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.

 

[Mendalla]

Violet Orlandi often chooses interesting material for her covers. This one was a suggestion from a fan and I jumped on it right away. The original is almost 25 years old, a track by Swedish melodic death metal greats In Flames. The core riff remains but is transposed to acoustic guitar and Violet sings it entirely clean, while In Flames vocalist Anders Friden injects growls into his performance (it's death metal, melodic, but still death metal). It ends up as a solid, interesting performance of the song. Very much Violet but not entirely forgetting its heavier origins.

And a 2014 live performance by In Flames in their hometown of Gothenberg, Sweden. The city has been a major hub of melodic death metal since the early nineties when bands like At The Gates and In Flames launched.

 

[Mendalla]

One of this country's unsung (at least at home) musical greats is Vancouver's Devin Townsend. A brilliant guitarist (who also plays multiple other instruments), terrific vocalist, and wonderful songwriter, who also engineers, mixes, and produces. He really should be better known, though he at least has been recognized at the Junos on occasion.

Devin's new album The Moth comes out May 29 and it is looking like a doozy. He comes from the metal world but has a strong progressive lean that results in his music being very diverse and smashing genre boundaries with regularity. "Prepare for War" is the latest single from The Moth and definitely shows his metal side but also his epic symphonic side. Interestingly, the video references The Big Snit, a classic old NFB short.

And one of Devin's songs that really hits the heart. The original is a soaring anthem with a layered sound. This live acoustic performance takes it to a quieter, more introspective level. I love how Devin holds back his powerful voice and lets the female quartet carry the song.

 

[Mendalla]

So, the woman who appears singing for a few seconds in "Prepare for War" is Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen, who I have posted before in this thread. She has been working with Devin for years, notably in his band The Devin Townsend Project.

 

[Mendalla]

Quite a haul of music yesterday when I did my exercise. Some examples:

The Rock Orchestra is pretty much what it says on the tin, a small orchestra that covers rock tunes. They come up in my recommendations from time to time but I have not given them a listen until yesterday. What changed? They covered "Thunderstruck", my favourite ACDC song, with Ukrainian singer Daria Zaritskaya (NoApology) on vocals and American violinist Mia Asano as the soloist, basically playing the guitar parts on her electric violin. Both women are favourites of mine so I jumped on it right away. They did not disappoint. Daria has a perfect voice for ACDC (which I knew going in, having heard her cover them with her band before) and Mia's playing is fantastic.

And then an interesting new track from an upcoming album by legendary film director John Carpenter. He has written scores for several of his own movies but a full album from him not related to a film is a new thing. One of the musicians is Cody Carpenter, who is John's son with actress Adrienne Barbeau.

I first came across Amberian Dawn, a Finnish power metal act, when they did an album of ... get ready for it ... ABBA covers. Yeah, seriously. Their new album, the first with new lead singer Nicole Willerton, skews a lot heavier. Nicole even growls a bit in this one.

And then a lady whose screaming and growling are now legendary in metal: Tatiana Shmayluk of Jinger. This is a live performance from a soldout show in Oslo, Norway.