Metal in all its forms and colours

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A couple more from this week.

I have talked about Lovebites before. For my money, they are the best of the current crop of metal bands from Japan. Two fantastic guitarists, a killer rhythm section, and a terrific vocalist performing fast, energetic power metal. Wow. Here they are last fall in Tokyo.


And then Eluveitie are a Swiss folk metal band. Their sound goes quite heavy as folk metal goes, even heading into black metal territory at times. New album dropped yesterday. Here's a couple tracks from it.


 
Blackbriar gives full vent to their dark, gothic tendencies on their new song and video, 'The Fossilized Widow".


New album due in August. The band are doing their first headliner tour in conjunction with this one.
 
One of the things that has drawn me into metal and kept me there is the sheer diversity of sounds. From the dark rumbling guitars of Sabbath and other early bands has sprung a large, spreading tree with myriad branches. And I seem to just keep finding new branches on that tree as I spend more and more time in that world. For instance, I am now watching videos by Jon Barbas, the Heavy Metal Philosopher. He leans extreme, talking a lot about death metal, black metal, and variations thereof along with ventures into things like metalcore and deathcore. However, this week he introduced me to Paula Teles, who has created her own subgenre of symphonic metal that brings in Portuguese fado music. I mean, I listen to a lot of folk metal that brings in sounds from the music of various places, usually in Europe, but fado and metal is a combination I never would have thought of. And it is wow.

 
A couple new ones from this week so far.

Ukrainian band Jinjer released a new video for a song from their last album, Duel, which came out in February. Song is called "Fastdraw" and is one of the album's heavier songs, featuring all harsh vocals from lead singer Tatiana Shmayluk and some stellar playing from the rest of the band. Video footage is taken from last year's tour.


And then from Finland, the amazing voice of Noora Louhimo graces the band Battle Beast. "Last Goodbye" is a new single but no indication yet of when an album might be forthcoming.


And finally, a recent discovery of mine is Moonlight Haze from Italy. "Awakening" is the third single from their next album, coming May 23. The lovely voice belongs to Chiara Tricario, who also writes the lyrics.

 
Alice Cooper often gets lumped in with heavy metal but his music, strictly speaking, is more hard rock than heavy metal. The imagery, on the other hand, is very metal and he definitely has been influential on metal and has a lot of fans among headbangers. He is one of the finest showmen in rock and his current backing band is better than a lot of actual bands, featuring top tier musicians like guitar goddess Nita Strauss. Not bad for a guy who is now 77 years old and has been at this almost as long as I have been alive. So his show from Hellfest 2022, the massive rock festival in France, was nothing short of stellar. Here's three highlights.




2022 was a big year at Hellfest, maybe because it was the first full year back after the pandemic. Besides Alice, you had Nightwish, Epica, Scorpions, and many more big name rock and metal acts hitting the stage that year.
 
So I just had the revelation today (and should have had it sooner) that Benjamin Metzner, one of the co-lead singers of the German medieval folk metal band Feuerschwanz, is also the lead singer of another, similar band called d'Artagnan. Besides singing, he also plays multiple instruments, most notably the highland bagpipes. I haven't listened to d'Artagnan as much as I have Feuerschwanz but that's going to change now that I realize the relationship between them. Here he is with d'Artagnan in tracks featuring two of my favourite female singers. Conveniently, both speak German since this band, like Feuerschwanz, mostly sings in their native tongue rather than English.

First up, another German. Patty Gurdy plays hurdy gurdy and is an accomplished vocalist as well. Her own music leans more to folk but she loves metal and frequently guests with various metal artists. On "Farewell" we get to hear both her voice and her gurdy.


Swiss singer Melissa Bonny is a favourite of mine who has also sung with Feuerschwanz several times. She is a busy lady, with two bands of her own and frequent guest appearances with other artists. This is the second video for this song, which debuted as the title track and leadoff single for the band's last album, promoting d'Artagnan's latest tour. A quick Google shows that "herzblut" means "lifeblood" and "mit herzblut" means to do something with passion.

