Metal in all its forms and colours

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Exit Eden's new album dropped while I was away and I have it in my buds this afternoon. The ladies are in fine form, blasting through a setlist of covers and originals (mostly by band member Anna Brunner and her songwriting partner). They bring some amazing energy to a cover of the great Alice Cooper's "Poison".


And another chestnut, "Alone", best known from the version by Heart, though their version was itself a cover.

 
Japan is not a culture one normally associates with heavy metal of any school. However, they have a terrific rock scene that is producing much better music than the well-known Japanese pop (J-pop) scene. Lovebites came up as a band to watch in 2024 in a video I watched yesterday so I gave them a whirl and they are impressive. The sound is basically power metal crossed over with a healthy dose of thrash. There's even the odd foray into symphonic metal (which, after all, grew out of power metal). The band has been around since 2016, with a one year break after losing their original bassist (these videos mostly feature Fami, the current bassist). Lead singer Asami is solid if maybe not in the same league as someone like Floor Jansen or Tarja. Overall, this is a terrific addition to the power metal genre.

From their comeback concert last year, the anthem "Stand and Deliver"


From the same concert, the song that really hooked me on the band. The ending reveals that guitarist Miyako is also skilled on the piano.


Doing themes for anime is a fairly common gig for Japanese musicians and Lovebites is no exception. Winds of Transylvania dates to 2021.

 
Okay, so after my remark about Miyako's piano skills, I found this, her covering the power metal classic "Eagle Fly Free" by German band Helloween on the piano. Helloween is a band that Lovebites does somewhat resemble sonically, with Asami's voice even (perhaps oddly since both of Helloween's lead singers have been male, albeit with the capacity for high falsettos) sounding like it would work well for singing Helloween. I almost surprised that Miyako plays guitar at all rather than being a fulltime keyboardist given that she's clearly a skilled classically-trained pianist.


An acoustic gig by Asami and Miyako

 
Not surprisingly, the original of Rising rocks a bit harder than that acoustic version :giggle: . Also, with that string backing track, this is one of the songs that starts to lean into a more symphonic sound. This is the original video from 2018 so features original bassist Miho.

 
And this song is pretty much full-on symphonic metal that could have come from Nightwish or Epica.

 
And since I mentioned Helloween above, here's that band with original lead singer Michael Kiske (they have actually had both Kiske and his successor Andi Deris in the band since Kiske's return in 2016). This is the song that Miyako covered above on the piano.

 
And just a couple days after I posted about Lovebites above, they dropped another live video from their latest Blu-ray/DVD. Raise your horns and bang your head, folks. This one rocks.


I swear that new bassist Fami never stops smiling the whole concert. She must be just so happy to have landed a spot in a successful band.

And the guitarists. OMGWTFBBQ, they are both stunningly talented.
 
Mendalla said:
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.

Click to expand...
This week, Arch Enemy hit a bit of a milestone with this track as it hit 100 million views on YouTube.

Monday is the Grammy Awards and Vancouver band Spiritbox, who I have raved about a couple times already, are in competition for the Grammy for Best Metal Performance. It's a tough category, with Metallica, Ghost, Slipknot, and Disturbed as the competition, but they are nominated for Jaded which is a solid piece of metalcore so I think there's a chance they could pull off an underdog upset.

 
And Spiritbox's final release of 2023 was an odd one, a remix of "Cobra" by American hip hop artist Megan Thee Stallion. Mixing metal and rap goes back a long way and this one actually works pretty well. We get Megan's rapping interlaced with clean and harsh vocals from Courtney and back by some fairly heavy guitar work from Mike.

 
So Metallica got the Grammy, which is not a surprise. Still, a fairly new, young band from Vancouver getting a nod for an award that is often awarded to veteran metalheads was nice to see. And it still makes more sense than the year prog-folk rockers Jethro Tull beat Metallica themselves for the Rock & Metal award. It was after that controversial Grammy that the Best Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance got separated.

