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.

New Find/Come Cover Me: Dama

Thanks to my new colleagues over at the Sonic Cathedral Zine, I'm on the path to discovering all kinds of great new music, something that always gives me immeasurable pleasure.  It's especially pleasurable when, after downloading a whole bunch of new music, the first new CD you play is just killer.  Such is the case with Italy's Dama, which was recommended in a review of their CD, Eirwen, by my colleague Doctor T.

Dama is, to my ear, a symphonic rock-symphonic metal cross-over band and I have been listening to Eirwen all afternoon.  I love it!  The singer, Barbara Schera Vanoli, is fantastic, and Dama's music is just beautiful.  Not super heavy, but heavy enough, and very vocal and keyboard-centred, with great symphonic elements to boot.  They are tagged on Last.fm as "Gothic" but I disagree with that.  They are not gloomy or dark enough to warrant such a label and their sound is lighter.

One song on the album, which is their first, that really stuck out for me is a remake of Madonna's "Live to Tell."  It's fucking spectacular and I have been playing it over and over again (probably driving my neighbours up the wall).  This cover is fresh and keeps the songs integrity while making it more interesting than the original.  And I liked the original; it's one of my favourite Madonna songs.  But this is better, in my opinion, than hers.

Here it is:



Dama also has a single out in Italian called "Regina d'Inverno" which they have translated as "Your Winter."  There is an English version of this song, too, but here is the Italian, which is quite lovely.



What do you think?

You can find Dama at these fine locations:

Last. fm
Dama's official web site
MySpace
Facebook

"Metal Elitists are Killing Metal"

A man (or woman) after my own heart.  I found this posted on Sarah Jezebel Deva's Facebook.  It's fantastic and definitely worth a look. 

Not funny anymore

 "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

This quote crossed my mind today while watching one video on YT. Probably, some disappointed NW fan, decided to "pay tribute" to Marcelo Cabuli, husband and manager of Tarja.

Sladen Dead, the "artist", wrote the song in early 2006 after the infamous Open Letter and Tarja's departure.  As you will hear, the lyrcis are not really nice and are even worse than Tuomas' "Master Passion Greed", IMO. And I though, that no one can compose shittier lyrics than MPG.

Opeth's new single The Devil's Orchard

The Devil's Orchard is a new single from Opeth's 10th album "Heritage". This album will be the last recording with Per Wiberg as the keyboardist because he is leaving the band as part of a mutual decision. Joakim Svalberg, new keyboardist, is already rehearsing with the band. Here you can find album artwork and track listing.

Some news

1. Epica are in the middle of new album recording. The release date is set up on 9th March 2012. In April, band announced: "About 14 tracks have been written and the best ones will be selected with Sascha Paeth, the producer of the new album." 

2. Lacuna Coil's new album "Dark Adrenaline" won't be released this year. Band's record company, Century Media Records, has moved the release date to an early 2012. 

3. Mike Portnoy's new album release has been delayed. According to Portnoy:  "For those wondering about the 2012 release... Most labels require a three month "setup" for a well promoted release... as it is now late July, delivering the album to a label TODAY won't get a release til October... and basically ALL labels won't release a new album past October (unless you are MADONNA, LADY GAGA, EMINEM, etc.)."

Portnoy started new project "Adrenaline Mob" featuring Symphony X's singer Russell Allen, guitarists Rich Ward, Mike Orlando and bassist Paul DiLeo. Adrenaline Mob will be one of the support acts for Godsmack's headlining tour throughout North America in August. Band will release a four-song EP in August and plan on releasing their full length debut album at the start of 2012.  

Some News & A Review

This week I applied for and accepted a position with Sonic Cathedral as a reviewer. SC an organization I've been getting CDs from for quite a while now and I've discovered a lot of new female fronted bands through them.  They have a web zine, in addition to all the other things they do, and my CD reviews for SC will be appearing there.

First up, my review of the new Sarah Jezebel Deva release, The Corruption of Mercy.  You can read it here.  As you can see, I really loved this CD, and thought it was a great step forward for SJD in the evolution of her sound and solo career.  Check it!

Anette Olzon's Ever Dream demo

So Anette gave us another demo song today. It is not a song from her unreleased solo album, but her version of "Ever Dream" which she sent to Tuomas while NW was looking for new singer.

Check the song here.

What do you think?

New Wintersun song "The Way of the Fire" live at Metalcamp 2011

This is a bootleg video of a live performance featuring the new Wintersun song "The Way of the Fire" from their upcoming album Time. For a while, fans of Wintersun like myself have been waiting for the new album for quite some time, but this video, which was uploaded yesterday, is the first time I heard a full song off the new album anywhere. Though the sound quality isn't the greatest since it was recorded on a camcorder and not with pro audio equipment, you can still tell that this is a great song, particularly @ 3:16 with an awesome interlude and @ 6:58 with a great guitar solo by the one and only Jari Mäenpää. This video gives me hope that the new album should be released sooner than later. Let's all hope so!