This uncanny Symphonic Black Metal entity returns with their first full-length opus, a devastating and majestic release that delves deep into identity, belonging, and the mythos of a demon cast into the human world.
A Demon Symphonic Black Metal project about dysphoria and coping with living in a world that you’re not from, Santa Clara, California-based creature Vesseles, the brainchild of the uncanny vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Valira Pietrangelo, returns with Home, a devastating and majestic release that delves deep into identity, belonging, and the mythos of a demon cast into the human world. Pulled from the scorched marrow of The Beneath, the demon dominion she once forgot and now remembers with terrifying clarity, Valira and her henchmen Joel Ferry on vocals, Ron Graves on bass, and Nick Brown on drums fuse Symphonic Black Metal with cinematic grandeur and emotional weight in their newborn spawn, a worthy follow-up to their 2024 debut EP I Am A Demon, beautifully depicting the sound of returning to a place you’ve never truly known.
In the opening aria Flesh Throne, Valira reclaims her sovereignty over humanity, with her keys and orchestrations sounding absolutely hypnotizing and perfect for the visceral roars by Joel, starting the album on a truly haunting mode. Eternally Within Us is a ceremonial track complete with Latin mantras and sweeping symphonics that ground the demon realm’s ancient roots in flesh and blood, again presenting Valira’s cryptic, grim piano while Nick hammers his drums in the name of Doom Metal; followed by The Beneath, a brutal, bombastic ode to Valira’s home world, as obscure as some of the best creations by the mighty Cradle of Filth, with our demon firing razor-edged riffs in paradox with her phantasmagorical keys. She then takes on lead vocals in the title-track Home, questioning whether the place she fought so hard to return to was ever meant to comfort her, captivating our senses with her sinister piano before all suddenly morphs into a Black Metal beast tailored for admirers of the genre.
They Wither… is an instrumental piano piece that counters the despair of previous releases, flowing into Until They Are Dust, which details the grotesque birth of The Beneath, a cursed sludge consuming humanity to give rise to the next generation of demons, offering three minutes of absolute madness where Joel once again barks rabidly until the very end. Scriptures Etched Into the Mind’s Pillars marks the album’s lyrical turning point, from external reclamation to internal unraveling, while flirting with Melodic Black Metal, in special in its riffs and keys. Needless to say, it should sound brilliant if played live. Then we have Perpetual Chasm of Black Mirrors, a harrowing journey through isolation, suffocation, and the horror of being self-aware in a world that rejects you, and it’s when the music gets less violent that you’ll feel its fury and darkness deep inside your heart. Lastly, This Is Not Home brings the album full circle, also presenting Gothic Metal elements in its vocals, with Valira’s riffage again sounding and feeling fantastic, ending the album on a true epic and climatic vibe.
Home is the natural maturation of the unique sound crafted by Vesseles, sounding and feeling more dynamic, more orchestral, and more unflinchingly personal, charting Valira’s journey from confident origin to tortured self-doubt and finally to righteous authority. During recording, a late inclusion of Valira’s own vocals unlocked new potential, revealing the expressive power of her voice in leading the story and, therefore, pointing to a bolder, deeper, more human, and more demonic future. Unfortunately, due to Valira taking on all vocal duties, Home is also the band’s last album with vocalist Joel Ferry, but of course their friendship will remain forever. Anyway, you can get in touch with Valira and her Vesseles via Facebook and Instagram, subscribe to the project’s YouTube channel, stream their eerie music on Spotify, and of course grab a copy of the caustic, incendiary Home from BandCamp or by clicking HERE. In the end, Vesseles is not just music. It’s a reckoning, and Home is the sound of a demon returning, not to find peace, but to claim it by force.
Best moments of the album:Eternally Within Us, Home and Scriptures Etched Into the Mind’s Pillars.
Worst moments of the album: None.
