Three Obscure Metal/Goth Songs That Absolutely Rule

Well, since I was still in the mood for writing about music, I thought that I’d talk about three interesting – but obscure – metal and goth songs today. Whilst I will try to find links to music videos (and, in one case, the musician giving the song away for free), I couldn’t really find one for one of the songs here. It seems to have disappeared completely from the internet.

1) “Karma” by HiK: Back when I used to use the DRM-service “Steam”, one of my favourite games on there was “Left 4 Dead 2” (2009) and I downloaded numerous mods for it during the early-mid 2010s. One of those mods – “Witch Hunter” – contained the song I’m talking about here, “Karma” by HiK.

The interesting thing about this song is that it’s an interesting mixture between melodic and non-melodic metal. Most of the song has a surprisingly “rough” sound, with lots of crunchy guitars, but it also contains this amazing “1980s Iron Maiden”-esque guitar solo at one point, as well as a couple of brief 1980s-style guitar flourishes near the beginning too. The lyrics are relatively simple, but sung with enough emotion and repetition to add a brilliantly menacing mood to the song. There’s an edge to the vocals but they aren’t really quite “death growls” either.

As the title implies, the song is about the concept of karma – but it is mostly a song about a vengeful spirit of some sort. It’s one of those horror genre metal songs which sounds “low-budget” in a good way and it’s ridiculously catchy as well.

2) “Thunder Hotel” By Ben Benjamin: Back in 2012, I stumbled across a Youtube video claiming to be a leaked Sisters Of Mercy demo called “Thunder Hotel”. Even though I could tell that the singer’s voice was subtly different to Andrew Eldritch’s, this SoM-inspired gothic rock song had a weirdly celebratory mood to it and it is probably this contrast which made it stick in my mind. It’s a song, probably inspired by The Eagles’ “Hotel California”, about a mysterious hotel.

Flash forward to a couple of hours before I wrote this article and I remembered this video. To my surprise, there was a comment posted below it pointing out that the song is actually by Ben Benjamin. And, whilst someone else posted the song on Youtube with it’s correct title (and incorrect album artwork), I did a bit more digging and was astonished to find a Reddit page which contains a statement from Ben Benjamin explaining the background to the song – it was a fun pastiche he made to get through a creative block – and actually providing a link to a free download of it too.

3) “Heart In The Dark” by Karilian: Alas, the indie music site “Purevolume” seems to have closed and disappeared in 2018. This was a site that I used to look at regularly during the mid-late 2000s or so, since musicians would sometimes give music away for free on there. And I’ve still got a few MP3s left over from those days.

The one I want to talk about today is “Heart In The Dark” by Karilian (stylised as “KARILIAN” in the file name). If I remember rightly, I found it in about 2007 or so, and the site suggested using good headphones. It starts out with some ominous electronic noises, before slightly muted/quiet crunchy guitars kick in and the singer’s forlorn but clean vocals begin: “It comes on in the morning/ And it stays for the rest of the day...”.

The mood of the song is dark and ominous, but not frightening. It was a song I used to listen to whilst reading old horror novels. It’s a song about someone who is haunted by something. Most of the guitars are crunchy, but there are also some eerie melodic “arpeggio” type segments and a few growled vocals too. It’s metal rather than goth, but it definitely has a gothic atmosphere to it. A mood of dark rooms late at night, of ominous relaxation.

Alas, I can’t find it on Youtube, Amazon or Bandcamp and I’d feel extremely wary about posting someone else’s entire song on the internet without permission. If this was a Youtube video, I could probably include a clip under “fair use” but this is a written blog article (and a screenshot of the MP3 file would look weird). But if you know anyone else who downloaded this song back in the day or have some other way of finding it, then I’d heavily recommend it. it sounds slightly “low-budget” but in this really endearing way which is quintessentially “2000s”.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Extra Review: “Heaven X Hell” by Sum 41 (Album)

If you want to see the full background image – some fan art based on an old Sum 41 music video, which I painted last year – I posted it on DeviantArt back then 🙂

Well, better late than never, I guess. Although Sum 41’s final album – “Heaven X Hell” was released near the end of March, I was still waiting (see what I did there...) for my CD copy of it to arrive.

Yes, people posted the whole thing on Youtube on release day and – less commonly these days – the CD edition came with a free digital edition (albeit with no “download whole album with one click” option that I could find and, given the number of tracks...), so I heard the whole thing around release day but I wanted to wait until I actually had the discs in my hands before reviewing this album.

Unusually for a modern CD release, this fold-out case isn’t just made out of flimsy cardboard 🙂 It isn’t a proper “jewel case” either, but there are at least sturdy plastic trays to protect each disc – which is good because both of these trays got damaged/cracked either in transit or when I was trying to get the shrink-wrap off of the case. Either way, this is what the sturdy plastic is there for – to take the damage instead of the discs being damaged. So, props to the record company for  actually including proper packaging here. A depressing rarity in the modern age.

Although I’ve listened to the whole album at least a couple of times before writing this review, I should point out that I only maybe have a medium level of knowledge about the band.

Whilst I listened to a few of their singles and maybe one of their early albums during my early teens, discovering their amazing 2002 “Does This Look Infected?” album via a videogame demo (for the overlooked 2004 survival horror game “ObsCure“. Alas, the modern PC re-release apparently doesn’t contain any Sum 41 though…) when I was sixteen was a pivotal nostalgic moment for me.

I remember listening to their “Underclass Hero” album a lot in 2007 too. I’ve listened to other individual songs by the band and even one or two other albums (the 2011 album “Screaming Bloody Murder” springs to mind here) as well, but I’m not a total expert either.

Likewise, given the sheer number of tracks on this album – twenty of them – I’m probably not going to do a detailed track-by-track review here. This review is late enough as it is. And whilst it will be more than a “first impressions” review, it isn’t really a full review either. I get the sense that I probably should have listened to this album a few more times before reviewing it.

