I’m holding the physical pressing of *Metal Queens* in my hands and the first thing you notice is the weight. It’s a heavy slab of wax that feels like it belongs in a different decade. Marta Gabriel, the powerhouse behind the Polish heavy metal outfit Crystal Viper, didn't just record a covers album. She built a shrine to the women who gave the 80s its grit. Dropping the needle on the title track—a ferocious take on Lee Aaron’s Canadian anthem—it’s clear this isn't some hollow pandemic hobby. It’s a document of survival.
Gabriel released the project on July 30 and the timing tells a specific story of the industry’s recent stagnation. When the world stopped, Gabriel didn't. She pivoted. Most musicians were busy trying to figure out how to use Zoom while she was in the studio re-engineering the sounds of her youth. It’s an aggressive, polished effort that features covers of Wendy O. Williams, Chastain and Hellion.
But the motivation wasn't just about nostalgia. It was about the lack of a stage. Gabriel explains the pivot from her main band to this solo venture with a pragmatism that’s rare in the theatre of metal.
"Well, after we finished working on the latest Crystal Viper album, 'The Cult', we knew that we won’t be able to play live shows and tour because of the pandemic situation, so we decided to start working on the next project and I came up with this idea to record a solo album of cover songs," Gabriel says.
There is a certain restless energy in that statement. For a musician of her calibre, silence is the enemy. The project became a collective effort for her inner circle, a way to keep the rust off their fingers and the gloom out of their heads.
"Everyone immediately loved this idea and first of all, we stayed busy as musicians. So instead of sitting and complaining and doing nothing, we were busy with another project. I love music, I love to compose and record and to record cover songs is a way to show my musical DNA, where I’m coming from musically," she says. "It’s a way to pay tribute to my favorite artists as well as my favorite female artists in heavy metal music."
And that DNA is unapologetically old school. While some critics might label this a "solo" record, the credits tell a different story. The lines between Gabriel’s solo identity and Crystal Viper are blurred, mostly because she brought her bandmates along for the ride. It’s a smart move. Why hire session players when you already have a well-oiled machine at your disposal?
"Yes, that’s true, and I also believe it’s a good start for me to release my own music as a solo artist in the future, who knows? For now I’m focusing only on the 'Metal Queens' album and working on this album in general was fantastic. First of all, I was recording some of my favorite tracks. This is the music that I listen to on a daily basis, these are some of my favorite bands and I was recording my favorite songs with my favorite band mates so that was amazing for me. The entire aura around creating this album was so nice and it didn’t take us very long from the very first idea to getting it done completely," she says.
The centerpiece is undoubtedly the title track. Lee Aaron is a foundational figure in Canadian rock history and Gabriel treats the material with a reverence that borders on the religious. When I suggest Aaron is a goddess here in the Great White North, Gabriel is quick to expand that jurisdiction.
"I believe she’s a rock goddess everywhere," Gabriel says.
Choosing the tracklist for an album like this is a minefield. You have to balance the obvious hits with the deep cuts that prove your "true metal" credentials. Gabriel’s selection process was more visceral than calculated. It wasn't about what would stream well; it was about what resided in her gut.
"When I came up with this idea, I created a list of my favorite heavy metal bands, and hard rock bands and then the song titles came to me very naturally. When I thought about Lee Aaron, Metal Queen was the first choice. Everybody has their own favorite band, and when you have your favorite band, someone asks you, what is your favorite song from this band? There is one second and you can give an answer and this is exactly the same with me and the Metal Queen album," she says.
The physical constraints of the vinyl format actually acted as a curator for the project. In an era where digital albums can bloat to 80 minutes of filler, the 11-song limit forced a level of discipline.
"The other thing is that this list was very long and I had to limit myself to record 10 or 11 songs only because we wanted to get this album released on vinyl as well so there are still songs on the list that I didn’t record this time. There might be an opportunity for me in the future to record 'Metal Queen Part Two' and I would love to do that," Gabriel says.
The obsession with vinyl isn't just a hipster affectation for Gabriel. It’s a return to form. The tactile experience of a record—the oversized artwork, the gatefold photos, the smell of the ink—is something Spotify can't replicate. It’s about the "gadget" factor, the physical evidence of being a fan.