Now, however, I am back to the other BC-based metal band that I am a fan of. Unleash the Archers is much older than Spiritbox, starting in 2007. They are also a more traditional metal sound, leaning heavily into power metal. Lead singer Brittany Hayes (sometimes known by the stage name Brittany Slayes) packs a powerful voice, more of a "shouter" than the classical sound of her European contemporaries. She has recently been getting some attention outside UtA, appearing on a Star One album and in a concert by Ayreon. Both bands are supergroups led by Dutch guitarist-songwriter-producer Arjen Lucassen and the appearances put her alongside a raft of big name European metal stars (Marcela Bovio, Simone Simons of Epica, Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian, among others).

Anyhow, this week they released the leadoff single from their sixth studio album and announced that Phantoma, the album, will be coming in May. It's been 4 years since their last studio effort, which had the misfortune of landing during the pandemic, with only an EP in between so ape happy to see them.

Musically, it is pretty much what I have come to expect from the Archers, solid, well-played power metal. The video is an animated story created using an AI trained on art by a specific artist (there's a little text frame at the start). It ends with "to be continued" so I assume the story arc will run through other videos from the album. The band has always been heavy on sci-fi and fantasy thematically (which is common in power metal) and this is no exception.


And the description for the video has their 2024 tour schedule, which is fairly ambitious and includes appearances at several of the biggest European metal and rock festivals, including Wacken Open Air (Germany) and Bloodstock Open Air (UK), as well as supporting German power metallers Powerwolf on their US tour in the Fall. Sadly, there's only one Canadian date so far, in Laval, Quebec with Powerwolf. Hopefully that will be rectified at some point, though power metal isn't exactly a popular genre in Canada.
 
Alestorm are a Scottish heavy metal band specializing in the rare (as in, I think they might be the only one) genre of "pirate metal". In their latest single, they are joined by German hurdy-gurdy player (is "hurdy-gurdyist" a word?) and singer Patty Gurdy. When I first saw the video was up, I thought Patty was just playing hurdy gurdy and was delighted when I realized she was singing, too, because she is actually a pretty good singer. I know Patty is working on a new album but not sure if it will be metal or not. She dances around genres quite a bit.


And who ever thought that Taylor Swift would be improved by adding a little high speed drumming and guitar? Yep, DragonForce has done a speed metal cover of her song "Wildest Dreams".


And another video from the excellent new album Femmes Fatales from Exit Eden. This one is a French pop song that, not surprisingly, was chosen and sung by French band member Clementine Delauney. I mostly hear her singing in English both in Exit Eden and in her regular gig in Visions of Atlantis so its nice to hear her do one in her own tongue.

 
One of the biggest bands that I don't think I've highlighted yet is Swedish band Amaranthe. This six piece band is interesting on a couple fronts. They don't really fit into any of the major subgenres of metal, but blend elements of several into short, melodic songs. And they have three lead vocalists, female clean (Elize Ryd), male clean (currently Nils Molin), and male harsh (currently Mikael Sehlin) and their songs make good use of all three, sometimes together, sometimes only one or two. They've had a few lineup changes but all have been in the male vocal roles. The main body of the band has remained constant since they formed in 2008.

The reason I am calling attention to them this week is that their seventh studio album in 15 years drops on Friday. They've been releasing singles/videos for it for a while and are already out on tour in Europe with German power metallers Dragonforce.

The first video and single, which came out last Fall, is near and dear to my heart since it's basically a short vampire movie and have long been fond of vampires (and think Elize looks very nice with fangs).


The band often leans into a more "pop" sound than some of its metal contemporaries, which can be heard well with "Outer Dimensions".


And the last single moves us from horror and fantasy to s-f

 
The song "Do or Die" from 2020's album Manifest is kind of interesting. The original album version was all male, with Nils Molin singing and previous harsh vocalist Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson growling. But they also did a single version that has Elize on clean vocals and guest vocalist Angela Gossow on harsh vocals. Gossow is the former lead singer of the band Arch-Enemy, whose guitarist Jeff Loomis appears on both versions. And that's the version in the video for the song.