Anyway, “Heaven X Hell” is a two-disc album with the “Heaven” disc representing the band’s early pop-punk style and the “Hell” disc focusing on their more modern post-2002 heavy metal infused punk style. It is, a bit like the new Bruce Dickinson and Judas Priest albums, sort of a “greatest hits” album consisting of new material – a retrospective of the band’s history. In the punk tradition, this is a fairly short album – with both discs combining to a total of just 55 minutes.

I have to admit that this album took a while to grow on me. Whilst the very first single – “Landmines” – got me really hyped for the album last year, listening to the whole thing on Youtube whilst waiting for my CDs to arrive just initially just felt like general “essence of Sum 41”. I worried that my mid-thirtysomething self was too old for this album, that I’d have probably enjoyed it more if I’d heard it during the later parts of my teens. Still, given that it is – famously – the band’s final album and given that I’d already bought the CD, I decided to give it a few more chances and it grew on me a lot.

My favourite half of the album is probably the “Heaven” side. This is proper nostalgic late 1990s/early 2000s style pop-punk music and I’m still amazed that – with all of the band’s evolution in the years since – they’re still able to make this type of music 🙂

It starts out really strongly with songs like “Waiting On A Twist Of Fate” and “Landmines” too 🙂 Either of these songs could easily have come out back in the day and they almost feel like “lost tracks” from the band’s early days but with the quality, depth and skill which only comes from decades of experience.

One interesting thing about this side of the album is that the band also tip their hat to at least a couple of their contemporaries as well. Whilst Offspring-influenced Sum 41 songs are nothing new – listen to their 2019 song “The People Vs…” for another great example – the song “Future Primitive” on this album is a really cool hat-tip to this band. There are “whoas” and the whole mood and pacing of the song is just a cool homage, which also contains hints of Sum 41’s amazing 2002 “Does This Look Infected?” album as well 🙂 And anything even close to new Offspring music is always welcome as well 🙂

The song “Johnny Libertine” also seems to be a fun homage to classic Green Day as well, and I’m sure I detected some hints of classic NOFX and a reference to the song “Bleed Black” from AFI’s excellent 2003 punk/emo/goth/metal album “Sing The Sorrow” [Edit: Oops! This AFI reference is actually in the song “Over The Edge” from the other half of the album. Sorry about this mistake] somewhere on this side of the album too 🙂

There are also some moodier and more melancholy songs – like “Dopamine”. There’s also “Not Quite Myself” too – even though it includes some quiet/slow melancholy moments, some verses genuinely sound like something the band could have released in the late 1990s in the best possible way 🙂 In fact, in the classic pop-punk tradition, the mood of this side of the album is more depressing than you might think. It’s the classic pop-punk thing of cheerful-sounding music with melancholy lyrics.

The “Hell” side of the album is, as mentioned earlier, based on the band’s more modern metal-infused style of punk music. And it is still amazing that there’s a punk band who are also metal-heads – I mean, even when they were at their most “Pop-punk”, they were still wearing Iron Maiden T-shirts, making hair metal parody songs and referencing classic metal bands in their lyrics 🙂 If the mood of the “heaven” side is melancholy, then the mood of this side is anger.

There are quieter moments punctuated by lots of furious shouting and impassioned singing, as well as a mixture of crunchier guitars and melodic traditional metal stuff, but with more of a punk mood and sensibility. This exact style of metal/punk is pretty much unique to Sum 41 and it’s cool to hear – literally a mixture of my two favourite guitar-based genres 🙂

The intro track “Preparasi A Salire” is an eerie synthetic thing which serves as a surprisingly good and atmospheric mid-point for the album. It begins with eerie synth stuff, before lyrics and drumrolls ease the song in a more metallic direction, with the lyrics perfectly segueing into the album’s second single “Rise Up”. THIS is heavy 2000s-style Sum 41 at its best! It almost sounds like a lost track from “Does This Look Infected?” at some points as well.

Another stand-out track on this side of the album is “You Wanted War”, which also has this amazing heavy/fast verse (starting with “Life and death…”) near the end – literally the perfect fusion of punk and metal – and a cool “traditional metal”-style guitar solo too. “Stranger In These Times” also has a really cool build-up at one point too.

There’s also a metal-punk cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” as well – which, given that I discovered this classic song around the same time I was listening to Sum 41’s “Underclass Hero” (2007) – felt especially cool to me.

“It’s All Me” is also a pretty badass track as well, with a really good mixture of melodic and heavy elements, as well as a cool and well-placed palm-muted guitar riff in some parts. “How The End Begins” is also an epic melodic metal-punk conclusion for the band song-writing career as well.

As for the rest of the side, I should probably listen to it a few more times but a lot of the other songs seemed to blur together when I remember them. Like one long, heavy metal-punk Sum 41 song. Which is certainly not a bad thing, and it adds cohesiveness to the side as well, but I was sort of hoping for more distinctive and instantly-memorable songs. And where is the mumble-rap? The Sums have really gone downhill!

All in all, this review probably hasn’t done the album justice but the album is a really good send-off for the band 🙂 I probably need to listen to it a few more times to fully appreciate it, but it’s like a “Greatest hits”, but with new songs. It’s both fresh and nostalgic at the same time. It’s two albums in one. Whilst my favourite Sum 41 album is probably still “Does This Look Infected?” (2002), this album is still anything but bad. Not only is it a good introduction for new fans but it’s also a cool retrospective for older fans as well.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get four point one 🙂 It’ll probably grow on me even more over time, so this is a “minimum” score….

Extra Review: “Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” by Alestorm (EP)

Well, this really does seem to be the month for music reviews. Although I’m still not sure whether or not I’ll review Sum 41’s upcoming album, I was surprised to learn that there was a new Alestorm EP out today – one called “The Voyage Of The Dead Marauder”. Since it was only a little under a fiver for a digital copy, I decided to buy it this way rather than shelling out more and waiting longer for a CD to arrive.

