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		Angel: A Woman’s Diary - Chapter 1 (Black Lotus records) Helena Michaelsen (ex- Trail of Tears) is releasing her first solo effort under the band name of Angel. After all, she is like an angel, despite her beautiful and canny disguise as a little devil on the cover of the c.d. The title itself predisposes the listener that he is most likely going to hear a record that will deal with matters that run through a woman’s mind. And that is exactly the deal, with one minor footnote: those matters are really personal and deal with problems of a woman, not in a specific point in time, but through her years in life. After having underlined what the lyrics are about, let’s go to the pure musical side of the record. With the exception of 2 tracks, “Flames of desire”, which reminds me of Nightwish on their first two records -due to the similarity of the vocal style- and “Darkness”, a narrative 2-minute interlude, the rest of the songs are beautifully performed ballads. Michaelsen’s voice is very expressive, especially on “Mother” that something tells me that it deals with a personal matter of hers and not with another imaginative story. All in all and even though I would prefer a more powerful first record, I strongly believe that if this record would have been released by a pop artist it would be a smash hit in the worldwide charts. Highlight: “A woman’s diary” brought me in mind the latest Leave’s Eyes record. Sakis Nikas / www.rockpages.gr