New Year, New Music

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8 years old but new to me. It’s a strange ingenious quirky little apocalyptic spoken word/ rap opera. Satire. With some truth to it. The “exquisite corpse” is the monster we’ve made.

 
Last year, Ignacia Fernandes of the Chilean death metal band Decessus made history, becoming Miss Chile and performing full-on death metal in the talent competition. She is a fantastic growler so I hoped the exposure would get Decessus noticed (in fact, I suspect that was the plan, though she is also a model and definitely has the right look for a beauty pageant).

And it worked. I recently saw fan vids of Decessus at a festival in Finland and Ignacia sounded great. Then I got the pre-save notification for this video: Ignacia sitting in with American band Kamelot. Kamelot has worked with some of the best, including Alissa White-Gluz and Lauren Hart, who have both fronted the great Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy. So I was pumped to hear her with them. I am not disappointed. It's a fantastic track from the heavier end of the band's wide spectrum of sounds.

What surprised me is that this also announced the pre-release cycle for a new Kamelot album, with the album coming only 3 months after their Spring release Architects of the New Weave. Even better, this is one of two tracks with Ignacia as guest vocalist.

 
Does ardent metal cut both ways when pounded to an edge? With a slice the essence is set loose ... like ben Ghazi ... good gas? This can rise through the earth after digestion! What has this got to do with life and rot ... corruption among us?

It just is and we know little about it as a commune of folk that would rather not be aware of the alternate ... the other? Expect some friction, rub'n or unguent ... kinetic agitation ... kinesis? Might it be the root of RAM and quantum activity until according to Einstein it all comes back together in due time ... imagination liberated? Project what could come out of it in a royal poke of those resisting know-how in the populace ...

Does that outline a sector lacking thereof as diverted by willful forces ... thus burning auras ... interfaces? Back to anti Fey, Ephraim and other forms unseen ... below the horizon of physicality!

Dah lights to contemplate under proper conditions ... in some paces labelled denarii ... glowing examples of what? Could these be tarnished by partisan opposition ...

The mortal mind is an alien structure ... rather a red skeleton ... or some other ghost of humor ... those beyond us may chuckle ... Charles?
 
Amon Amarth hail from Sweden and their music often leans into that country's history and mythology, esp. the Vikings. They are mostly classed as melodic death metal but also have strong folk influences, which take the fore in this new track. Still quite heavy, but largely acoustic. Lyrics are from Voluspa, a poem from the Poetic Edda collection of Old Norse poems, here in English translation.

 
I was weirdly joyful when I saw the latest Tiny Desk Concert from US National Public Radio. The program features concerts by an eclectic mix of musicians, but leans to pop, folk, and world music. So when English grindcore pioneers Napalm Death (the band dates to 1981 but the longest active current member joined in 1987) got the nod this week, it was a bit of a departure. Grindcore comes from the punk/hardcore stream of music but has strong metal influences as well. If you want pretty songs, look elsewhere. Grindcore is as heavy and brutal as it gets and these guys are legends of the genre. Heck, they even had a moshpit going, which is amazing given this takes place in the NPR offices. :ROFLMAO: Oh, and fair warning, NPR did NOT censor them. The lyrics get a bit ... strong.

 
Protest the Hero is a Canadian band, started in 1999 in Whitby, Ontario. They fall under the rather broad moniker of "progressive metal" which basically combines the technicality and complexity of prog rock with the heavier sound of metal but has also become a bit of a catch-all for metal with a very diverse sound and influences. On Friday, they released Within, their first new studio LP in six years, and it's a beauty.


And from their 2014 Juno winner (for Heavy/Hard Rock Album of the Year, of course) Volition, a tribute to Newfoundland. They explain the context at the beginning of the video.

 
"Sleeping Sun" is, hands down, one of my favourite songs of any kind. Even classical. Written by the brilliant Finnish songwriter Tuomas Holopainen of the band Nightwish, it is a powerful melodic, and slightly dark song. The inspiration, reflected in the title, was a solar eclipse that was visible in Finland in 1999 (yes, it was dancing in my head as I witnessed the eclipse here a few years ago). And, much as I have enjoyed current Nightwish vocalist Floor Jansen's performances of the song, this is one where I still prefer the voice of Tarja Turunen, the band's original vocalist and the one on the original recording of the song. She revisited it at a music festival a couple days ago in a lovely arrangement for piano and voice. Nicolas Horvath is the pianist.

 
I recently saw a CTV story on singer Harley Olivia that mentioned she now has a record deal. Hooray!! She's a terrific vocalist from Toronto who left a career as an Air Canada flight attendant to pursue her love of music. She's been singing since high school, packing a solid rock voice. Her producer and guitarist is Siegfried Meier who owns a studio up near Goderich where she records. This is the latest single from Harley. No date for the album yet but I am looking forward to it. Basically hard rock but leans into heavy metal.
 