If you haven’t heard of Alestorm before, they’re a long-running Scottish pirate-themed metal band who have been going since at least the 2000s. My first introduction to them was in 2006 [Edit: Or, thinking about it more, possibly early-mid 2007] when I read about a band called “Battleheart” – an earlier incarnation of Alestorm – in Metal Hammer magazine and looked up their songs online, only to find a really excellent cover of Korpiklaani’s “Journey Man”.

Whilst I don’t own all of their albums and am not an expert, I saw them in concert at least twice during the later parts of the 2000s and also still have a signed postcard by them from a signing tent at a music festival in 2008. I’m more knowledgeable about their older 2000s stuff than their more modern stuff – although I have obviously listened to some of it (like their excellent “Big Ship Little Ship/Bassline Junkie” non-album single back in 2020). Still, I apologise if I miss anything in this quick review – which is slightly more than a “first impressions” review, but less than a full review.

“Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” is a five-track EP which is about fifteen minutes long. Overall, it remains good throughout but it has definitely been “front-loaded” with the best songs. The first two tracks are serious new material from the band, and the other three tracks are the band goofing around and having fun. Some of this is probably “filler”, but it’s high-quality filler.

It begins with the title track – “Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” – and this is a fairly typical modern-style Alestorm song, containing a surprising variety of musical elements. Telling an epic “serious” story, this is a song which includes a mixture of traditional-style Alestorm music, shouted/growled vocals and more melodic vocal and hurdy gurdy segments by former Storm Seeker (another excellent pirate-themed metal band) member Patty Gurdy as well 🙂 It’s an epic, complex and cinematic metal song which probably needs to be listened to a few times in order to really appreciate.

Next, there is “Uzbekistan” 🙂 Although there is some musical experimentation here, this song is much closer in style and mood to classic Alestorm 🙂 It was the song which convinced me to buy the whole EP when I stumbled across the music video on Youtube yesterday. There are some fun instrumental references to the band’s 2009 song “Keelhauled” and it’s a jaunty song about a group of pirates travelling to the double-landlocked country of Uzbekistan. It’s a catchy song which is gloriously silly fun 🙂

Thirdly, there is a cover of The Arrogant Worms’ famous Canadian comedy song “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate”. Although there are some small lyrical changes, Alestorm don’t really make the mood and style of the song their own in the way that they did with – for example – their excellent 2021 version of “The Wellerman”. It certainly isn’t a bad cover by any means, and the song itself is good, but it mostly just sounds like a general “metal cover” of this song rather than anything unique to Alestorm.

Fourthly, there is “Sea Shanty 2”. This is a fun instrumental piece, including elements of chip-tune music and more traditional instruments. It’s jaunty and catchy and fun. The video for it on Youtube also includes the famous “dancing pirate” GIF as well.

The final track on the EP is one of Alestorm’s “rude” comedy songs. Whilst it isn’t quite the crudest song they’ve ever written (their anchor-themed song from 2017 probably gets that title), it’s still a decent effort. The song tells the hilarious and borderline-nonsensical story of a pirate dreaming about an angry Leprechaun who has various over-sized body parts. It’s funny and silly and it wouldn’t be a modern Alestorm record without one of these songs.

All in all, this is a good EP. Again, it has been “front-loaded” with the best tracks but the rest of the EP is still really fun and good regardless. Yes, this is more of an EP for fans of the band than for anyone new to the band, but I don’t regret buying it.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a four.

Extra Review: “Invincible Shield” by Judas Priest (Album)

March 2024 is an absolutely amazing month for new music, one of the best I’ve ever experienced 🙂

Although I don’t know whether or not I’ll also review the new Sum 41 album coming out at the end of the month, I thought that I’d take a look at Judas Priest’s new heavy metal album “Invincible Shield” today 🙂

Yes, once again, I decided to buy this album on CD. Astonishingly, it was actually delivered on release day yesterday (even if I didn’t have time to review it then) and it even came with shop-exclusive cover art too. Alas, it still falls into the modern trend of using a flimsy cardboard sleeve rather than a sturdy traditional plastic jewel case. Yes, I get that it’s cheaper to make, its recyclable and it’s a call-back to old vinyl record sleeves, but the whole point of a case is to protect the disc and these cardboard cases don’t really seem as good as this. Fortunately, the disc survived the trip in the post though.

Ever since Priest made a bit of a comeback (not that they ever truly left) with their amazing “Firepower” album in 2018, I’ve been looking forward to the next one and the release of the amazing lead single – “Panic Attack” – last October really got me hyped. And, like with my review of Bruce Dickinson’s latest album earlier this month, this is more than a “first impressions” article but less than a hyper-detailed review. Although I heard all of the songs individually on Youtube minutes after the album was released yesterday, I also wanted to listen to the whole album in order as well.

Also, whilst I’ve certainly listened to a fair amount of Judas Priest music over the years and maybe own a third to half of their albums (including a “greatest hits” and a live album), I don’t have quite the same level of encyclopaedic knowledge that I do for a band like Iron Maiden, so I apologise if I miss anything.

But, before I talk about the music, I have to give a shout-out to Mark Wilkinson, who quickly seems to be turning into a successor, rival and/or follower of the one and only Derek Riggs 🙂 [Edit: I’ve just corrected some bad wording here. Sorry if the original version incorrectly implied that Riggs was no longer a current/active artist. From his website, he still seems to be making art 🙂 ].

Wilkinson has also provided cover and/or booklet art for at least one or two of Iron Maiden’s modern albums, not to mention that seeing an actual real human artist’s name in the booklet was very reassuring in this soulless age of A.I. too. And, oh my god, Mark Wilkinson’s artwork in the lyric booklet is so cool 🙂 Seriously, check it out:

THIS is heavy metal artwork 🙂 Seriously, Mark Wilkinson is amazing 🙂

One of the things that I will say about this album is that it was both similar and different to what I expected 🙂 It’s like a cross between the ultra-intense fast style used on albums like “Painkiller” (1990) and “Firepower” (2018) and the more classic sound that you’d associate with the band’s songs from the 1980s.