This was Gossow's first singing appearance since stepping down from Arch-Enemy (to become their manager) in 2011.

Also from that album, is the soaring power ballad Crystalline which adds Finnish cellist Perttu Kivilaakso of the band Apocalyptica. Elize and Nils are magnificent in this one.


Before the founding of Amaranthe, Elize was briefly considered for the lead role in Nightwish at one point and "Crystalline" really highlights why. She packs a great voice that works well with both rockers and power ballads. The alternate universe where she got the job is one I would like to visit.

The early hit "Amaranthine" from 2011 is another one that really shows off Elize's vocal skills. Male vocalist here is Joacim "Jake E" Lundberg, a founder of the band and the original clean vocalist. Growls are by original growler Andy Solveström.

 
And I mentioned that one of the cellists from Apocalyptica appeared with Amaranthe on the song Crystalline. Elize recently returned the favour, providing vocals for a track by Apocalyptica.

 
My bro intro'd me to a song I probably might have hoid before but forgot aboot

But man, what a perfect downhill skiing or motorcycling song

Health is the band

Demigods is the song

Him and I get goosebumps
 
And I am now on my second listen of the The Catalyst, the new album from Amaranthe as discussed above. This is now my favourite album of 2024. Might not stay there given what I know is coming (e.g. new Nightwish in late summer or fall), but it's a real banger of an album. This band is hitting on all cylinders. No new videos to go with the album's release, but here's an audio of the album's power ballad. This band is great at power ballads and seems to have at least one per album. Of course, they put the spotlight on the clean singers and Elize and Nils rise to the occasion as always.

 
Some recent new metal that caught my eye.

Xandria is one of the seminal bands of symphonic metal, starting in 1994. Founder, and only remaining original member, Marco Heubaum has put together a great lineup for the latest iteration of the band. In particular, lead singer Ambre Vourvahis is a promising up-and-coming vocalist in the world of female-fronted metal and demonstrates that well in this performance from last year.


Bring Me the Horizon are a band from the UK that have been making waves in recent years. Like Canada's Spiritbox, they are metalcore at heart but pull influences from many styles of metal. While they parted ways with a member (keyboardist Jordan Fish) in late 2023, they seem to have bounced back, releasing a heavy and very political song and video this week.


And cello metal band Apocalyptica have released a cover of Metallica's "The Four Horseman" with a little help from ... well, Metallica. Metallica bassist Rob Trujillo sat as featured guest on the recording.

 
The first new metal of the week is one we metalheads have been waiting for: The Priest is back!! Fifty years after their debut LP, Judas Priest released their 19th (yes, that's right) studio album today. With three members in their 70s, you'd think they'd be resting on their laurels but the new album, Invincible Shield, is getting deserved rave reviews. At 72, vocalist Rob Halford can still put out the high, falsetto vocals that made him famous and influenced metal singing ever since. Sadly, guitarist Glenn Tipton has Parkinson's so will sit out the upcoming tour, though he did co-write the songs and play on the album. I haven't seen yet who will be the tour guitarist alongside Richie Faulkner (who is a relatively youthful 48, though he did have a health crisis of his own not long ago).


And ex-Judas Priest guitarist K. K. Downing's band K.K.'s Priest put out a new video this week as well. Their sophomore album came out last yet. They are out on tour in the US now, then headed to Europe for the summer to do a festival tour.


And finally, Crownshift is a "supergroup" of musicians from various current and former Finnish bands. I found out about them through their bassist, Jukka Koskinen, who has been playing in Nightwish for almost 3 years. However, it's vocalist Tommy Tuovinen and guitarist Daniel Freyberg who really shine in this four-piece. I plan to do some listening to MYGRAIN, Tommy's other band, fairly soon.

 
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