Musical goodness: metal
Last time I shared some of my favourite dance tracks. Today I thought I’d share a few of my favourite metal tracks. There’s a rather large skew toward Nightwish, but that’s because they are absolutely brilliant. And you need not think metal means nothing but shouting and thudding. There is a very good reason why you can take a metal track, strip it of drums and vocals, have an orchestra play it, and have it sound amazing: good metal is good music, there’s a lot of intricacy in it. And by way of showing that, here is Apocolyptica doing a cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” (hear the original version). A cover involving nothing but four cello’s I shall have you note.
Apocolyptica - Nothing Else Matters
Nightwish - Walking In The Air
This is a live version of their cover of “Walking In The Air”. Yes that Walking In The Air. Yes live. One of the brilliant things about Nightwish is that Tarja is a classically trained opera singer. It helps a lot.
Nightwish - The Islander
A beautiful tune, which melds seamlessly into the following track on the album too. This is from the new album, Annette on vocals as Tarja was booted out of the band for forgetting that it’s about the music and not the money. I love that the band stand by their principals! Incidentally, the new album is every bit as good as the previous albums.
Nightwish is a way of life and a job with many obligations. To each other and to the fans. With you we can’t take care of those duties anymore. Deep within we don’t know which one of you drove us to this point. Somehow Marcelo has changed you from the lovely girl you were into a diva, who doesn’t think or act the way she used to. You are too sure of your irreplaceableness and status. You were always the only one who wanted more money from the shows.
Nightwish - 7 Days To The Wolves
Lovely little track. Wolves are my favourite animal too, so that helps.
Nightwish - End Of All Hope
Absolutely brilliant track.
Nightwish - I Wish I Had An Angel
And just to prove that Nightwish can also do ‘real’ heavy metal, here’s the pounding assault of I Wish I Had An Angel.
Metallica - One
An absolute classic from 1989. This song is an argument against the futility of war. It’s based on a 1939 novel “Johnny Got His Gun” in which a soldier from World War One is horribly injured; losing his arms, legs, sight, hearing, and speech. His mind works perfectly, he becomes a prisoner in his own body.
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- Sun, 29th Jun 2008 at 14:06 UTC
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skip to comment formI love Nightwish, the orchestral stuff is utterly amazing. I could listen to Ghost Love Score all day.
You should try Sonata Arctica, they're not orchestral but they're very melodic and have a few songs about wolves (Fullmoon, Wolf and Raven, The Cage etc).
Vision Divine (try Streams of Consciousness and The Perfect Machine) and Twilightning (Delirium Veil and Plague-House Puppet Show).
I find it amusing that I listen to mostly metal and what I look for in music is a soaring, uplifting melody.
You missed these:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C8GOHJAnVh4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6UztEfwHt14
Cheers for those pointers Andrew - yet more stuff to add to my Amazon wishlist! Metal has an image problem with the general public. It's amazing that the general consensus is that it's loud angry talentless noise when in fact there's no other modern genre that's as complex, diverse, and musically expressive as metal - it's practically the polar opposite of the common image.
Good point Thomas, I'd missed those but then I have to whittle it down to only a few tracks. I don't think Nightwish have done a bad track so I could throw everything up here if I had the time. (Well, the older albums are a bit… rough around the edges. But I'd actually love to have Nightwish re-record their old albums now they can afford real orchestra's - the let down with them was the production values).
One I love from the new album if only because it's so clearly a personal message to Tarja:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hTdhXxxWREo
PS, if you're a girl and into Nightwish (Heather…) they have a really nice top in their store. As in it's nice reguardless of being Nightwish - it's a shame all the lad's merchendice is black. I'd love a guys variant of this (obviously without the low neckline):
Nightwish girls top
Nightwish are bizarre, Matt. First time I heard them, I thought it was a joke!
They're alright though.
xxxx
Personally I prefer classic rock bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, et al. There's a pub in Chester - the Chester Bells - which has a classic rock night once a month, with a brilliant DJ - well worth checking out.
PS - now you know how to contact me
Matt Says: First time I heard them I thought it was a bit cheesy too. Soon changed my mind though.