It’s heavy and intense, and the songs merge into each other perfectly – almost like one 52-minute Judas Priest song – if you listen to the whole thing in order, but it has slightly more of a melodic element that is reminiscent of the band’s older stuff. It’s this really interesting blend of old and new.

Thematically, the album has the sort of cynicism and “fire and brimstone” imagery you’d expect from a Priest album too 🙂 The overall mood is a really interesting contrast between pessimistic bitterness/despair and more badass emotions like anger and optimism.  My favourite tracks are “Panic Attack”, “Gates Of Hell” and “As God Is My Witness” – but there aren’t exactly any “bad” tracks to be found here.

The album begins with the lead single “Panic Attack”. After an ominously slow and quiet intro, the song hits with the full force of something like “Painkiller” (1990). It’s the perfect opening song. It’s a fast, heavy and relentless song which bitterly excoriates things like internet conspiracy theories and the 2021 US capitol rioters. Extra shout-out to one of the guitar segments, which has the sort of “dripping molten metal” sound that is instantly reminiscent of Priest’s amazing 2005 album “Angel Of Retribution” too 🙂 Seriously, this song rules!

“The Serpent And The King” is another fast song, but with hints of the band’s older stuff – like “Screaming For Vengeance” (1982). A song about cults of personality, it seems to be another criticism of the modern internet and modern culture in general – whether online “influencers” or charismatic politicians – but couched in the melodramatic “fire and brimstone” language of old religions. Lines like “manifesting anger” also hint at cynicism about popular new age/”new thought” belief systems too. It’s a fast, badass song which is slightly “lighter” and more melodic than the previous track, but in a classic 1980s style way 🙂

The title track, “Invincible Shield” – bizarrely – took a while to grow on me. Advance reviews I’d seen online almost made it out to be the best song that the band has ever written, I was expecting “Painkiller but heavier” or something like that. I was really hyped. And, yes, it’s a brilliantly fast and heavy track – with some very “Painkiller”-esque moments – but it needs to be seen on its own terms. It’s sort of a fusion of the band’s 1980s style and their “Painkiller”-era style. It’s melodic and heavy. And just a really solid song all round. Go into it with moderate expectations and you’ll be astonished. It’s an “epic battle” sort of song.

“Devil In Disguise” is a good song. It works best when bookended by the other songs though. As well as a bit of a more melodic “1970-80s” sound, it reminded me a little of the songs I’d heard from Priest’s “Nostradamus” (2008) album ages ago, with maybe a hint of “Angel Of Retribution” (2005) and the crunchier guitars from “Painkiller” (1990) too. It’s a song about con-men and, again, I can’t help but see this as a cynical criticism of everything from online conspiracy theorists to old-school televangelists to charismatic politicians.

Then there is “GATES OF HELL” 🙂 When I first heard this song, I was transported back in time. In an instant, I was an early-mid 2000s teenager again, one who had just accidentally discovered heavy metal (long story…). Who bought random classic albums by bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest based on the band name and cover art and because I knew very little about the genre. Who would be astonished every time by classic albums I didn’t know much about beforehand.

“Gates Of Hell” song reminded me of those days 🙂 It has the mood of something like Iron Maiden’s “From Here To Eternity” (1992), that sort of theatrical “motorbikes and hellfire” mood. The pace is slower at times, but it’s celebratory and theatrical and just pure light-hearted classic metal fun 🙂 Oooh, and I’ve just noticed a hint of Priest’s amazing 1984 song “Rock Hard, Ride Free” in the guitars too 🙂 YES!

This song then segues into “Crown Of Horns”, another very slightly slower and more anthemic song. This song sounds like something from the 1980s. It’s a more contemplative song with a slightly downbeat mood (“That what you dream for/ Comes from the pain you hold inside“) which is paired with some more optimistic guitar segments and a pacing/feeling which is like someone is walking towards somewhere better. The guitars are silky and melodic at times, with some well-placed chords adding impact during some moments. It’s the album’s “slow song” and it’s really good, but you might have to listen to it a couple of times to really appreciate it.

“As God Is My Witness” is a return to thundering “Painkiller” (1990)-esque heaviness 🙂 It’s intense, hard-driving metal \m/. The song ostensibly has an “epic battle” sort of theme to it, but lines like “War Of The Worlds” make me think that it’s another cynical song about fractious modern internet culture or polarised modern politics. The chorus is cool and catchy, with a brilliant structure and the deep heavy guitars punctuating every individual word of the song’s title. This song absolutely rules 🙂

Weirdly, “Trial By Fire” is probably my least favourite song on the album and I don’t know why, possibly the bitterly depressing mood/story of it or Halford’s slightly abrupt vocal style in some parts and/or the “start and stop” guitars. Don’t get me wrong, it is – objectively- a really good song.

Something of a spiritual successor to Priest’s amazing classic song “Breaking The Law” (1980), “Trial By Fire” follows a bitter man on the run after being falsely accused of murder. It also fits into the thematic tradition of other fugitive-themed metal songs from that year, like Iron Maiden’s “Sanctuary” (1980). Rob Halford also does his classic thing of shouting the word “Fire” in only the way that he can. Objectively, I should adore this song. But, for some weird reason I can’t fully explain, it’s just “good but not my favourite”.

“Escape From Reality” is a slightly slower song – is that a hint of the “Ripper” era and/or Priest’s 2005 song “Lochness” in some of the opening guitars? – about hallucinogenic drugs. The mood alternates between ominously deep verses and sharp screeching chorus segments. Halford’s vocal range here is really brilliant. There’s also a cool psychedelic vocal effect at one point too.

