Metal in all its forms and colours

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I discovered Lord of the Lost through a German friend on Floorworld when the band became Germany's Eurovision 2023 entry. They fared poorly in the finals but I suspect that's just the Eurovision voter's general disdain for metal. The song was very good IMHO.

This is the band's latest single, a dark meditation on death. Lead singer Chris Harms has an interesting voice and also writes most of the band's lyrics.

 
Courtney Laplante of Vancouver-based band Spiritbox usually mixes clean and harsh vocals but in their latest, she goes full-on death metal and growls and screams through the whole piece. Really looking forward to the band's sophomore album. Some Cancon that really does deserve more exposure at home. Of course, one of the best female growlers in the business is a Montrealer (Alissa White-Gluz, currently fronting Swedish band Arch Enemy) and she's barely known in Canada from my experience. Sadly, death metal and related genres don't get much love here.

 
Long before Courtney, long before even the modern greats of female-fronted metal like Sharon Den Adel (Within Temptation), Tarja Turunen (Nightwish), and Floor Jansen (After Forever, ReVamp, Nightwish), there was Doro Pesch. Born in Dusseldorf, West Germany, Doro grew up a singer. She recalls singing Little Richard's "Lucille" at three. At ten she was studying voice and piano, and discovered glam rock (T. Rex, Slade). After a life-threatening illness in her teens, she doubled down and joined her first band, Snakebite, at 16. At 18, after appearing with a couple more garage bands, she and some fellow musicians formed Warlock and Doro had her first hits.

"All We Are" came out in 1987 from Warlock's album Triumph And Agony. I remember seeing it on Muchmusic in the day and apparently it was in high rotation on Headbangers' Ball, MTV's metal program in the US.


Warlock called it a day in 1988 and Doro carried on under her first name. After moving to the US and experimenting with sounds other than metal, she returned to Europe and straight-up heavy metal in the 21st century and remains a revered legend of the genre. Next week, now 59 and still rocking hard, she is releasing Conqueress Forever Strong And Proud. Among the releases in the leadup to the album is this cover of a Juda Priest classic with Rob Halford of Priest joining in. Two legends of metal coming together and it rocks.


Also from the new album, a Doro original. Doro's sound today is really hearkening back to the Warlock era, straight-up, guitar-driven heavy metal.

 
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And even as she becomes renowned for her solo work. Doro continues to perform her biggest hit with Warlock in concert.

 
Okay, ape happy. Exit Eden, the all-female vocal supergroup of metal is back, albeit minus one of their founding members. However, Clementine Delauney, one of my top 5 or so favourite singers is still in the remaining trio. And even better, they are coming back with an original song, their first after being a cover band for their first album and tour, and brought a friend: ex-Nightwish bassist and singer Marko Hietala, who may actually be getting even better since leaving Nightwish. Exit Eden alone got my attention, but Exit Eden feat. Marko Hietala = Wow.

 
Spiritbox's new EP The Fear of Fear was released a week ago and two new videos dropped at the end of this week. They really show this band's stylistic diversity. "Ultraviolet" leans more into a dance-focussed sound though you can still hear the rumble of metal guitar and bass underneath. Courtney sings clean on this one. Then we have "Angel Eyes" which is straight-up metalcore and has Courtney growling throughout.


 
At 38, 14 years older than Courtney, Montrealer Alissa White-Gluz may be the dean of Canadian growlers. While Spiritbox kind of dances around flirting with various styles with metalcore as their base, White-Gluz's current band Arch Enemy are pretty much the dictionary definition of melodic death metal. The whole band are incredibly talented but Alissa is, of course, front and centre as lead singer. This is from 2017's Will to Power album.


From the same album, a rare quieter piece that features some clean singing, and even some shouting, from Alissa.

 
And before Alissa, there was Angela. German singer Angela Gossow fronted Arch Enemy from 2000-2014, before moving into a role as the band's manager to pursue other interests and spend more time with her family. She was the one who put Alissa forward as her replacement. To this day, many longtime Arch Enemy fans still regard Angela as the finest of the band's three vocalists (there was a male vocalist before her who doesn't seem to get much attention next to the two ladies).

 
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One of my favourite metal tracks of the year is "The Wolf You Feed" by guitarist Nita Strauss featuring Alissa White-Gluz, who I just talked about above. The song appears on Nita's solo album and Nita has been touring for that album but until now, Alissa has never appeared with her to do the song live. However, earlier this week the tour reached Montreal which happens to be Alissa's hometown. And, yeah, guess who showed up? The song features Alissa both growling and singing, really throwing a spotlight on just how diverse and talented is this Montreal metal queen.

