Metal in all its forms and colours

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The only heavy metal band I have seen live is Christian hair metal greats Stryper. That was at a Christian rock festival in Kitchener in the mid-eighties. They are still at it today and still sound pretty dang good. The lyrics are very much evangelical Christianity but the sound is very much classic eighties metal and it fits strangely well with the proclaiming of Jesus and his message.

 
On August 24 of last year, American nu-metal greats Linkin Park very loudly announced their return, and introduced Emily Armstrong as their new vocalist, with the powerful rocker "The Emptiness Machine". Almost a year later, they release this video of a show at a sold out Wembley Stadium in London, UK. This is how a rock/metal show should look. Stands crowded, crowd rocking out and singing along. Whatever controversy there might have been when Emily was announced seems to have evaporated and Linkin Park are back to being one of the greats.

 
Baby Metal's new album has produced some spectacular collaborations with a variety of modern metal artists from around the world. Today it is Canada's turn, with Vancouver-based band Spiritbox joining them for "My Queen". It's a rather different look for Spiritbox lead Courtney Laplante, but when she gets to cut loose with both clean and harsh vocals to sing the bridge, it's pure Courtney.

 
A dark melodic but quite heavy track is the final release from Opus Noir Vol. 1, the new album from Germans Lord of the Lost.

 
Visions of Atlantis hails from Austria originally and has evolved from straight symphonic metal into part of the movement known as "pirate metal". Their last two studio albums have been Pirates and Pirates II - Armada, with a live version of their set promoting the first at Wacken Open Air in between. They are not the heaviest band out there, but their brand of bright, melodic entertaining makes for great listening and fantastic lives shows. Here's videos from a couple of their gigs this summer. Both songs are from Pirates II since that's the album they are promoting right now.



Lead singers are Clementine Delauney (French), an opera-trained soprano with a clean, powerful voice, and Michele Guaitoli (Italian) who brings a raspier, more traditional rock voice to the proceedings. They've been singing together in the band since 2018 and I hope they manage to keep this lineup together. The band has a long history of revolving doors on vocals but these two are fantastic individually and as a team so crossing fingers they stay around for a while.
 
One thing about VoA is that they do fantastic power ballads. One of the finest is "Winternight", first sung by original lead singer Nicole Bogner. Nicole left the band in 2005 and died in 2012. This recording of the song by Clementine is a tribute to her late predecessor.

 
And one from Clementine's own era of the band, "The Last Home" from the album The Deep & The Dark.

 
Great as their ballads are (and great as Clementine is at delivering the goods when she sings them), the band's stock in trade is lively, melodic metal anthems that gets fists pumping and audiences singing along. Here's the title track from The Deep & The Dark. Male vocalist here is Michele's predecessor Siegfried Samer, who was only in the band for this one album.


VoA are not as musically and thematically complex as Nightwish or Epica, but their brand of symphonic metal is great in its own way. Brighter, faster, and oddly cheery for metal.
 
One of my favourite genres of metal is melodic death metal and two of my favourite bands in that genre have new videos out. Both are Swedish in origin, though not all current members are from Sweden. While melodeath (the short form of the name) originated in the UK with (IIRC) the band Carcass, Sweden has been a hotbed for it since the nineties, especially a cluster of bands and artists from Gothenburg. There's a lot of melodeath acts in Finnish metal, too.

First up, Arch Enemy. It's been a few months since their album Blood Dynasty dropped, but they have put out a video for "Illuminate the Path", one of my favourite songs from that album. It features both harsh and clean singing by their lead singer Alissa White-Gluz (if you've followed this thread, you'll know that she's favourite of mine and is a Canadian from Montreal).


Then we have The Halo Effect. They are a supergroup of sorts, comprised of musicians who originally played in the band In Flames, one of the leading lights of the Gothenburg scene. All are now in other bands, with lead singer Mikail Stanne actually singing in three bands nowadays (Dark Tranquillity is his main band, then there's this one and Cemetary Skyline). This is a bit of an oddity, a one-off cover of a song I have never heard of from a band I have never heard of. So I will have to hunt up the original sometime.

 
Epica's Symphonic Synergy concerts last year, which paired the symphonic metal band with live orchestras and choirs in Amsterdam and Mexico City (one in each hemisphere, basically) were spectacular shows. The band has released many videos from both, showcasing a stunningly talented band at its peak. Vocalist Simone Simons in particular seems to be hitting a pinnacle in her career, with her clean, powerful voice soaring in ways few in any field of music outside opera can match. "Cry For The Moon" is from the band's 2004 debut album The Phantom Agony but still holds up well after 20+ years. Harsh vocalist is band founder and rhythm guitarist Mark Jansen (no relation to Floor but they were in a band together for a few years early their careers).

