Come Cover Me: Amaranth by Raevyn

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have male classical singer in Nightwish? This YT video will give you a bit of idea. I found it on official forum of Nightwish today and I have to say I don't like it at all. There are comments which are very positive but I can't understand why. I mean, I don't mind the fact that the song is sung by male, but the voice itself is bad. But whatever it is just my opinion after all. This guy calls himself Raevyn and has couple of Nightwish songs on his official YT channel.

 "Reach", the demo version of "Amaranth" sung by Marco, sounds much better and it is no secret that I like it more than the album version "Amaranth". 

So, do you like it?

Snippets of Dream Theater's new songs

Recently, Dream Theater has been releasing 70 seconds long snippets of their new songs from the upcoming album "A Dramatic Turn of Events" on their official site.

The songs are "Breaking All Illusions", "Beneath the Surface", "This Is the Life" and "Lost Not Forgotten" which you can see below.

Black Sabbath to reform with original line-up

Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward have begun rehearsing for a tour and new studio  album confirmed Tony Iommi today for birminghammail.net. The reunion has been kept under wraps for some time. In June this year vocalist Ozzy and Tony wrote new material for a record that will be released next year.

Update: In response to online reports claiming the original lineup is getting back together, guitarist Tony Iommi has issued the following official statement:

"I'm saddened that a Birmingham journalist whom I trusted has chosen this point in time to take a conversation we had back in June and make it sound like we spoke yesterday about a Black Sabbath reunion.

At the time I was supporting the Home Of Metal exhibition and was merely speculating, shooting the breeze, on something all of us get asked constantly, 'Are you getting back together?'.

Thanks to the internet it's gone round the world as some sort of "official" statement on my part, absolute nonsense. I hope he's enjoyed his moment of glory, he won't have another at my expense.

To my old pals, Ozzy, Greezer and Bill, sorry about this, I should have known better.

All the best, Tony."

Rhapsody of Fire splits up

Today RoF announced on their official site split up. Alex Staropoli and Luca Turilli decided to proceed to a friendly split.

“10 albums released and the end of the saga represent, musically and lyrically, an important artistic goal finally reached, underlined by the success of our last release “From Chaos To Eternity”, for which we want to thank our wonderful fans once again. Now it came the time when new artistic stimulations need to be found, in respect of both parts’ visions and perspectives and of our longtime friendship”

Due to the latest legal agreements actually in force, Alex Staropoli will go on with RHAPSODY OF FIRE having, between the others, Fabio Lione as singer, Tom Hess as guitar player and Alex Holzwarth as drummer. For the same agreements and the original name’s common ownership, Luca Turilli will release his future works with a new RHAPSODY band, including the faithful band members Dominique Leurquin, Patrice Guers and Alex Holzwarth. 

Tarja's classical album update

In April, Tarja confirmed that she's going to release a classical album. Recently, Finnish yle.fi published update on Tarja's new album.

The album will consist both of very well-known and uncommon Ave Marias of several composers. But there will be Tarja's own composition also.
The recording of several Ave Maria's was originally Kalevi Kiviniemi's idea. The duo has made co-operation from the year 2006.
There will also be harp, cello, organs and female choir. Instrumentation and song list are still seeking their final form.

Tarja's New Musical Group

Yesterday, Tarja announced on her web site a new musical group she started with a guitarist, organist, and drummer.  The group is call Harus, which, according to Tarja's site "is a rather peculiar, uncommon Finnish word that describes the four tensors that keep a tent together or the tensor that keeps the mast from falling in a sailing boat."  The project started in 2006, but is just now being revealed. You can read more about it here.

Wow!  The site says that the music will "tie together exquisite classical music developed strongly and in a very stable way, with a taste of experimental, modern feel."

There wasn't any news about releases or performances, but this sound very cool to me, so I am looking forward to hearing what Harus puts out!

Imaginaerum soundtrack

Petri Alanko, the composer of Imaginaerum soundtrack, wrote a blogpost about composing the soundtrack. Read here.

Very interesting reading, though I don't understand half of it. But yeah, I have zero knowledge of composing  soundtrack.

Some More News & Another Review

As I mentioned here, I'll be contributing CD reviews to Sonic Cathedrals' web zine, but I have also been invited to contribute to Black Wind Metal's site as well!  The Protagonist, who co-founded the site, invited me last week, and today my first CD review was published there.  It's a review of Dama's debut album, Eirwen, which I've blogged about here before and to which I am still steadily addicted.  You can go here to read it.

Great Music, Shitty Teaser

Here is a fan-made teaser for Nightwish's upcoming CD, Imaginarium.

Well, the title of this post pretty much sums up how I feel about this!

Evanescence's New Single

Here it is: "What You Want."

Hmmmm...

Edit @ Tuesday Aug. 9: Well all the full length clips of the song are blocked on YT due to a copyright claim by Wind Up Records.  Grrrrrrrrrr.

Nightwish: New Imaginaerum Update

Dear friends of Imaginarium

Secretly we all hoped that at some point we would be able to say this aloud: The Dream is about to become reality! It`s been a hard battle beyond all measures, as it is in all projects this size, but finally creativity and heart took over the evil called Money.

Imaginarium will be shot in September in a location we still need to keep as a secret but it will be quite far from our homely Finland & Sweden.

The casting of the characters is now done. The cast is chosen not only because of their talent but because of the personal passion of everyone involved. The actors and their representatives have been overly enthusiastic about the auditions after reading the script. We believe many of you will be very surprised once you see the final result and the story behind it. This long journey began more than 3 years ago, and neither Nightwish or Stobe had a clear idea of where the path would lead. The script is now fantastic. It`s about Life, and the little spark of light you see during the darkest and most hopeless times. The same spark we`ve had to find over and over again during the process of making this film happen.

The production crew is a group of professionals with one aim only: To realize the original vision of Imaginarium that Tuomas and Stobe had. All the pieces of the puzzle are now on the tables, and the building of the props, costume design, schedule planning, special fx production, dialogue & band performance rehearsals, etc. has begun.

It`s easy to shed some tears while writing this, since we now know the story will have an ending after all.

"She spins around elegantly, softly. The chords are now found and something that was broken never needed to be fixed."

According to the newest Nuclear Blast catalogue, Imaginarium is going to be released January 13.
- this might be truth, but also might be not. Tuomas mentioned, that the album will be released in the middle of January, definitely before the first show in LA, which will be on January 21.

Imaginarium concept art table photo by Stobe Harju

Ballads Away: "Rainy Roads" by Dama

I am addicted to Dama!  I have moved on from playing their cover of "Live to Tell" over and over again and have switched to this supremely excellent ballad, "Rainy Roads."  I have played this countless times today on my MP3 player during my travels. It's simple, but it's so beautiful and so emotional.

The lyrics are lovely, too.

Then the light and hunger between us
A surrendered moment
Take it if you like
Then a step
As a mark between us
I'll be your own velevet
If you'll give to me
That bright new age


As I walk I breathe you in
Through rainy roads
An invisible line
I follow
In darkness
Your sweet perfume
Set myself free


Then comes pain
Too much thirst between us
Echoes of a sigh
That will never die
Then your look
As wet drops between us
I'll be shiny velvet
If you'll lay
Upon this age of mine


Hands of greed
That run after each other
To the core of the existence within
You're the only one place in which I can live
Will you ever love me?

They're really evocative and I love that line in the chorus "As I walk I breathe you in through rainy roads."

Here is the song, which, incidentally has an Italian version called "Ombre."  This CD is released in North America August 9 and I'm fucking buying it.