 
It's back. There's just too much good metal out there for me not to keep this thread going.

Heaven's Guardian is apparently 25 years old as a band but their latest effort adds Russian-born soprano Natalya Tsarikova to the lineup. I first came across her doing covers of Nightwish and similar, but this is apparently something new for her. The band pairs Natalya with male vocalist Carlos Zema for some pretty solid, even epic, symphonic metal. A bit unsure about the production. I find the vocals get lost a bit in their mixes. Going to listen to their new album to see if I hear it there or if it is just the videos.


Symphonic metal at its most epic, teaming the band up with an orchestra and choir:

 
Dragonforce are something of a legend in power metal, touring and recording constantly for almost 25 years now. They were founded by a pair of guitarists and are still renowned for their lightning fast guitar work. Dragonforce are going out on tour with symphonic metal act Amaranthe and as part of the promo/leadup for that tour, they remixed their recent song "Doomsday Party" to add Amaranthe's wonderful lead singer Elize Ryd. Elize, a Swede, has herself been around for almost as long and was even considered for the lead vocal role in Nightwish at one point before becoming Amaranthe's lead singer. I only half-jokingly refer to this as "disco power metal".

 
I started a thread about Kiss' final tour, but another artist who may be bowing out is heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne. The former leader singer of Black Sabbath and successful solo artist has been having health struggles in recent years and had to end his last tour prematurely.

Today is Ozzy's 75th birthday and German power metal band Power Wolf have payed tribute with a cover of "Bark At The Moon" from Ozzy's 1983 album of the same title.


And here is the man himself with some musical friends, Duff Mckagan (Guns n Roses) on bass, Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) on drums and solo artist Charlie Puth on keys. The song's co-writer Andrew Watt plays guitar. The song came out in 2019 as the lead single from his album Ordinary People (2020).


And one of those songs that looks like it is going to stand through the ages. There's covers aplenty and Ozzy himself has performed it probably hundreds of times. However, the original track featuring the late Randy Rhoads on guitar still stands by itself. This performance is from 1981 (Rhoads died in 1982).

 
And a quick check online shows that the spinal issues that led to the tour cancellation may have been fixed by surgery and that a new album is expected next year. So the "Prince of Darkness" apparently still has some life in him.
 
Bring Me The Horizon have been a big success story in recent years. The British band has shifted styles over the years, from deathcore to metalcore to their current pop/alt-metal sound. Babymetal are a Japanese pop metal group which features a trio of female dancers/vocalists. Kind of J-pop meets metal. Putting the two together produces a surprisingly heavy, and very energetic, performance of "Kingslayer" by Bring Me The Horizon.

 
Two metal legends come together for the aptly titled "Saxons and Vikings". Saxon date to the late seventies and were a leader of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that also produced Iron Maiden and other bands. Swedish band Amon Amarth stared in the early nineties and are a big player in melodic death metal, but are sometimes labelled as Viking metal due to their frequent use of Viking themes in their songs.

 
New video for the leadoff track from Arch-Enemy's 2022 album Deceivers features footage from their 2023 tour. They are on a bit of a break right now and Alissa appears to be home in Montreal, since I've seen her appear as a guest in videos of a couple bands playing in that city. However, they have a tour announced for 2024 with a couple other Swedish melodeath bands, In Flames and Soilwork.

 
And the first metal releases of 2024 are happening. A few that have caught my attention:

First up, Mexican born, Netherlands-based soprano Marcela Bovio with a one take sing-through of "Chasing a Ghost" by her band Stream of Passion. Stream disbanded in 2016, but reunited in 2023 to release an EP of new material and do a few concerts in The Netherlands. This song is from the EP.


Then we have not one, not two, but three great female metal voices as Exit Eden drops another track from Femme Fatales, their forthcoming second album. All are members of other bands and do this as a side project, but this is as solid a track as anything I have heard from their main bands.


And finally, heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest continue the run-up to their 18th studio album, due in March.

 
Charlotte Wessels and Alissa White-Gluz have been working together quite a bit since Charlotte left the band Delain in 2021. They cut this track back in 2022 for their patrons on Patreon. Last week, they finally put it into general release. If you listen closely near the end, Alissa slips in some of her trademark death metal growls.

 
Currently on a co-headline tour of Europe with Amaranthe, German power metal greats Dragonforce have been releasing a series of s-f and videogame-themed tracks of late. The latest is Astro Warrior Anthem.

 
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