 
Teaming the powerful, classically trained voice of Amy Lee (Evanescence) with modern metalcore sirens Poppy (solo artist) and Courtney LaPlante (Spiritbox) is a bit of an odd team-up but danged if it doesn't work. Amy's powerful vocals set off against the softer cleans and powerful screams of the other two actually works. The writing is a collaboration of the three women with producer Jordan Fish (ex-Bring Me the Horizon) and Mike Stringer (Courtney's husband and guitarist of Spiritbox). It's basically modern metalcore but Amy gives it a bit of a symphonic sheen.

 
Lorna Shore is one of the biggest, most popular names in metal right now. And, oddly, they come from one of the most extreme schools of metal, deathcore (the dark, wild child of hardcore and death metal) with influence of blackened death and symphonic metal. Metal podcaster and YouTuber Metal Trenches compares some of their stuff to Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir.

Vocalist Will Ramos Jr., their fifth and most successful singer, does things with the human voice that stun me and I've heard some pretty wild stuff as I've been engaging more with extreme metal like death and black metal. Solid instrumentals, too. They are almost a bit too much for me, but I am giving their new album (I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me, an extreme metal title if there ever was one) a listen. Very talented band, especially, as mentioned, Will on vocals.

This video is a very personal one for an extreme metal band, which usually deal with more political and philosophical themes. "Glenwood" is the neighbourhood where Ramos grew up and the old man who opens the door at the end is Will Ramos Sr., his father. The whole song is about Will's relationship with his father and family.

 
Beyond the Black, led by strong female vocalist and founder Jennifer Haben, have a few months to go until their next album. The latest release is a collaboration with fellow Germans Lord Of The Lost. LotL's lead singer Chris Harms seems to be everywhere in the metal world these days, and turning in some wonderful performances. This is no different, with Chris and Jennifer proving a capable pairing.

 
Metal is often associated with loud, fast, angry music. And, yet, I have managed to put together a whole playlist on Spotify called "Metal Beauties and Ballads". Some samples.

Visions of Atlantis has at least one power ballad per album. With the powerful voice of Clementine Delauney onboard, they'd be fools not to. She can belt like almost no one else in symphonic metal (even gives Floor a run for her money at times) and is an opera-trained soprano, taking the music to the stratosphere when needed. "Underwater" is a classic example, appearing on Pirates II - Armada, the band's most recent album.


And you had to know Floor would make an appearance. "Lonely" is a ballad from After Forever, the band that launched her career. She recently revived it for her Strijdlust tour of the Netherlands, but this performance is from 2007 when After Forever was still a going concern. Pianist is the band's keyboardist Joost van den Broek, now a noted producer, writer, and session musician in the European metal scene.


And another great Dutch voice, Charlotte Wessels, with her old band Delain. This is a real beauty of a song written by band founder and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt with lyrics by Charlotte, then only 20.


And finally, a beautiful piece from a less expected source. Rivers of Nihil are a progressive death metal band that has leaned heavily into the "progressive" part in recent years, giving us this beauty. There's growls in the chorus but they are more despair than grim aggression.

 
Metal is a style of music that often plays as well, if not better, live. Here's some samples.

First up, "Light Can Only Shine in the Darkness" by Germans Lord of the Lost is one of my personal "songs of the year". Originally a duet between their lead singer Chris Harms and Dutch powerhouse Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation, this solo version shows it holds up even without Sharon. Performance is from the 2025 edition of the M'era Luna festival in Hildesheim, Germany.


Fantasy-horror themed power metal is the forte of Powerwolf and this song is very much in their wheelhouse. This show in the Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany is an energetic performance by the band in front of a very engaged, enthusiastic audience.


And one of my new favourite bands is Swedish death metal act Orbit Culture, here performing at Graspop 2025 in Dessel, Belgium. They can get pretty brutal but also have a melodic, proggy side. Vocalist Niklas Karlsson growls his way through this one, but also has a strong clean voice remiscent of James Hetfield of Metallica.

 
A big change announced in the metal world this morning. Montreal's Alissa White-Gluz is parting ways with Swedish melodic death metal titans Arch Enemy after 11 years as their vocalist. Their 2025 release Blood Dynasty is probably going to be in my top 5 of the year and she was fantastic on it, so she is going out on a high note.