 
Dragonforce are an English prog/power metal band that plays like an F1 car, fast and loud. Guitarist Hermann Li is one of the best in the business, too, with his bandmate Sam Totman not far behind. Add to that a top notch rhythm section and a solid vocalist, and you've got some seriously excellent, energetic metal.

So what happens when you combine that firepower with one of the best female metal vocalists around? Music happens, damn good music. We had it happen a couple years ago when they paired up with Elize Ryd of Amaranthe. This time it's Alissa White-Gluz of Arch-Enemy. While she is one of the best growlers in the business, here she lets loose with some amazing belts, proving a fine duet partner for Marc Hudson of Dragonforce (she does growl, too, but only one verse). And to that stellar solo work from both guitarists and bassist Alicia Vigil and you have 6 minutes of amazing music.


And just in case you've forgotten from past posts about Alissa, she's from Montreal and started her stellar career in Canadian metalcore band The Agonist before getting tapped for the lead in Swedish melodic death metal band Arch-Enemy. One of the best metal artists ever to come out of this country, IMHO.
 
Tarja Turunen has had quite the career. Opera-trained, she ended up joining with some fellow denizens of the Finnish town of Kitee to form the band Nightwish and helping to develop their symphonic spin on metal. Since a falling out with them in 2005, though, Tarja has pursued a solo career. As just Tarja, she has produced some wonderful music, both metal and not. Her latest release is Circus Life, a live album that is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray. It's a unique show recorded in Bucharest, Romania in 2020 just before all hell broke loose. What makes it interesting is that the show was done in the round in a circus style venue, with Tarja and the band interacting with an audience around them rather than in front of them. This track features her backup singers joining in on vocals. They are Clementine Delauney of the band Visions of Atlantis (another of my top 5 female metal singers), Chiara Tricario of Moonlight Haze (who I only discovered this year), and Toni Turunen (yep, the music genes are strong with this family).

 
And a rather neat new video from Swedish metallers Sabaton, has a bunch of kids playing the band and the band playing historical figures allied to fight the subject of this song, Genghis Khan. There's a framing device about world peace coming in 2039, forcing the band out of business because there's no more wars to sing about (they focus on history in their songs, often of the military variety).

 
New one out today. "Hellfire" is from Pirates II Armada, the most recent album from Austrian symphonic metal band Visions of Atlantis. It's a real banger that features some operatic vocals from French lead singer Clementine Delauney and a kickass guitar solo. Nice way to kick off the week.

 
Artistic, hand-drawn animation is a rare thing. Many bands and artists use AI-generated animation in videos. And it often shows.

Not so, Blackbriar. Their latest, "Harpy", feature a traditional hand-drawn animated video that opens with an animated version of the closing scene of their previous video, "The Fossilized Widow" (posted up thread here). The art is by the same artist who does their very distinctive album covers and, interestingly, the title of their new album is actually a line from this song, A Thousand Little Deaths.

 
Cryptopsy are one of the OGs of death metal. Formed as Necrosis in 1988, they took on their current name in 1992. As tends to be the case with metal and prog bands, they've had tons of churn over the years and only drummer Flo Mournier even dates back to the beginning. Once named "the most vile band in metal", which they wear as a badge of honour, they have 9 studio LPs, 2 studio EPs, and a live album. Their ninth album, An Insatiable Violence, dropped yesterday and is getting a lot of attention from the metal commenters on YouTube. Its predecessor As Gomorrah Burns landed them a Juno for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year and I suspect they'll at least land a nomination for this one.

Anyhow, if you ever want to hear death metal at its heaviest and most brutal, even out of curiosity, Cryptopsy is a good choice.

 
All of these can be denied, or eliminated by BS as idealism does it ... alas imperfection ... the crack in humanity! It may open as mined or something other ... sumptin ... a bilge?
 
Festival season is on, with bands making the rounds of festivals like Hellfest (France), Graspop (Belgium), Wacken Open Air (Germany), and Bloodstock (UK). Here, Canadian metal stars Spiritbox let loose with one of their heavier tunes at Graspop 2025. They are a very "hands-on" band, with bassist Josh Gilbert doing the mix and guitarist Mike Stringer editing the video. Of course, front and centre is Mike's wife, the wonderful Courtney Laplante, on vocals. I know screams and growls aren't everybody's cuppa when it comes to singing but she's a damn fine vocalist both clean and harsh.