Now that's how to say goodbye. I awoke this morning to a great, if sad, video from neo-prog band Solstice, who I got into a couple years ago. One of the big attractions of the band for me was lead vocalist Jess Holland, who has announced she is leaving the band to focus on a teaching career. Too bad. Jess has a wonderful voice, very suited to the band's sound. But she is now in her thirties having given most of her 20s to Solstice so I can see why she's moving on. In a comment on the video, I wished Jess and the band all my best. And there is one bit of good news: New Solstice album next year, with demos already completed.


And from their live album Clann : The Stables Gathering (The Stables is one of their regular venues in the UK), "Cheyenne", a song dating to early in the band's long (46 years) history.

 
After the folky, acoustic sound of the first single from their upcoming album, Amon Amarth return to fine melodic death metal form with the followup. I have not so far been a big fan of the band but I like what I am seeing and hearing for this new album, due in October.

 
Earlier this week, we marked a year since the passing of Ozzy Osbourne, one of the fathers of metal as we know it. And bands from across the metal spectrum have been paying tribute with covers. Here's a couple.

"Perry Mason" comes from The Prince of Darkness' 1995 album Ozzmosis and was co-written with Ozzy's longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde. Halestorm released this cover recorded at a concert in Ozzy's hometown of Birmingham, UK on Wednesday. It's as heavy as I've heard this band go, with Lzzy and guitarist Joe Hottinger giving it their all.


And a bit lighter, we have German folk metal act d'Artagnan releasing their cover of "Crazy Train" from Ozzy's solo debut Blizzard of Ozz, one of his biggest solo hits. It's from their new album HELDEN X HYMNEN (Heroes x Hymns or maybe songs??) but I suspect the timing of it as the release day single this week is not accidental. Giving Randy Rhoad's great guitar line to the fiddler is a fantastic touch in this version.

 
And it isn't all tributes to late Mr. Osbourne this week. Mongol metalheads The HU dropped a new album and it continues their run of fantastic folk metal blending Western metal with traditional Mongol sounds. Fittingly, their next gig is a hometown show in their native Ulaanbataar. capital of Mongolia. After that, they cross the Pacific for a US tour but I don't seen any Canadian dates on the card. That said, I think they hit Toronto not that long ago so maybe their management decided not to do a repeat.

 
Okay, now a couple for people who don't bang their heads and raise their horns.

English singer Lucy Thomas' voice is perfect for her latest cover, "Annie's Song" by John Denver. She may not have the raw power of Lzzy Hale (see above) or similar rock vocalists, but she has a smooth, soft tone and uses her instrument with great skill. I wish she would get a writer to create some originals for her but if she keeps putting out covers of this quality, I'll live with it. She is starring in a new musical, so there's the songs from that at least.


And the choral ensembles Voces8 and Ringmasters released a new album today under Voces8's channel. This track is composed and conducted by American Eric Whiteacre, one of the best choral composers going right now.

 
A couple exciting new tracks from this week.

First up, "Still Crying" is the second single from Good Grief, Sara Bareilles upcoming new studio album. With a career that now spans Broadway and TV as well as the recording studio and concert stage, Sara's studio LPs are becoming a bit of a rare treat, even if Sara herself is a constant presence. In the seven years since Amidst the Chaos, her last, she has put out a live album recorded at the Hollywood Bowl and a soundtrack of songs she wrote for season 1 of the TV series Little Voices for which she was a creator and producer (in collaboration with J. J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company). She has also appeared on Broadway in Waitress (the musical for which she wrote the songs) and Into The Woods.


And then we have prog instrumental band Stick Men. This is a project by former King Crimson (and myriad other bands, you'll probably recognize him when you see him given he's played at Live Aid and other big event concerts) bassist Tony Levin, highlighting his work on the rather unique instrument known as the Chapman stick. With Levin, we have his former Crimson band mate Pat Mastelotto on drums and Markus Reuter on guitar. These guys are all top players on their positions so the music this trio puts out is fantastic. The new album is entitled Let's THRAK Again, a nod to the 1995 King Crimson album THRAK on which Levin and Mastelotto played.

 
Danish musician Mortemia does some interesting covers, pairing his instrumentals with an assortment of female vocals, mostly from the metal world. His latest? The Mamas & Papas "Calfornia Dreaming" featuring a multinational trio of singers: Chilean Caterina Nix (of the band Chaos Magic), Ukrainian Helle Bohdanova (of Ignea), and Slovenian Karmen Klinc. And he put it all together very well, different enough from the original to be it's own but retaining the melody and signature harmonies. Helle is the only one I actually knew of going in. I started listening to Ignea recently as they started releasing material from their next album, coming out in October.

 
And the latest from Helle's band Ignea. The video was shot in their native Kyiv the morning after a major Russian attack. It takes a certain courage to be a working band in a war zone.

 
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