It has been awhile since I have posted, but fear not, for I have returned with many new songs and bands to share with you all. Today I bring you Powerglove. I have always been looking for a band that plays videogame music professionally like these guys. There are many bands that play this sort of music,but only a few songs unfortunately. Meanwhile, Powerglove already has two CD's out with nothing but metal covers of Tetris, Sonic, Power Rangers, and so on. I hope you enjoy the nerd-metal styling of Powerglove:
What? you haven't heard of Iced Earth? They've only been around since, well, longer then me. They got together back in 1984, released their first CD in 1988, and have been pumping out new CD's almost every year or two since. Sure, the band members have changed a lot, and the lead guitarist/songwriter, Jon Schaffer, is the only original member still there, but they still rock! What impresses me about these guys is that they are one of the few great Progressive Metal bands out of North America, 99% of them seem to come from the U.K. and Japan (oddly). Iced Earth also does a lot to appeal to their fanbase. They know what their listeners want, take a lot of their feedback, and use it to improve their music. They have done the CD "Tribute to the Gods" which was a cover CD of all their favourite bands and songs, another CD retold famous historical battles such as Waterloo through Heavy Metal, and a whole CD based off the comic character "Spawn." Jon Schaffer is even planning to create a graphic novel based on his character and band mascot, Set Abominae. Also, with lack of finding a non-live performance of this song, I used the AMV I watched when I first heard these guys years ago. I know this is a music blog, but Final Fantasy 9 was one of the greatest of the series, and is seriously under rated. Just think of the setting: Steampnk + Midevil Fantasy + awesome magical summon monsters = Flawless Victory. Sure, the main villain was (very) flaky, and the final boss came from no where, but the rest of the story and characters are solid. Anyways, enough Video Game ranting, here is the video... I mean song...
Okay, so many of you probably know about John Sykes, either from Thin Lizzy, Whitesnakes, Badlands, or half the other 80's hair metal bands out there. But what most people didn't know, is that he has come out with his own independent work. He launched his CD "20th Century" to go along with his promoting a new T.V. show. And by T.V. show I mean Japanese anime.The anime itself is pretty good, as far as these types of shows. It's called Black Heaven: Heavy Metal Saves the Universe. The show references John Sykes career in a few ways, His bands breaking up to be with their families, members dying from drugs, marrying a roadie. But like all anime's it goes over the top (like using this song to power an intergalactic plasma cannon to fight aliens...) Anyways, here is one of John Sykes latest works, and check out the anime if you're interested and really like this song (seriously, it's played at least 3 times in each episode). I also added the instrumental version underneath. I prefer that version, but the lyrics aren't bad either, so take your pick!
More nerdy/metal stuff from me. Ryashon is an up and coming metal band, and by band I mean 2 guys. They have been turning out their own tunes for a short while, and are getting ready to release their first CD before the end of the year. This song in particular is a metal cover Ryu's theme from Street Fighter 2 (don't ask me how excited for Street Fighter 4 I am, the answer is usually Hadoken). Their music involves a few covers that they have released on the internet, usually from video games (and a hilarious one of Chocolate Rain). But their CD will include almost all original music by them. Being only two members strong, they are very focused on perfecting their instruments,so there is few vocals (if any) and all talent. They have been described as not only metal, or techno ( a few of their songs), but Melodic as well. So listen up, in the meantime I shall keep checking their blog until the CD is out.
Well I'll admit that this is probably one of the most blasphemous bands out there (they have a song titled: The Devil is a Loser and he's my B***h), but this one song is just so great it gets stuck in my head and makes me ready to rock out. Lordi has been around since 1996, but didn't hit their first breakthrough until 2006, during the Eurovision Song contest (something really great that non-UKers should check out, a big music contest/concert). The contest was mainly dominated by pop and folk songs for decades, but this Heavy Metal Band came out of nowhere, broke contest records, and was the first Hard Rock Bands to win the Eurovision Contest (and the first Finnish band as well). These guys do almost anything public in their costumes. It's they're symbol, and they say that they were inspired by KISS for much of their influence. In their costumes they are rock stars, but in there everyday cloths, nobody knows that they are a heavy metal band. Their music videos are also well known for being different, almost always being a horror movie of it's own. This video being a small exception, they have two versions of it. This was them hosting Eurovision '07, check out their other video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdItwaLrv1U Youtube sold-out and I can't post the other (better) video) Lordi is currently touring the U.S.A.
Another band that has recently come into the light is Apocalyptica. They have a rather popular song that has been playing on the radio rather often (I can't recall the name right now). I'm glad that after so many years this band has finally made it. Many people don't know this, but Apocalyptica has been playing for over a decade and a half. Being a band formed of simply cellos, they had quite the unique sound, especially when they make heavy metal. They often make covers from Mettalica songs, they also get the occasional singer who wishes to redo one of their songs with lyrics (such as their latest song on the radio, few people know it's a remix).
Here is a video from ten years ago, Harmagoden. I don't really have the music vocabulary to describe this song, but I would say something along the lines of "Eerily beautiful"
Thanks to Guitar Hero and this band selling out (it's not always a bad thing) most everyone has heard of Dragonforce and their high BPM. Here is an older song from them, one of my favourites from the Vally of the Damned CD. Also, they are coming out with a new CD soon, Ultra Beatdown! (I love these power metal bands trying to give everything an epic name)
This is one of my favorite Metallica songs and yes it's Unforgiven 2. Metallica has two other songs with that title, Unforgiven 1 and Unforgiven 3, which was just released in their new album Death Magnetic.
I must say that I am surprised Vivian was the first to put up a metal band, between Matt and I being Metal heads ourselves this should gave gone up long ago. Here's a decent Metal band out of, you guessed it, Northern Europe. Very popular over there, but like most metal bands they don't get much airtime on our radio stations. Hammerfall has 5 CD's out, each one becoming an improvement over the last. This is the title song from their first CD: Threshold. Couldn't find any good non-live videos, so this will have to do...
Alright, so this will be the first and probably not the last time that I post a video because it's such an obscure concept but not the best musically. This is Wicked Wisdom, more commonly known as Jada Pinkett Smith's band. That's right, Will Smith's wife. My mind was slightly shattered at discovering that she's the lead singer of a metal band. Anyway, once again, I apologize that it might not be the best metal out there, but you gotta check it out regardless.
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