Vertalia is the debut album from Greece’s Fortis Ventus, a band plying the symphonic metal seas. Theirs is a cinematic approach with a lot of sweep to go with the abundant melodies and gorgeous vocals of singer Nancy Mos. It’s been a long time since I heard a singer with an operatic approach mesh with the music as well as Mos and I find it hard not to compare her with Tarja Turunen during her stint in Nightwish. Speaking of the Finnish legends, Vertalia reminds me a lot of their later material, minus the bloated, self-indulgence that band can lapse into. "Cave of Glass" and "Gothecia" both give a listener a feeling of looking down from an overhead camera racing across a beautiful landscape like you might see in a movie. "Homeland," which closes out Vertalia, is in the same mold, and nearly as beautiful, as Nightwish’s "Sleeping Sun." Fortis Ventus have quickly homed in on a sound that works for the strengths of the musicians and all fans of female-fronted symphonic metal from bands like Delain, Epica and, of course, Nightwish, should check it out.