The Corruption Of Mercy by Sarah Jezebel Deva

The artwork and track list of Deva's second album were released couple of days ago.

 1 No Paragon Of Virtue
 2 The World Won't Hold Your Hand
 3 A Matter Of Convenience
 4 Silence Please
 5 Zombie
 6 Pretty With Effects
 7 What Lies Before You
 8 Sirens
 9 The Eyes That Lie
10 The Corruption Of Mercy
The album will be released in Europe on June 20.

You may recognise Sarah as a  backing vocalist in Cradle of Filth or a leader of Angtoria.

30 Day Music Challenge, Day 15: A Song that Describes Me

Representation in heavy metal of my values, world view, feelings, and experiences is one of the things that attracted me to the genre in the first place. Some artists are so adept at summing up stuff that has happened in my life, or encapsulated an experience I've had personally so well, I've sometimes felt close to tears. Through metal, I have felt heard & understood, and for someone like me, that is incredibly heartening. I have so much respect and appreciation for artists that have done this for me.

One such band is Angtoria, a British/Swedish symphonic power metal band fronted by the lovely and utterly amazing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Deva. To date, they have released one album, the very dark and at times disturbing God Has a Plan For Us All, an album that covers a variety of topics including suicide, sexual abuse by a priest, and cutting. But all is not bleak on this album; there are some very uplifting songs here, and "That's What the Wise Lady Said" is one of them.

Here are the lyrics:

I wish you could be
All you ever dreamed
Move on, no regrets
Try to be the absolute best
Stand on your own
You can make it, be someone
With the war in your head
That's what the wise lady said!
There'll be times, when you can't face
The weary lights of the day
But be strong and believe
You can be anything you wish to be
Don't let your fears hold you back
Life isn't meant to be easy
Find justice for what you lack
Time will heal the scar
Be proud of who you are
Taste the fantasies that you dread
That's what the wise lady said!
I came from nothing, here I am!
I won the war in my head!

I'm not going to go into exactly why I feel this song describes me, you will just have to take my word for it. But it does, in so many ways, and this is a prime example of what I was talking about earlier in this post. Sarah writes the lyrics for Angtoria, and I really want to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU for this song.