 
Dianne van Giersbergen, currently working solo as just DIANNE, packs a powerful operatic soprano. Morten Veland, who records under Mortemia, is very talented Dane who plays a mean guitar among other things. Put them together and give them one of the greats of the Canadian songbook, and ... yeah, wow. I'm still getting over my first listen. Here is Mortemia feat. DIANNE, with "Like a Hurricane" by Neil Young.

 
It's Canada Day, so how about some Canadian metalheads to celebrate?

Anvil's Metal On Metal made the Globe's recent list of "101 Canadian Albums You Need to Hear" and was just about the only real metal on the list (but I need to check again, I was a bit surprised at the lack of certain other bands). They began in 1978 and released Metal On Metal in 1982. I know I saw them on the Muchmusic Power Hour but don't remember much beyond that. However, they were apparently quite influential on the development of thrash metal (Metallica, Megadeath, Slayer) in the 1980s. Best of all, Anvil is still a going concern 40+ years later. Here they are from 2024's One And Only.


One of the biggest metal bands to come from Canada is technodeath greats Cryptopsy of Montreal, as discussed in another post above. They are another band dating to the 80s that is still in action in 2025. This track dates to 2005.


Also from Montreal is another Canadian band with global reach, prog metal band Voivod.


Spiritbox out of Vancouver are the new kids on the block as far as Canadian metal with a global following, blending a variety of styles from the metal and hardcore lines of rock. Nicely, they put out a new live video last week.


And also out of Vancouver, the winners of the 2025 Juno for Heavy/Hard Rock Album of the Year, Anciients. They have also appeared on the long list for the Polaris Prize at least once.


So happy headbanging Canada Day!!! We Canadians really do rock!!!
 
Yesterday in Birmingham, his hometown, fans and bands paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. The man was arguably the first "metal singer" in his first run with Black Sabbath and has continued, both solo and in Sabbath, to be a major figure in heavy metal. And the rock stars came out, almost all of them arguably descendents of or influenced by Ozzy and Sabbath to some degree. Lamb of God, Halestorm, Ghost, Gun'n'Roses, Anthrax, Pantera, Metallica and more. Of course, Ozzy himself, now confined to an ornate throne by health problems, put in an appearance performing both solo and with members of Black Sabbath. The videos so far are mostly so-so fan vids, so I'll just add to the tribute with some Ozzy classics.

One of the defining songs of early metal, "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath from 1970.


From 1981, his solo hit "Mr. Crowley" featuring the late Randy Rhoads on guitar. Ozzy was deeply shaken by the loss of Randy, an extremely talented young guitarist, even doing a live album dedicated to his memory.


"Iron Man" is another old Sabbath classic, here from the band's last reunion nearly a decade ago. They are getting back together for a one-off.


With Randy again, one of the first metal songs I would actually admit to liking back in the day, "Crazy Train".

 
While metal still has a somewhat deserved reputation for being "white Western music", there are a growing number of metal bands from non-Western cultures. One of my favourite metal bands is The Hu from Mongolia. And I just came across Mawiza, who are members of the Mapuche indigenous nation from Chile and Argentina. They are joined here by Joe Duplantier of French band Gojira (the ones who became famous for their appearance at the Olympics last year) but he only has a small part, contributing some screams.

 
Dutch ensemble Within Temptation are one of the original symphonic metal bands, fronted by the powerful voice of co-founder (with her husband) Sharon den Adel.

German band Lord of the Lost are a force in dark/goth/industrial metal featuring the very talented vocalist and songwriter Chris Harms.

I love both so when I found out they had cut a duet for LotL's next album, I was headbanging before I even heard it. And it is a fantastic song.

 
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One of my favourite metal subgenres is melodic death metal and one of my recent favourite bands in that genre is Orbit Culture. Their new album drops in October and this is the latest single. Yes it's dark as all hell. They call it death metal for a reason. Though there's some surprisingly upbeat music in melodeath, this band hews closer to the death than the melo-.

 
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