Released in 2026 Independent
Track listing 1. Flesh Throne 5:18
2. Eternally Within Us 5:02
3. The Beneath 5:16
4. Home 6:11
5. They Wither… 1:32
6. Until They Are Dust 3:07
7. Scriptures Etched Into the Mind’s Pillars 3:41
8. Perpetual Chasm of Black Mirrors 5:03
9. This Is Not Home 7:14
Band members Joel Ferry – vocals
Valira Pietrangelo – guitars, piano, orchestrations, backing vocals, vocals on “Home”
Ron Graves – bass
Nick Brown – drums
So sin ‘til you win, let your demons out! Lady Lightbringer!
It’s time for a true metal opera this February on The Headbanging Moose, courtesy of our multi-talented metal lady of the month. A metal vocalist, poet, vocal coach and musician best known for being the frontwoman and composer for American Symphonic Metal band Seven Spires, among several other amazing metal bands and projects, Adrienne Elizabeth Catli Cowan, who goes by her stage name of Adrienne Cowan, will mesmerize you with her unique vocals, both extreme and classic Heavy Metal clean vocals. In other words, she can sing pretty much any type of metal and non-metal music, from the Symphonic Metal of Seven Spires to Death Metal, Deathcore and Dark Jazz, and I’m sure you’ll have an absolute blast with Adrienne after knowing more about the life and career of such skillful artist.
Born on January 28, 1995 in Houston, the most populous city in Texas and the fourth most populous city in the United States, Adrienne is formally trained in classical and most contemporary styles as a graduate of both Berklee College of Music (with a degree in Music Composition) in Boston, Massachusetts and the Academy of Contemporary Music in the UK, although she was also self-taught in both extreme clean vocals for many years before finally finding a perfect vocal coach in Swedish singer David Äkesson. Her connection with music started a lot earlier than that, though, as since she was a child she was already taking part in choirs and taking piano lessons, performing in musicals and then entering music school, and from there starting to compose her music and to expand her knowledge and skills, especially as a singer. For instance, Adrienne had her first performance as a vocalist at the age of three at an event at the church her family attended, beginning her piano lessons after that at the age of six and being mainly into choir and darker popular musicals such as Phantom of the Opera throughout elementary and middle school. Not only that, her parents pulled her out of high school so that she could attend a music school full-time, so through that show of support she already had a good feeling about her potential skills.
When she was still living in England, in 2012, Adrienne was making demos by herself for a dark and theatrical project she had yet to debut, and after moving back to the United States in 2013 she met Jack Kosto in a bookstore in her first week at Berklee and told him about her project and songs. From there Seven Spires were born, with all band members having extensive musical knowledge and studies, therefore drawing on their backgrounds to express themselves musically without limits of genre or technique. Seven Spires released their first album in 2014, the EP The Cabaret of Dreams, with all of its songs representing half of their 2017 full-length opus Solveig, where not only Adrienne was responsible for all vocals, keyboards, lyrics and songwriting, but also for the production and vocal engineering, showcasing all her talent and professionalism. After Solveig, the band released the full-length albums Emerald Seas, in 2020, and Gods of Debauchery, in 2021, and if you want to enjoy all of the band’s epic creations you can find Seven Spires on Spotify and on YouTube, where you can also have a visual orgasm with their official videos for the songs Lightbringer, Succumb, The Unforgotten Name, The Cabaret Of Dreams, Drowner Of Worlds, Bury You, The Paradox, This God Is Dead, Silvery Moon, The Cursed Muse, and Dare To Live, as well as some live footage, making of’s, behind the scenes and other awesome videos by Adrienne and her crew.
Apart from her career with Seven Spires, you can also find Adrienne and her powerful vocals in distinct bands and projects such as International Power Metal band Light & Shade, with whom she recorded the vocals for the 2016 album The Essence of Everything; International Power Metal/Hard Rock band Sascha Paeth’s Masters of Ceremony, with whom she recorded the vocals (and piano for one track) in the 2019 album Signs of Wings; and American Symphonic Deathcore band Winds of Plague, with whom she recorded the keyboards and backing vocals in the 2017 album Blood of My Enemy. In addition, Adrienne was also part of American Melodic Heavy Metal band FirstBourne from 2016 to 2018, having recorded the vocals and keyboards in their 2016 album Riot and in the 2017 acoustic single Home, and of Frontiers All Stars in 2020 and Riot Underground between 2012 and 2013.
