts, while sometimes there's narration helping the stories unfold.
The bottom line is that it is a very decent first release. It is an original album and I am sure that Siegfried will do a lot better in their second one; hopefully they will have a better work done on the production part. This is certainly a band with a promising future.