"I was born in the 80s but when I was a child I remember my father bringing home huge packages packed with vinyl. There were a lot of records at home and people were keeping music from this format and then we had CDs and now everything is kind of online," she says.
"You can listen to music on Spotify and I noticed that people are buying less CDs and more vinyl. For me, it looks like if someone is a fan of a band they can listen to music from Spotify, but when you want to have a physical copy, many people are choosing vinyl. The cover art looks beautiful and very often you can find in vinyl nice books, posters, photos, and vinyl looks amazing and there are many colors. So this is a kind of gadget, something very cool that fans of music want to have and to be honest, it’s the same way for me," she says.
The vocal performances on *Metal Queens* are where the real work happens. Covering someone like Ann Boleyn of Hellion is a high-wire act. Boleyn was often dubbed the "female Dio," and Gabriel possesses that same ability to transcend the "female-fronted" label. Her voice doesn't just occupy the space; it dominates it.
We talk about the modern obsession with sub-genres. In the metal world, we love to categorize everything until the music itself gets lost in the labels. Gabriel has a nuanced take on this. She doesn't hate the labels, but she refuses to let them be the final word.
"No, I don’t think there are too many genres because I think that when someone is creating something original, he has his own right to name it and sometimes it’s pretty helpful," she says. "For example, if you read a review of an album and it says that it’s symphonic gothic metal or something like that and you review another review which says it’s a classical heavy metal album, which sounds like something from the 80s, I will certainly choose to take a listen to the second one because this is the music that I like."
When I was seven years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a musician... I started to sing when I was in high school, and started to dream about my own band... I was so amazed that women can sing like that. That was totally new to me. And that was a message that women can kick ass...
"So names or genres are sometimes pretty helpful and regarding this female fronted metal, sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes it’s not. I am a fan of female voices in classic heavy metal and so for me it’s a kind of hint, but for sure it’s not the name of a genre," she says. "Let’s just take two bands for example, Nightwish and Hellion. One person could say, okay, they’re female fronted metal, but those two bands are completely different. They’re even different genres of music there, everything is different. So we can use it as a kind of a hint for sure, not as a name of genre, because it’s not."
Gabriel’s authority on the subject comes from a life spent in the trenches. She’s celebrating her 30th anniversary in music this year, a staggering statistic considering she’s only 37. She was a child prodigy of sorts, though her beginnings were far removed from the distorted guitars of Chastain.
"Wow, it was very long ago and actually this year I have my 30 year anniversary in music because I’m 37 and when I was seven years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a musician and they sent me to music school. I started playing piano and so on but I wasn’t singing, I was a pianist, and I was growing up listening to a lot of classical music or other music," she says.
"I wasn’t a singer but I always liked to sing. I’ve always liked playing piano and singing along. I remember I was even composing music when I was a child. Of course I was singing about butterflies and birds, just like children do, but music was always my whole life, you know? And I liked to sing but I wasn’t a trained vocalist," she says.
The transition from butterflies to Black Sabbath happened in the basements of high schools. It was there that she began to deconstruct the techniques of the masters—Dickinson, Halford and Martin. But the real epiphany came when she realized she didn't have to emulate the men to be powerful.
"I started to sing when I was in high school, and started to dream about my own band. We were playing in our school’s basement, that was my very first band, and I started learning to listen to many different vocalists. I remember my metal heroes when it came to vocals. Tony Martin from Black Sabbath, Bruce Dickinson, Rob Halford, David DeFeis from Virgin Steele, and these are actually the first bands that I started my heavy metal journey with," she says.
"Later, I discovered bands like Warlock and Hellion and I remember I was so amazed by Doro’s voice when I heard Warlock for the first. I was so amazed that women can sing like that. That was totally new to me. And that was a message that women can kick ass because I was already singing in this kind of metal style with all those vocal effects but I didn’t know all the other female singers who were singing like that. So when I heard them for the first time, I was like, oh wow!" she says.
What makes Gabriel’s technical proficiency so impressive—and perhaps a bit intimidating—is that she is largely self-taught on the instruments that define her current career.
"But I’m a self taught vocalist. I’m trying to be honest, but vocals, guitar, bass guitar, these are all instruments that I self taught," she says.