“Escape From Reality” fits into the tragic, yet oddly magical, storytelling tradition of songs like Priest’s “Beyond The Realms Of Death” (1978) and it feels like an updated version of a song from the 1970s, like a “dark” version of 1960s psychedelia. It’s weird, but oddly wonderful.

“Sons Of Thunder”, from the title alone, is a classic 1980s-style heavy metal song. The lyrics booklet includes a painting of a motorbike next to it. The guitars drive and gallop forwards in time with Halford’s vocals, complete with shouted “call and response” backing vocals which sound like a group of bikers raising beer glasses in Valhalla. It’s a cool song and that’s all I can really think to say about it. It’s timeless, classic heavy metal \m/.

Closing track “Giants In The Sky” is more of a foot-stomping arena rock sort of song, with a mood that thunders and echoes like pounding drums – paired with some well-placed slower moments. It’s epic. Thematically, it’s something of a “meta” song about the metal genre, a bittersweet celebration of legends of the genre who are no longer with us.

It’s a really spectacular and theatrical way to end the album and the mood of it also perfectly encapsulates the emotional contrast which runs throughout the album (eg: bitterness/cynicism/depression paired with badass anger and optimism).

All in all, an excellent album 🙂 It’s a really interesting blend of old and new which remains consistently good throughout its 52-minute runtime. Again, if you listen to it in order, it almost sounds like one epic extended song.

It’s a really interesting middle ground between the almost unrelenting heaviness of albums like “Painkiller” (1990) and “Firepower” (2018) but with the more melodic and contemplative elements from the band’s 1970s-1980s songs too. To use a modern term, “It’s fire!”. Or, as Rob Halford would say, it’s “Fiii-ahhh!” \m/

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a very solid five. Seriously, were you expecting anything less than this?

Extra Review: “The Mandrake Project” by Bruce Dickinson (2024) (Album)

If you want to see my full fan art painting, based on the “Rain On The Graves” music video, you can find it on DeviantArt 🙂

I don’t know whether or not I’ll also review the upcoming Judas Priest or Sum 41 albums, but March 2024 seems to be THE month for great new music 🙂 And, since I seem to be in the mood for posting extra bonus stuff today (check out this cartoon as well), I thought that I’d review Bruce Dickinson’s new heavy metal album – “The Mandrake Project” 🙂

This is the 2024 CD edition of the album. Alas, it comes in a flimsy cardboard sleeve though – I miss the days when proper, durable “jewel cases” were standard for full albums on CD (with cardboard sleeves just being used for magazine cover discs, singles etc...). Yes, the cardboard sleeve is recyclable but, if you’ve spent a tenner on a CD you probably aren’t going to just throw it away…

Call me old-fashioned, but I decided to pre-order this album on CD and, although the whole thing was thankfully officially posted on Youtube when it was released, I wanted to wait until the CD arrived… two days after release day… and listen to the whole thing in order at least once before writing this quick review. It’s more than a “first impressions” review, but it’s also perhaps not an ultra-detailed “full review” either. I get the sense that this is one of those albums which has to be listened to multiple times in order to fully appreciate it.

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[Edit (4th March 2024): Yep. I was right about listening to it multiple times 🙂 Having listened to it at least three or four more times, it has “opened up” a bit more and I can appreciate the sheer quality of it a lot more.

There are tons of things, like the overall mood of the album, the “story” of it (like how the themes of “Many Doors To Hell” and “Resurrection Men” link into the story of the final song), other small details (Is that ‘Love will tear you apart’ line in “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)” a Joy Division reference?), the circular structure when you listen to it on repeat – how “Afterglow Of Ragnarok” almost seems to begin after the dramatic events of the final song – like a cycle of death and resurrection etc… which only really begin to reveal themselves when you’ve listened to the whole thing a few times in order to both clear out any preconceptions you have about the album and to actually pay attention to it.

Seriously, Bruce’s reference to “pearls before swine” in the fifth track has more meaning than I thought. If you just listen to individual songs or only listen to the whole thing once, then you’ll miss out on a lot of good stuff. It’s a surprisingly complex album.

It’s much better than it first appears to be. And I’ll amend the later parts of this review to reflect this too.]

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As you’d expect, this album sounds like a Bruce Dickinson album – it has the sort of gloomy, heavier atmosphere that you’d expect from albums like “Accident Of Birth” (1997). Still, for Iron Maiden fans, there are three songs – “Fingers In The Wounds”, “Mistress Of Mercy” and “Eternity Has Failed” – which will sound a bit more familiar. Again though, this is very much a Bruce Dickinson (and Roy Z) album, rather than an Iron Maiden album.

The album has an interesting three-part structure. It begins in a very gloomy and heavy way, dripping with occult themes and Faustian pacts. Then it goes in more of a traditional metal sort of direction in the middle. Then it concludes in a much slower, moodier and atmospheric narrative-based way.

In some ways, it’s almost like a retrospective of Bruce Dickinson’s solo stuff between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. A “greatest hits” consisting of new songs. Also, like Iron Maiden’s 2021 song “The Writing On The Wall”, at least one or two of the songs – it’s most noticeable in “Rain On The Graves” – have a hint of the Wild West to them as well. Of long-coats, saloons etc…

It’s a “something for everyone” sort of album. You can tell that Bruce and Roy were at their most experimental at the beginning of the album, with – for example – “Resurrection Men” also including hints of Black Sabbath in some of the guitar parts. With Bruce’s more spoken-style vocals during the verses of “Rain On The Graves”, his shouted segments in “Afterglow Of Ragnarok” and stuff like that. If you want the newest, latest evolution of Bruce Dickinson, then the first four tracks of this album are for you.

