Since 2003 Polish singer Marta Gabriel has led the charge, helming heavy metal’s Crystal Viper. A band formed from a revolving mish-mash of musicians and recordings. Its formal infancy began in 2006 with its first official lineup and 2007 debut, The Curse of the Crystal Viper. An EP followed in ’08 with a second full length and new members in ’09. In ’10 they released Legends, an album featuring lyrics of Polish legends and folklore. The Holy Inquisition came in ’12 with Crimen Excepta. The Viper then went dormant taking a break till 2017 when Queen of the Witches was released.
Gabriel has taken her predatory eyes, melodic voice and piercing scream all over Europe and the eastern world. Though the west in still unbroken territory they hope to grace American shores someday, by invitation of course. “No, not yet, but we would love to! We hope promoters will invite Crystal Viper out there, we know there are many fans waiting for us!”
They’ve played heavier in the past but celebrate a more melodic return with Tales of Fire and Ice carrying a nice respect and flare of the ‘80s. You’ll find melodic hooks, emotional lyrics and a tribute to one of horrors most iconic dream stalkers.
A name like Crystal Viper kinda sticks in your head giving visions of both ‘70s and ‘80s namesakes. Gabriel explains its creation, “We wanted a two-piece name, like our favorite bands, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and so on. As long as something sounded cool enough to use. It’s not a very exciting story, but it’s how it was created.”
Tales of Fire and Ice has a more hard rock ‘80s groove. Gabriel says its progress in sound and production, not necessarily change. “We have more hard rock elements on this album, but I wouldn’t say it’s a big change. We already had a lot of elements like this on previous albums. This time there are more of them, that’s why it’s easier to notice. The main changes are more modern, up to date production, and more catchy melodies in our songs.”
The cover of Tales of Fire and Ice has an enchanting image, conveying concepts of fantasy and Japanese art, “It’s me on the cover. During the photo shoot with Tim Tronckoe, I played the role of a figure, who might be a human being, or someone out of this world. Our cover art symbolizes a strong and passionate character, surrounded by a mysterious environment.” At first you see a woman in a dress, then after detailed analysis other elements unveil themselves.
The record closes with a cover of Dokken’s “Dream Warriors.”A tune hailed as an iconic ‘80s theme and one of the coolest horror-movie tie-in tunes and videos recorded. Gabriel’s a big fan of Dokken and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Years back Gabriel composed an Elm Street inspired tune “1428” on the Metal Nation album. She’s a fan of classic horror and the Hammer Films studio.
They’ve made several videos from narrative stories, performing in dungeons to the more polished, spot-lit studio look of current videos “Still Alive” and “Bright Lights.”
In 2018 for the At the Edge of Time EP they recorded English and Polish versions of the title track with videos as they did with another earlier song as Gabriel explains, “We did that once, in the very early days, with a song entitled “The Last Axeman.” It’s fun to sing in my native language, but to be honest, I think metal sounds better in English, not only because more people can understand what I sing, but I think English sounds a bit more melodic than Polish.”
Their album 2013 album Possession is a concept piece ranging from spiritual possession to supernatural inhabitance with several characters in the lyrics including Julia, and a priest, which Gabriel voices. “Possession seems to be an exorcism story at the beginning, but when you read the lyrics carefully and follow the concept, you see what this album is really about. Julia was not possessed in a ‘classic horror way.’ There was a voice of something much bigger than a demon speaking through her. It was a voice of an extraterrestrial, who wanted to save the Earth and warn the human race. He was trying to tell us what to do to survive, to explain that our world will die if we don’t start to protect and take care of our planet.”
Instead of heeding the higher being’s voice of knowledge, the characters assumed it was spiritual possession and called in a priest. Afterwards the being simply leaves knowing the human races eventual fate and Julia is ‘cleansed’ through the eyes of the humans. “These lyrics are very important to me personally, because my heart is bleeding when I see what is going on around me. Pollution, degradation, species extinctions, the Earth is dying, sooner or later the human race will open its eyes. But it will be too late.”
Gabriel isn’t a fan of the video for Possession tune, “Prophet of the End” but it was the only promo they had at the time for the album. “Oh man, I wish I could not speak about this video because it’s horrible,” she laughs. “The idea for the story was ours, but produced by a hired film company. There was no idea to place the band under the highway. The film crew simply brought us on the set, under the bridge.”
They didn’t like the location, but agreed in the end with the company’s word it’d be fixed in post-production. The bands idea for Julia’s room was also totally different, “We wanted her room to look like our album cover, middle of the night, dark, with metal posters on the walls, and so on.”
The finished product’s quality was sub-par and with no time for corrections or shooting another one, they had the choice to post or not to post. “We decided to publish, it was the only promo material for the album we had. Even now I think it was a bad idea, this video should never see the daylight.”
The cover for Possession is half blue with peaceful imagery and half red with an angry fire lit mob. “The cover is a duality and battle of colors with backgrounds depicting sides of conflict and peace. “The red art symbolizes the first feeling you have when you start listening. You think about burning witches, exorcisms and the holy inquisition. It also refers to Crystal Viper’s past, the connection of Possession with the previous album Crimen Excepta. The blue side symbolizes the truth behind the lyrics. If you look through the window, you see a starship, with the aliens. Another cool fact is that Julia’s a Crystal Viper fan. There’s a wolf mascot sitting on her bed from the cover art of Legends and “The Wolf and the Witch.” with a Crystal Viper poster on the wall.”
“Witches Mark” is arguably their most metal looking video with actors staging inquisition scenes as the band performs in a skull filled dungeon with cameras capturing Gabriel’s wide eyed, ear piercing screams. The inquisition scenes and performance were done at different locations and days. The band never met the actors though a band appearance among the crowd would’ve been cool.
Speaking of witches, the lyrics for “Crimen Excepta” feature two characters Sarah and William created by Gabriel, inspired and rooted in the real historical environment of their period, with lyrics inspired by the history of the holy inquisition.
Over time, Gabriel has appeared on other artists albums including a spot on Vader tune “Cursed Eternally.” Time will tell if she ventures to metal’s dark side dancing with the Sith lords of Poland again. “It’s hard to say what the future will bring. We keep in touch with Vader. I was a guest on Vader’s album, and Peter was a guest on one of Crystal Viper’s albums. The music world is small; you never know whose path your path will cross.”
She’s also done a duet with Riot V’s Todd Michael Hall on “Shallow” from A Star is Born. “I love this song. I love to play it on my piano and sing along, since the first time I heard it. One day I came up with an idea to record it and put it on the internet, just for fun. My husband said it would sound even better if I would sing it in a duet. The first person we thought about was Todd. I’ve worked with Todd in the past many times, and we are good friends. He immediately agreed.” Crystal Viper and Riot V played at Sabaton Open Air festival in Sweden giving them the chance to film a video.
At a very young age Gabriel saw a symphonic orchestra on T.V. telling her parents she wanted to be a musician. They obliged, sending her to music school to learn piano. Some 28 years later, she’s toured, playing piano, guitar and bass, singing and composing. She hopes it will last forever. “I can’t imagine my life without music!”
They’ll be promoting the album in 2020 and playing live as much as possible. For fans new and old, Gabriel says, “I hope you enjoy our new album, and I hope to see you guys and gals on the forthcoming lives shows! We are metal nation!”