The good news out of the story is the release of the first single of an upcoming solo project. She's done solo work before but mostly for causes she supports, not as an actual solo project. For this one, Alissa teams with Oliver Palotai of the band Kamelot, who plays keys and guitars on the single (he normally plays keys in Kamelot). It's a terrific song with a prog lean to it, featuring some wonderful instrumental work by Palotai and Alissa letting loose in both her clean and harsh voices.


As for the band, hard to say. Alissa's predecessor Angela Gossow, who recommended Alissa for the job in the first place, is still with the band as their manager. Angela stepped down from performing to focus on her family and other commitments. Maybe she'll be ready to come back or maybe she'll have someone in mind.
 
Ever wondered what a metal orchestra would sound like? Well, Swedish power metal band Sabaton, famed for their history-themed songs, appear to have had that thought. And the opening act on their Legendary Tour is the Legendary Orchestra. Conducted by Israeli vocalist and choir director Noa Grumman, they are doing orchestral and choral arrangements of Sabaton classics. Along with Noa, they have German medieval instrument specialist Patty Gurdy on gurdies and related, and American violinist Mia Asano as a soloist (26 and already doing her second major European tour). Noa and Patty know each other already and Mia seems to be fitting in well with them. I've seen a number of fan vids and it looks like a fantastic show.

This is one of Sabaton's biggies, "Swedish Pagans", which is why you hear the audience joining in the fun. Doing "Oh oh oh" part along with the band is de rigeur for Sabaton fans.

 
Charlotte Wessels is a Dutch singer who I have come to quite adore and respect. Like her compatriots Floor Jansen and Simone Simons, she started young, joining her first band at 15 or 16. In 2004 she teamed with Dutch composer and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt to sing and write lyrics for a project that turned, the following year, into the band Delain (name comes from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series). She remained with Delain until 2021 when she parted ways with Martijn (in fact, he dissolved and completely remade the band after that) and started a solo career. She now has three solo albums out, with the first two being experimental and not really (or at least entirely) metal. Excellent albums both, but quite different from her work in Delain. The third, The Obsession, dropped a year ago. It brought her back to the world of metal and reunited her with guitarist Timo Somers, who had also been a core member of Delain in her time with the band. And that brings us to this excellent, professionally shot show from Dynamo Metalfest this year. Backed by her current band, which includes Timo on guitars, she puts on a banger of show drawn entirely from The Obsession. Backing vocals are by her keyboardist Nina den Beelen, who proves a capable singer.


And, yes, Dynamo is in The Netherlands so Charlotte mostly speaks her native Dutch when addressing the audience.

Starting early next year, Charlotte is touring with Dutch symphonic metal band Epica and Swedish band Amaranthe. That puts three of the greats of so-called "female fronted metal" on the same stage: Charlotte, Simone Simons (Epica), and Elize Ryd (Amaranthe). Charlotte and Simone have worked together before, including a duet on The Obsession, so perhaps there will be some interaction happening.
 
One of the last metal releases of 2025 dropped last night. Opus Noir, Vol. 2 by Lord of the Lost is, as you can tell from the title, the followup to Opus Noir, Vol. 1 from August. Why they didn't just release a double LP, I have no idea. Marketing? Sales? Some weird artistic thing?

As I expected, it's more of the same and that's a fantastic thing. Opus Noir 1 is already in my top 5 of the year, Opus Noir taken as a whole may be top 3. Some great new songs and some interesting collaborations including Moldovan band Infected Rain and German band League of Distortion, both featuring strong female vocalists for LotL's Chris Harms to work with.

The final video from the album features some well-done, pretty clearly not-AI animation with a touch of anime style.


And the collaboration with Lena Scissorhands of Infected Rain, who co-wrote as well as appearing.

 
More churn in the metal world. Hot on the heels of Arch Enemy's split with Alissa, Battle Beast and their founding lead singer Noora Louhimo have parted ways as Noora seeks to expand her solo work (she actually does blues and hard rock as well as metal). Stepping in to succeed (not replace, Noora is basically irreplaceable) her is Brazilian metal singer Marina La Torraca, who I know mainly from the female-fronted metal supergroup Exit Eden, where she shares lead vocal chores with Clementine Delauney of Visions of Atlantis and Anna Brunner of League of Distortion.

From Noora's final album with the band with a video of highlights from her final tour.


And Marina fronting her previous band, Phantom Elite.

 
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