Blackmore's Night - Ghost of a Rose (2003)

Quick lesson on Blackmore’s Night – Richie Blackmore, known for his work in classic bands Deep Purple and Rainbow, met a very beautiful woman known as Candice Night. They both had a love of medieval and Renaissance music – they married and formed a band called Blackmore’s Night. As I mentioned, this is Renaissance music but fused with a good sense of folk rock and also a bit of pop for commercial appeal. I would be lying if I said that a lot of this is not cheesy but you really have to feel the music to appreciate it – it’s all really fun. Songs such as Lorelei (after the German Siren) and Way to Mandalay will have you stamping your foot and calling for some good Ale. But for the slower ballad people, the mesmerizing vocals of Candice spellbinds on the beautiful Queen for a day and the awesome title track. Many old folk instruments along with modern guitars and synths are utilized on this release, giving it a very diverse and genuine feel yet with a modern twist. This is a gem of an album – I would suggest anyone into folk rock find this album and all albums from this band ASAP.

Paradise Lost - Icon (1993)

A classic album by one of the best doom metal bands, Icon sees Paradise Lost forging ahead with a new sound – leaving all traces of their death metal past at the door and adopting a subtle underlying gothic rock approach, most notably Sisters of Mercy. However, Icon is an album at a crossroads and the heavy crunch and sludgy doom are still dominant and still 100% metal. Gregor’s leads are nothing short of impressive – dynamic and memorable, utilizing the wah-wah pedal in ways that other doom bands never have attempted. As for Nick Holmes’ voice – it sounds a lot like James Hetfield from Metallica, but Nick has more pain in his vocals – a vocal style that has been dismissed not long after this release. The overall sound is just fucking heavy, unlike their British peers, the guitars override their music and in ways they have more in common with the traditional Black Sabbath form of doom then the gothic doom of My Dying Bride and such. The production is gritty and the flow of the album is smooth – every song has some distinct melody that gets stuck in the head. In my opinion Icon might be Paradise Lost at their most creative and definitely most catchy. The following album “Draconian Times” was amazing, but the clean gothic rock took too much precedence and the preceding album “Shades of God” was too complex for what the band would turn into. The band has since experimented with non metal stuff and the recent albums have been sort of a return to a heavier form, but they just will never get the magical “Icon” sound back.

Slayer - Show no Mercy

I don't review enough classic metal, one of the reasons is that everyone knows that stuff already, but man when I listened to Show No Mercy for the first time in a couple years I just had to review it. This is where it all began for Slayer - starting out as a Judas Priest cover band, they decided to join the thrash scene and write some good really good songs - I'm talking thrash classics. One friend once told me that this album sounds like it was recorded in hell and he would have been right - the sort of early eighties hollow classic metal sound is presented here fittingly alongside lyrics dealing with satanism, black magic and general occult themes. Music wise the album sounds surprisngly fresh - not as fast as Slayers next couple of albums (Hell Awaits and the ungodly hyper Reign In Blood)it's still partially a product of the NWOBHM bands that they were probably listening to at the time (Venom, Priest, Etc...)but this album is way darker than priest and less cheesy than Venom. The Hanneman/King dual guitar solos just shred the life out of you and to think these dudes were so young. Songwriting is another A+ creating classics such as Die by the Sword and Black Magic - riffs that get stuck in your head long after the album stops. Not every song is a classic though, but for all intent there's never a dull moment on Show No Mercy. Unfortunatly Slayer is a tired band nowadays, not very interesting but no worries cause they created some classics and it all started with this phenomenal album.

Drudkh - Blood in our Wells

Black Metal has long been a favorite style of mine - some bands play fast and grim, other bands like Drudkh tend to slow it down in favor of pure atmosphere. Drudkh hails from the Ukraine and while describing them as black metal one has to keep in mind these guys aren't the usual satanic themed evil black metal, rather they dip deep into the atmosphere of what I imagine of when I think of the Ukraine - cold and atmospheric, snowy and surrounded by nature. It's not surprising that you hear traditional ukrainian folk melodies and acoustic breaks throughout Blood in our wells. The songs are rather long and that's exactly how it should be, they need time to develop and breathe. One of my absolute favorite songs on the album is "Solitude" a beautiful song that seems to exemplify all that is Drudkh, witha rather dramatic ending - a must for all lovers of atmospheric metal. the vocals are throaty and in a definite black metal tone but done so in a way that seems to blend in with the music and the production is definetly the best Drudkh has attempted managing to sound warm and clear without losing any of the atmosphere of a black metal record. It goes without saying that Drudkh remain one of the most unique bands in the scene today and their somewhat mysterious status makes them all the more attractive.

Katatonia - Viva Emptiness (2003)

Katatonia is my all time favorite band. They started out as a doom/death band and changed styles along the way - experiementing with doom, gothic, shoegaze, alterative-esque and a new style which is hard to describe. I like to call Viva Emptiness the third phase in Katatonia's sound

Katatonia - Brave Murder Day (1996)

When Katatonia released Brave Murder Day, they blew the roof off the doom metal genre, creating something unique - depressing and heavy but in an uptempo way, something generally not heard of in Doom. Unlike their debut album Brave Murder Day's compositions are of a rock nature - there exists many a driving rhythm and crunchy guitar sound but with a lot of effects given to clean guitar stuff. The vocals are wonderfully performed By Mikeal A. from the legendary Opeth and features all of his grunting goodness but back then his voice was a bit raspier and less refined as today. The clean vocals are only heard on Day, a lush hypnotic number giving us insight to progressing sounds where Katatonia was heading towards. The rest of the songs follow a similiar rock pattern, the short and simple Murder being the most accessible on the album and 12 and rainroom showing us the complexities that lay hidden beneath a rather simplistic style of metal. Katatonia has continued to reinvent themselves time and time again but I feel his is the album that broke them into a consistant and progressive style. It has class and charm - feeling both cold and comforting.




www.myspace.com/katatonia

Atmospheric Metal - my video

I made this video of atmospheric metal, a loose genre incorporating gothic metal, doom metal and doom/death metal...labels aren't important, the bands are

Bert and Ernie grindcore

Nothing is sacred on youtube, especially when it comes to Sesame Street. This is Bert and Ernie playing grindcore which is probably the most extreme music ever...the editing is brilliant

Muppets play Death Metal

I thought I would break from the usual reviews to inject some humour here - This is the muppets playing death metal (its a song by cryptopsy) Naturally my love for both the muppets and death metal meant that I had to share this

Amorphis - Tales fom the Thosand Lakes

Do you know what the Kelevala is? It's a collection of finnish folk tales compiled into poetry and also Finlands proud national epic. Amorphis was a young metal band from Finland releasing only one death metal album - this is their second album released back in 1994 and can best described as Doom metal with lots of finnish folk melodies (transcribed through metal guitars and keyboards). Sections from the Kelevala are presented here (in english form) often verbatim from the text and are growled with death grunts - but rather being imposing and harsh, these are quite atmospheric, almost whispered. Like the Kelevala itself, Tales from the Thousand lakes contains a sense of mystery and magic that you can easily get lost in. The progressive parts are highly present in the synths showing a 1970's atmosphere but the guitars are downtuned enough to impress even the hardcore death metal freaks. Amongst the Metal crowd this is considered a true classic, and while their newer stuff is much more accessible and polished, Tales remains Amorphis's best and most creative endevour.

check out the cool video for black winter day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVLCHDw9vOk

my space
http://www.myspace.com/amorphis