Building Crystal Viper in Poland wasn't easy. Classic heavy metal wasn't the trend. Gabriel had to navigate a scene that was more interested in the lifestyle than the labour. She spent three years as a project before becoming a proper band, a delay born from a perfectionist streak that demanded the right people.
"First of all, I was looking for musicians that would listen to the music that I want to play. I cannot imagine being a musician in a band which plays music that I don’t like, because that would be completely horrible and classic heavy metal is not very popular in Poland and has never been popular in Poland. It was kind of difficult," she says.
"The other thing was that there were many people I met on my way which were more interested in drinking or taking drugs than playing. Also personality, can you imagine going on tour with a bunch of people that don’t like each other? Of course the lineup changed over the years, but it was never like that," she says.
"There wasn’t any drama or fights. Most musicians left the band because of jobs, family issues and so on and you never know what life will bring you, right? I’m actually friends with previous Crystal Viper members. The very first Crystal Viper member was Andy in 2006 and he’s still in the band until now. We are actually very good friends and we’ve known each other for 15 years. He listens to very similar music to what I do and we understand each other without words," she says.
The pace of Gabriel’s output is relentless. Crystal Viper dropped *The Cult* in early 2021, followed quickly by *Metal Queens*. She’s even lost track of the specific dates because the work never stops.
"Yes, 'The Cult' was released in January or February, I’m horrible with dates," she says.
"Yes, that’s true, the Crystal Viper album and Metal Queens were not the only musical projects that we were working on because even now we are working on something new. And also during that time I joined Blazon Stone, a band from Sweden. They play music which reminds me of the band Running Wild and it’s the band of Crystal Viper’s drummer Cederick Forsberg. He formed Blazon Stone many years ago and he asked me if I would join on bass guitar," she says.
"So I already recorded an album with the bass tracks. So it’s another album that will be released this year which you can hear me but not singing, playing bass guitar," she says.
Her evolution into a multi-instrumentalist was born of necessity. Most Crystal Viper songs begin on the piano, which creates a translation issue when you’re trying to hand off riffs to a guitarist. Gabriel grew tired of the language barrier and decided to learn the language of the six-string herself.
"No I didn’t, I started playing guitar pretty late. I was in my mid-20’s I believe, or even later, I don’t really remember what brought me to play guitar. Most of Crystal Viper songs are created and composed on piano, that’s the truth," she says.
"I have all the arrangement of the song in my head, but the first version is always a piano version. In Crystal Viper when we were working on the first album, it was very difficult for me to explain to my guitarists how to play riffs that I composed on piano. I knew how I would like them to sound but I couldn’t explain to them how I could play guitar riffs on piano," she says.
"One day I just made up my mind and decided to learn to play guitar to be able to record songs and arrange them in the way that I want them to sound and to be able to work on a better level with my band mates or to be a better composer. The truth is, the more instruments you play, the more possibilities you have when it comes to composing and arranging music and I was composing on piano, arranging on guitar, so I was actually learning playing guitar while composing my own songs," she says.
This wasn't a quick process. It was a grind. She would spend hours mastering a four-second harmony just to ensure the demo sounded exactly as it did in her head. The same happened with the bass. She didn't want to send "empty" demos to her band, so she picked up a four-string to fill the gaps.
"It was always a challenge for me because sometimes I had in my head some nice riffs or melodies that I couldn’t play. So I was sitting for hours and I was practicing a three or four second guitar harmony because I had to record this for my band and this is how I learned to play guitar," she says.
"With bass guitar the situation is very similar, but a little bit different. When I was recording demo songs for Crystal Viper albums, the songs that I was later sending to my band mates to learn, the bass tracks were missing. So when I was composing songs, I was programming drums with the software, I was recording vocals, recording guitars, but there was no bass. I thought that it would be cool to be able to record demo songs as they should really sound so then I got my first bass guitar and started playing bass recording my own demo songs and this is how I learned to play bass guitar," she says.
But being a studio player and a stage performer are two different disciplines. Gabriel never intended to be a guitarist in the live setting. That happened by accident during a gear check. Her husband, Bart, who also serves as her producer, suggested she bring her new guitar to the studio.