Even so, “Many Doors To Hell” is probably more on the traditional side – almost being the sort of song Bruce could have put on one of his mid-late 1990s albums, but with more of a “1970s horror movie” sort of atmosphere 🙂 Also, I love how the chorus of “Rain On The Graves” almost sounds like it could have come from Iron Maiden’s 2003 “Dance Of Death” album, whilst also very much being its own thing at the same time.

As hinted earlier, the middle of the album is there for the Iron Maiden fans [Edit: Sorry about the accidental dismissive-sounding wording here. I am very much an Iron Maiden fan and have been one for more two decades. Up the irons \m/ 🙂 \m/ ]

“Fingers In The Wounds” – my favourite song on the album – is an epic three and a half minute song about religion and hero-worship which could easily be a “lost” Iron Maiden song (from maybe 2003-2015), containing a brilliant mixture of heaviness and more understated moments, as well as an epic catchy chorus. It’s the song I’ve listened to on repeat the most.

“Eternity Has Failed” is – like the 1987 horror movie “Evil Dead II” – part sequel/part remake. If you’ve read about Iron Maiden’s 2015 album “The Book Of Souls”, then you’ll know that the amazing opening track “If Eternity Should Fail” was originally supposed to be a Bruce Dickinson solo song.

Well, he’s made his own version on this album and “Eternity Has Failed” is really interesting. It’s gloomier, slower and heavier and yet more epic in its own way. There are also some interesting lyrical changes which give the song a more pessimistic mood than the Iron Maiden version as well. Whilst I slightly prefer the 2015 Iron Maiden version, this 2024 version is still a really good song though.

I’ve seen “Mistress Of Mercy” likened to Bruce’s amazing 1997 song “Freak” online, and you can definitely hear it in the opening guitars. This song is probably the closest to mid-late 1990s Bruce Dickinson and maybe classic Iron Maiden too 🙂 Parts of Bruce’s vocals – especially the line “Far from the old ways” – soar like 1980s-era Iron Maiden and the verses have the sort of energy which is evocative of the older days of both bands as well. This is also probably the “lightest” song on the album in terms of mood and atmosphere.

Then we get on to the last three songs. Whilst there are heavier moments, these are slower atmospheric ballads with more emotion and – like Iron Maiden – the song length begins to increase. Yes, Bruce has written slow songs before – like his 1997 song “Man Of Sorrows”. And the later parts of the album feel like he’s exploring this style a bit more.

The song “Face In The Mirror” is probably the weakest track on the album, almost more like a downbeat rock song you’d expect to hear on the radio during the mid-late 1990s. Thankfully, it’s only four minutes long though and doesn’t overstay its welcome. [Edit: Listening to it more, it’s beginning to grow on me a little. Whilst the song’s themes are quite gloomy, the musical elements do include some more spectacular “1980s rock ballad” flourishes in the background at times.]

“Shadow Of The Gods” is a seven-minute epic which begins with a call-back to Bruce’s 1998 song “Chemical Wedding” in the opening line but it begins in a much slower and more mournful way, with sombre piano music (vaguely evocative of The Beatles during some moments) and stuff like that before eventually bursting into life with crunchy early 2000s-style guitars and cool verses about necromancers. The later parts of this song almost sound like they are from the late 1990s/early 2000s in the best way possible. Like an old band trying to do “nu metal” but turning it into something much better.

Finally, there is “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”. This song is a more narrative-based one, evocative of Bruce’s 2005 album “Tyranny Of Souls” and it is probably the most sumptuous and “cinematic” of the songs on the record. At almost ten minutes in length, it’s one of those songs which probably requires multiple listens to get the most out of. It’s an epic “concept album” sort of song, complete with Bruce doing dialogue in different voices at one point.

All in all, whilst this album is probably one which will grow on me more after I’ve listened to it a few more times [Edit (4th March 2023): Yes, it grew on me a lot. On your first listen, it’s “really good”. On your fourth listen, it’s “Wow! This is a masterpiece!”], it’s still really good. Whilst it lacks the energy of “Accident Of Birth” (1997), it’s more about mood and atmosphere in some ways. And, as mentioned earlier, its a more varied album than I expected as well – containing “new style” Bruce Dickinson songs, stuff for Iron Maiden fans and more epic/emotional slow songs. Whilst it probably isn’t Bruce’s very best album, It’s still really good and worth listening to if you’re a fan of his stuff. I certainly don’t regret buying it.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a four. [Edit (4th March 2024): Well, on your first listen to it anyway. After listening a few more times, I’d upgrade it to a very solid five. Seriously, this is one of those albums which “grows on you” a lot after a while.]

“Middle-Ground” Fandom – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk very briefly about fandom today. This was something I ended up thinking about after finding myself listening to more music by the metal band System Of A Down than usual in the couple of months before I prepared this article in mid-late January. Whilst I’ve discovered (and bought digital copies of) a few songs of theirs that I didn’t know about before – like “ATWA” and “Suggestions” – I’m not really an expert on the band.

In terms of physical media, I literally only own one CD single (“Hypnotize”) as well as three albums – “Steal This Album!” (2002) , “Mezmerize” (2005) and “Hypnotize” (2005) – but, even back when I first discovered the band in 2006, I mostly just listened to a few favourite tracks from these albums. It was literally only within the month or so before writing this article that I actually learned the names of all of the members of the band too. And, naturally, this made me wonder about fandom.

I mean, I’m a fan of System Of A Down in the sense that I really like some of their songs and seem to be listening to them a lot recently. However, I’m not really a fan in the same way that I’m a fan of – for example – Iron Maiden. A band I’ve been listening to for more than two decades, where I’ve got all of their studio albums (and some of their live albums), where I’ve seen them in concert once, where quite a few of the T-shirts I own have their artwork on them, where I can recognise many of their songs just from brief snippets, where I think that the Blaze Bayley era is criminally underrated etc….

