New Year, New Music

[Mendalla]

I am not really a fan of Taylor Swift. She just doesn't engage me as a performer. However, I will concede that she's written some pretty good stuff, just don't find her performances of the songs especially scintillating, at least to the degree I would expect of a performer making not millions, but billions. A recent one is "The Fate of Ophelia" and here a hard rock act called Ark Angels puts their spin on it. Much prefer this to Taylor's (sorry, Swifties).

 

[BetteTheRed]

Those are both late sixties. Here's something more contemporary, "Skyfall" by Adele from the Bond film of the same name.

Four voices treated as four instruments, cool

 

[Mendalla]

Moonlight Haze is an Italian symphonic power metal band fronted and led by a wonderful vocalist named Chiara Tricario. Europeans on other sites have been to their concerts and speak highly of them. Here's their latest single.

And since I mentioned Greek black metal elsewhere, here's a sample from the latest album by Yoth Iria. Yoth is more or less a spinoff band from Rotting Christ, the titans of Greek black metal, started by that band's former bassist and including a few other former members. I quite enjoy the Greek school, finding it more melodic and musical than a lot of Nordic and related black metal.

 

[Mendalla]

With a doctorate in music and training and experience in both rock and opera, Kristin Starkey packs a great voice and knows how to use it. Here, she gives an interesting reading of the old chestnut "Killing Me Softly With His Song", originally by Lori Lieberman (who co-wrote the lyrics) but best known from versions by Roberta Flack and later The Fugees.