You can also find her singing and playing live with German Symphonic Power Metal band Avantasia since 2018, with American Heavy Metal band Mike Kerr from 2015 until 2018, and with American Power/Thrash Metal band Sonic Pulse. Not only that, Adrienne was also a guest musician in an array of bands and projects, those being vocals for the song I Declare War from the 2020 album The Journey, by German Melodic Death Metal band Deliver the Galaxy; vocals for several songs from the 2021 album The Metal Opera by Magnus Karlsson, by Swedish Symphonic/Melodic/Power Metal band Heart Healer; vocals for the song My Guide My Hunger from the 2018 album As Above So Below, by Italian Melodic Death Metal band Hell’s Guardian; vocals for the song The End of Innocence from the 2017 album Reflections, by American Neoclassical Heavy Metal artist Jimi Mitchell; vocals for the song Mammoth from the 2017 album Pianometal, by American Symphonic/Progressive Metal artist Kyle Morrison; vocals for the song The Truth of the Lion from the 2015 album The Truth of the Lion, by Mike Kerr; harsh and clean vocals for the songs Conjunction of Souls and The Restitution from the 2020 album Pile of Priests, by American Progressive Death Metal band Pile of Priests; vocals for the song Let It Go from the 2018 album Re-Animated, by Italian Power Metal band Trick or Treat; and vocals and lyrics for the 2018 album Lights in the Murk, by Italian Symphonic Black Metal band Yass-Waddah. Do you want more? Because our she-wolf was also responsible for the songwriting for the song Hold Tight from the 2016 EP Dirty Lyxx, by American Heavy Metal/Hard Rock band Dirty Lyxx, and she also sung vocals in Black Science’s Freedom (Or Die Trying), featured in the outro of one Camp Camp episode, and sang both a duet with Casey Lee Williams in the RWBY Volume 6 credits song Nevermore, and in the song War of Volume 7. Adrienne has also been a part of the Freelance Orchestra in their RTX 2016 (where to her surprise she ended up in the RWBY music panel) and 2018 concerts, plus Anime Boston 2018, and you can always have a great time watching her own videos on her official YouTube channel.
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Adrienne got into the world of metal music around the age of 11 when her uncle showed her Metallica and Scorpions, but it wasn’t until she found out about musicians the likes of Alexi Laiho, Janne Wierman and Yngwie Malmsteen that she really started to feel at home listening to Heavy Metal. She mentioned it appealed in some way to her classical background, and watching live Children of Bodom videos was quite inspiring. However, she’s not only into metal, but showcases a wide variety of influences in her life. “I’m not a one-dimensional person – I’m a human – so I’m allowed to like other stuff”, she said in one of her interviews. “I’m not a huge K-pop fan or anything, but I really like good pop writing. From a technical standpoint, as a songwriter, I’m like: damn, good for you guys. And there’s a certain sassy energy – it just speaks to me in a way that a lot of metal doesn’t.” Another influence on our beloved diva as a writer are painters of the Romantic period, with German painter Caspar David Friedrich and Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky being two of her main inspirations. “I’m also a big fan of (the English composer) Edward Elgar – he does this piece called ‘Sospiri Op. 70,’ which is the most beautiful thing, it sounds like the pain of falling in love. It was something I listened to a lot when we were writing this record. And of course, Chopin,” she said, also finding inspiration under night skies and in the darker depths of the human condition to write her lyrics. Adrienne also nurtures an amazing openness with her fans on social media, which she credits to her experience as a My Chemical Romance fan back when she was younger. “This one interview with them came out, and I remember one of the guys in the band saying basically, ‘We say these things in our music, we are a bunch of fucked up guys, and it helps our fans know… you’re not alone.’ That really made me feel less alone when I was a sad teenager, and then when I grew up into a sad adult, I thought, damn, I could be that for somebody else.”