And this made me think about “middle-ground” fandom, where you enjoy something and are a fan of it but aren’t really an expert. And, honestly, it’s kind of cool. Not only is it probably the most common and accessible type of fandom – since most people only really have the time, money and energy to be super-fans of maybe 2-3 things at the very most – but there’s also something weirdly pure about it. It’s like, you aren’t an expert on something, but it’s still good enough that you enjoy it anyway.

Another advantage of “middle-ground” fandom is that there’s still new stuff to discover. As mentioned earlier, I only heard two old System Of A Down songs for the very first time less than two months before I wrote this article. To a super-fan, these songs would be extremely well-known by now but I got to experience them for the very first time recently. And there are probably at least a few other great songs by them which I have yet to discover.

The other thing to remember is that every “super-fan” was a “middle-ground” fan at one point. I mean, when I first discovered Iron Maiden in about 2001 or 2002 – after hearing three of their songs on a videogame soundtrack – I wasn’t suddenly an expert on their music. In those ancient days, I didn’t even know what the band was called for at least a few weeks. I just really loved those three songs. For at least a few months after that, I maybe had one CD single and a couple of albums. I still felt that the band was seriously cool at the time.

The point is that “middle-ground” fandom is a stage that every fan of something goes through at some point. And, whilst you might go on to become an expert or a “super-fan” or whatever, there’s literally nothing wrong with staying in the middle-ground. Again, it doesn’t diminish your enjoyment in any way. Not only that, again, it means that there’s still lots more cool to stuff to discover as well. But, even if you just stick to the “greatest hits” and you still enjoy them, then you’re still clearly a fan and you’re having fun as well.

Again, it’s probably only possible to be an expert “super-fan” of like two or three things at most. So, choose carefully. And there are certainly a lot of benefits to just being a “middle-ground” fan of other stuff too.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Why Metal Bands Write Lengthy “Epic” Songs

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about heavy metal music today 🙂 In particular, some theories about why metal bands will sometimes release long “epic” songs which can easily be seven minutes or more in length.

This was something I ended up thinking about after discovering DragonForce’s excellent 2017 song “The Edge Of The World“. It’s eleven minutes of dramatic, epic metal which sits somewhere between the power metal and traditional metal genres.

Though, of course this is hardly the only example of an epic metal song. Whether it is Nightwish’s “Song Of Myself” (2011) – a thirteen and a half minute symphonic metal ode to the poet Walt Whitman. Whether it is Aether Realm’s 2017 song “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars” – an almost twenty-minute folk metal/melodic death metal tale of someone who leaves to go on an epic quest but ends up missing what they have left.

Whether it is Helloween’s power metal song “Keeper Of The Seven Keys” (1988) – another fantasy genre epic. Whether it is Tool’s 2020 alternative metal song “Descending”, a song about survival. Whether it is the comparatively short, yet no less epic, eight and a half minute long sci-fi/fantasy song “The Wind That Shapes The Land” (2020) by Unleash The Archers. I could go on for quite a while…

The band that is perhaps most famous for these long epic songs is the legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden 🙂 Starting with either “Phantom Of The Opera” in 1980 or “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” in 1984, they have dabbled with epic songs in the decades since – to the point that they have gradually become a fixture of their albums since maybe the late 1990s or so.

In 2015, Iron Maiden released the longest of these epics – “Empire Of The Clouds” – a nineteen minute song about the R101 airship disaster in 1930. Their latest studio album, “Senjutsu” (2021), contains more epics than shorter songs.

But why do metal bands release these incredibly long songs?

There are probably a lot of reasons for it but here are my theories about it. First of all, unlike pop music, hip-hop etc… heavy metal music isn’t really a mainstream genre these days. In other words, there isn’t really the need for short 3-4 minute singles that can easily fit into radio station playlists. Yes, metal bands will often write shorter songs too but there isn’t quite the same imperative to release short radio-friendly singles, because mainstream radio doesn’t really play metal.

Because metal bands these days make music for a dedicated fanbase, rather than a general mainstream audience, there’s a lot more room for experimentation and creative freedom. So, if a song needs to be seven minutes or longer, then it can be. Fans of the band are probably still going to enjoy it and buy the song or the album anyway. Because, well, metal is a genre that you either absolutely love or absolutely hate.

Following on from this, metal music can often be about a much wider range of subjects than mainstream music. The epics I’ve mentioned tell stories about historical events, they explore classic poetry (eg: Whitman, Coleridge etc…), they explore complex emotions in depth, they tell dramatic sci-fi/fantasy stories etc… These are sometimes things which can’t be quickly summed up in just 3-4 minutes without losing something.

Not only that, thanks to digital music, it’s easier than ever for metal bands to release epics these days. Yes, epics have certainly appeared on physical media – and Iron Maiden’s two most recent studio albums actually span two CDs each – but the lack of a hard physical time limit on digital music probably makes it easier for bands to release epics. Traditionally though, metal bands only had maybe one or two epics on an album for time/space reasons. Still, this often allowed for dramatic placement – such as using an epic to either open or conclude an album in a spectacular way.

Then there’s the fact that epic songs allow for an amazing amount of musical variety. Going back to Dragonforce’s “The Edge Of The World” (2017), this song is basically like an entire album compressed into just eleven minutes of music. There are melancholy quiet parts, there are more traditional power metal parts, there are some slower 1980s-style guitar parts (which reminded me a little of Iron Maiden) and there are even some growled death metal-type vocals at one point. There is a ton of stuff in just this one song. Again, it’s like an entire album compressed into one song. This is really cool 🙂

Plus, of course, classical music is famous for long epic pieces. Symphonies and stuff like that. It’s kind of a cliché to call metal “the new classical music” and this probably also only applies to the more melodic types of metal (eg: symphonic metal, power metal, traditional metal, melodic death metal etc...).

Still, although I’m not a musicologist, these types of metal are often a lot more complex than just a small number of chords or a repetitive beat or anything like that. Not to mention that metal cover versions of classical pieces (especially from Bach, Beethoven etc..) can just basically sound like… well… metal. The two genres do have some stuff in common with each other, and longer songs might be part of this.