"Another story is how I started to play guitar as a member in the band because this is something that I didn’t plan. I never saw myself on stage with a guitar, I’ve always seen myself as a vocalist. I remember it was this period of time when Crystal Viper were in the recording studio and I had just bought a new guitar. My husband came up with an idea to take this guitar to the recording studio just to check how it sounds with studio gear. I said yes, let’s take this guitar to the studio and I will play something and we will listen to how it sounds," she says.
"That was the very first time when my band mates heard me playing guitar, because everything they got from me in the past were just tracks that I had recorded at home and sent over," she says. "This was also a period of time when we were looking for a guitarist because our previous guitarist had to quit because of his job, and after they saw me playing guitar in the studio they said, Okay, so we have a guitarist, we don’t need to look any longer. I was like, 'No, no way, I’m not going to play!'"
"I didn’t feel confident to go on stage with a guitar. I was thinking that I’m not good enough. Eventually I said okay, I just need to try. This was also new for me to play guitar standing because when I was recording songs I was always sitting, and when you play guitar, standing and singing at the same time are completely different. On the same day I also recorded guitar parts for the game Stronghold and that was my first studio recording ever on guitar," she says.
The technical hurdle of playing while standing is a real one. It shifts the centre of gravity and changes the angle of the wrist. Gabriel’s honesty about her lack of confidence is refreshing. It’s a reminder that even the "goddesses" of the genre have to fight for their proficiency.
Her partnership with Bart is central to this. Working with a spouse in the high-pressure environment of a recording studio can be a recipe for disaster, but for Gabriel, it’s a strategic advantage. He knows when to push and when to preserve the core of the artist.
"I hope so because there are many things that I want to try in life, but I don’t think that I will be that good in all of them because it’s simply not possible. I believe that each of us is good at different things. For example, if I ever offer you a meal, please don’t accept because I’m a horrible, horrible cook," she says.
"I think it’s the best combination ever. First of all, we both work with music. He knows me as a person and as a musician so when he’s producing Crystal Viper albums and my albums, he can connect those two things. He’s also this kind of producer who always expects the best from me," she says. "He knows what I’m able to do and sometimes he needs to push me a little bit to get the best result from me as a musician. I love to work with him. I know also in this way that he’s this kind of producer who never wants to change the musician or the band to sound like something or someone else. He always remembers what the roots of the band are and he’s working around that. In this case, we are a couple and this works perfectly for both of us. Sometimes we understand each other without words. This is another huge, huge pro."
Looking forward, the roadmap remains hazy thanks to the lingering effects of the pandemic. European regulations have made meeting in person a logistical nightmare, forcing Gabriel to become her own sound engineer—a skill she plans to keep in her arsenal.
"We received some offers but for sure it’s too early to confirm anything because the situation is changing from one week to another. It looks like I will see my band mates next month. We planned this out because we haven’t seen each other since March of last year. We live in different countries and here in Europe the regulations regarding COVID were different in every country so it was impossible to meet," she says.
"Actually during COVID I learned to work remotely on music with the guys from Crystal Viper and I had had to learn to become my own sound engineer. These are the first two albums in my life that I haven’t recorded in the recording studio, but we made it and I think we will continue working like that in the future because it was comfortable in many ways to be honest," she says.
However, there is a valid critique to be made about the remote recording process. While efficient, it lacks the collective friction that happens in a physical room. Gabriel acknowledges this lack of focus, the "magic" that disappears when you’re staring at a screen in your living room instead of a console in a professional centre.
"Of course, I missed the magic of the studio when you are sitting together with your band mates and you are working on music, you can focus on music and the outside world doesn’t exist at all, you can focus on music only and that was beautiful. When I was working in my home studio there was always something in the back of my head that when I finished the song, I need to do this, do that, go there, and I couldn’t focus sometimes one hundred percent. I’m also this kind of a person who has a problem with focusing on something at all. So in some ways it was difficult, but in many ways it was very cool. I think we will keep on recording that way because we know it’s possible. Of course I’m not saying that we will never enter the studio because working in a recording studio is an amazing thing. I think we will do both," she says.
In the end, *Metal Queens* is more than just a tribute. It’s a testament to Gabriel’s refusal to be sidelined. Whether she’s playing piano, guitar, bass or screaming into the void of a pandemic, she remains one of the most vital voices in the genre. Just don't ask her to cook you dinner.