Regarding her singing style, technique and how she maintains her vocal cords in great shape, Adrienne mentioned in one of her interviews that she likes to meditate before shows and uses her instincts to decide what she’ll sing or scream either high or low. “The low death metal style is more present and more grounded and more angry and earthier in a way. The higher black metal screams are more spiritually pitched or spiritually empty — when there’s black metal themes and nihilistic lyrics, of course I’m probably going to scream with that high tone”, said Adrienne. In addition, when she was enrolled at The Academy of Contemporary Music at the age of 16 she joined an after-school club where all metalhead students gathered to jam on a new song every week, opening her eyes to the rest of the metal world and challenging her to vocally try different styles of each subgenre of metal. She also mentioned that she has studied many techniques of singing including theatrical belting, Speech Level Singing, bel canto and even some throat singing, with the hardest part being unlearning things previous teachers had told her in order to properly approach whatever new technique she was learning, and with the very high Power Metal “scream” being one of the styles that took her the longest to develop. In order to maintain her vocal health, she mentioned that she basically has to just mind her sleep and hydration levels, trying to stay out of the direct blast of heaters or air conditioners, and trying not to get sick or allergic. However, at the end of the day, even dehydrated or sick the show must go on, which forced her to develop alternate techniques to sing through sickness.
A huge fan of Lord of the Rings, all forms of art, Gothic style, cheesy Sci-Fi, vampire shows, coffee and fantasy games, Adrienne enjoys mountain hikes, spending time by any shore, and playing JRPG’s (Japanese Role-Playing Games) and games with friends between her musical ventures. “After a long tour, I like to sit at home and sleep in my own bed, play video games, maybe think about going out… If I get to go on a little holiday or something, I love road trips and anywhere remote with alpine forests and quiet waters. Wyoming is great for this, as are many spots on the West Coast. Anything to get me away from people and out of my regular world,” commented Adrienne, who despite being very fond of animals cannot take care of a dog or cat due to her lack of space and time to do so. And when asked which hobbit from Lord of the Rings she would choose to be part of her band for the rest of their days, she provided a curious and fun answer to that. “Either Sam or Pippin, I think. Because I think I’m a Frodo, and I need a support system like Sam. But also I need a Pippin to just make me laugh all the time no matter what, and just help lighten the mood, and tell me to eat my carrots and mushrooms.”
Last but not least, our raven-haired vocalist also had a few interesting words to say about the whole pandemic and how it has been impacting her life on the road with Seven Spires. “All of this resulted in connecting more with our fans online. So although it’s super frustrating to not know exactly when we’re going to be able to play live again, we have found a way to do the online equivalent of hugging people at the merch table and listening to their stories,” said Adrienne, who also mentioned she keeps working hard to entertain and stay in touch with her fanbase, also teaching online, private vocal lessons and running a weekly workshop on everything from orchestration to arranging to songwriting techniques, all of which you can find on Linktree and on Patreon. “Mostly I teach tools for people to be able to express what they have in mind, and I teach from a really emotional standpoint.” And if you want to know more about Adrienne, her likes and dislikes, her inspirations and so on, there are countless interview online with her such as this one to Rock Titan or this one called RichardMetalFan Interviews! Ep. 33: Adrienne Cowan of Seven Spires/Winds of Plague/Avantasia, where she talks about her journey with music from where she started until now. Having said all that, what are you waiting for to let Adrienne reach deep inside your heart and take you on a breathtaking musical voyage to the sound of her stunning vocals?
“I know that if I’m just stagnant and sitting on my ass, I’m not going to be happy. So if I want to be happy, I have to do something about it.” – Adrienne Cowan
A Demon Symphonic Black Metal project about dysphoria and coping with living in a world that you’re not from, Santa Clara, California-based creature Vesseles, the brainchild of the uncanny vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Valira Pietrangelo, returns with Home, a devastating and majestic release that delves deep into identity, belonging, and the mythos of a demon cast into the human world. Pulled from the scorched marrow of The Beneath, the demon dominion she once forgot and now remembers with terrifying clarity, Valira and her henchmen Joel Ferry on vocals, Ron Graves on bass, and Nick Brown on drums fuse Symphonic Black Metal with cinematic grandeur and emotional weight in their newborn spawn, a worthy follow-up to their 2024 debut EP I Am A Demon, beautifully depicting the sound of returning to a place you’ve never truly known.
THE HEADBANGING MOOSE 