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Rheia does also orchestral compositions and programming in a professional way. If you’re interested in these services please use the contact form.
Rheia is the creation of Swiss song-writing sound engineer and keyboardist Pascale Peng. Over the course of a couple of years she gradually recorded these songs with a cast of carefully chosen musicians. The band name she has chosen is taken from the Greek goddess Rheia (or Rhea), the daughter of the Earth, who gave birth to the Greek Pantheon of gods, including the rulers of Heaven and Hell, Zeus and Hades. However, this is not an concept album, and the lyrics are about a wide variety of topics. The closest I can get to describing her totally unique but hugely appealing music is try imagining a touch of Within Temptation symphonic metal being propelled along by The Cars’ driving rhythms, then add OMD’s synths and pop sensibilities, and finally top with Nena on vocals to
produce some of the most catchy and enjoyable songs you will hear all year, or any year come to that. The only bands that I can think of that are slightly similar are Weekend on Mars and Chapter II, coincidently both are from Switzerland, so it must be something in the fresh Alpine air. Pascale is not normally a singer and she enlisted the help of vocal coach Patrik Schwitter during the recordings, but she has bags of character and attitude which gives the songs their distinctive punky punch, reminding me of vocalists with personality like Hazel O’Connor, Toyah and Siouxsie Sioux, none of whom would qualify for X Factor, which is why the programme is aboutdisposable pop rubbish and not artistic individuality. After the symphonic intro featuring a real orchestra comes the title track ‘Forgotten Gods’ sung by Andrea Dätwyler of Lunatica fame, setting the tone for the album – infectious, rocking, groovy, and with more hooks than the Chinese fishing fleet, attaching itself to your brain like a limpet with super-glue. Every song is a cracker, like the awesome synth driven ‘Scorpions Revenge’, ‘Golden Gate’ with its Vocoder refrain, the quirky ‘Trying’ with its amusing lyrics, ‘Brothers’ with its dramatic string quartet riff featuring a couple of angry barks by guest Raphael Hilfiker, the symphonic romp ‘Confirmation’ with top opera singer Margo Cadias, etc. etc. etc. Pascale will also soon release a completely orchestral version of the album. Production and sound as you would expect from a sound engineer is exemplary, with the finishing touches done by Simon Oberender who has worked with the likes of Lunatica, Avantasia and Epica. Rheia is one of those anomalies, a little known project that you would expect to be arty and obscure, but it turns out that this is an album that will appeal to anyone who likes intelligent but enormously catchy rock/metal. In fact it has a lot of commercial potential if it was given a good push in the right areas, and there’s no reason why these songs cannot be played on mainstream rock radio stations. Her pantheon can be found at here, and it’s currently availably digitally at a selection of stores, an unforgeable 9.25/10
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