Still, most of all, heavy metal bands release epic songs because they feel like it. Because the song needs to be the length it is. Because, sometimes, quality and quantity don’t have to be mutually-exclusive.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Relax! It’s Still Being Made… – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about one of the cool things about the modern world today.

Before I go any further, I should probably add a silly – yet weirdly nostalgic – “EXPLICIT LYRICS” warning for the first two Youtube videos (a partial cover of “Popular Monster” and a song called “Tuck Frump”) linked to in this article.

This was something I ended up thinking about after I ended up stumbling across the song “Popular Monster” by Falling In Reverse after seeing a simultaneously cool and hilarious short video of a covers band rehearsing part of the song and accidentally destroying one of the props they were using.

Naturally, this made me curious about the rest of the song and – after a couple of searches for the lyrics – I ended up finding the official music video for it. And, at first, I genuinely thought that it was an edgy angst-ridden hidden gem from the 2000s that I’d somehow missed. Everything from the horror genre elements of the video, which seemed like an old “banned from MTV” type thing, to the mixture of rap and metal genuinely made me think that I was looking at a relic from the 2000s.

And then I happened to look below the video. It was from the distant year of 20… 2019? Wow! I didn’t know that people made this type of music any more!

But I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I’ve found so many other examples of genres and types of media that I’d thought were “lost to time” but which are actually still being made these days. Whether it was the very early 2000s-style satirical pop-punk song “Tuck Frump” by Victory Kid… from 2018.

Whether it was listening to the heavy metal song “Scythian Women” by Sanhedrin… a song released this year, in 2022! …. and feeling like I was a teenager again and listening to Iron Maiden’s “Number Of The Beast” (1982) album for the very first time.

Whether it is the run of “pixel art” indie first-person shooter games like “Project Warlock” (2018), “Ion Fury” (2019) and “Nightmare Reaper”  (2019-22) which feel just like the sort of old 1990s FPS games that I grew up playing. Yes, “Ion Fury” is the most “historically accurate” in this regard, but the other two still feel almost convincingly retro at times.

Whether it is how, these days, indie game developers have actually revived the type of “fixed camera angles and tank controls” survival horror games that were popular between 1996-2004 again – with games like “Alisa” (2021) and “Tormented Souls” (2021) either looking and/or feeling like something from that golden age, even down to the annoyingly obtuse “Where was that walkthrough guide?” puzzles.

Whether it was how, in 2017, two “retro cyberpunk” sci-fi films – “Blade Runner 2049” and the remake of “Ghost In The Shell” – got a major mainstream release.

I could go on for a while but, with the exception of the two films I mentioned, I’m talking about this stuff because it shows one of the cool things about the modern world. Yes, the mainstream still mostly does its own thing – treating the latest trend as if it is the only thing to ever have existed – but one of the cool things about the modern world is that other stuff can exist a lot more freely for a number of reasons.

Whether it is the increased accessibility and lower cost of things like game-making tools and music production equipment for low-budget indie teams or whether it is the fact that the internet allows smaller groups to release stuff much more easily (without the hurdles of traditional physical media distribution etc…), it has never been easier for skilled fans of an “old” type of media to actually make their own examples of it.

So, relax! If you’ve got a favourite type of media that has fallen out of popularity, then there are probably still people making new and original examples of it. The only thing is that, unlike when it was popular, you actually have to actively look for it these days. But, chances are, it’s probably there.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Ten Amazing Sci-Fi Metal Songs

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Well, since I was still in the mood for writing heavy metal-themed lists, I thought that I’d compile a list of what I consider to be the very best sci-fi themed metal songs 🙂 Although the heavy metal genre is more commonly associated with the fantasy or horror genres, there’s a surprisingly large amount of sci-fi based metal out there too.

Although I’ve probably missed some songs, and this isn’t a complete list, these are ten of the best songs in the genre that I’ve found.

I should probably also include a FLASHING LIGHTS and/or FLICKERING IMAGES warning for all of the music videos (except “Of Jupiter And Moons”) linked to in this article too. Some videos include more of it than others, with the two videos linked in the”#1″ segment of the list being the most intense, but it seemed best to include a warning.

10) “WWVII Parts 1 & 2” by Sum 41: Although Sum 41 are more well-known as a punk band, they are also heavy metal fans and – as a bonus track on UK and vinyl editions of their 2002 punk album “Does This Look Infected?” – they included a really good sci-fi metal song called “WWVII Parts 1 & 2” 🙂

Taking heavy influence from traditional metal – including some vaguely Iron Maiden style guitars/bass at some points – this song is set in the year 3468 and tells the story of a conflict between the remnants of humanity and genetically-engineered energy beings. Although clearly meant as a stylistic tribute to 1980s metal, it still works surprisingly well as a sci-fi metal song in its own right.

9) “Symptom Of The Universe” by Black Sabbath: Although Black Sabbath’s 1970 song “Iron Man” would be the obvious choice for this list, I’ve decided to go for their 1975 song “Symptom Of The Universe” instead mostly because of its epic galactic scale. It’s also just a much more interesting and complex song than “Iron Man” in musical terms too.

Although perhaps bordering more on the fantasy genre, “Symptom Of The Universe” contains the scale and drama that often features in the very best sci-fi metal songs. Instead of focusing too much on scientific details, it instead captures the underlying mood of sci-fi, of new worlds and travelling between planets.

8) “Of Jupiter And Moons” by Temperance: I stumbled across the music video for this amazing 2018 symphonic metal song completely by accident whilst browsing Youtube and it absolutely astonished me. Although the lyrics probably fit slightly more into the science fantasy genre, this song still sounds a lot like an epic sci-fi metal song – with the lyrics deliberately including some ambiguity over whether “Jupiter” refers to the planet or the ancient god.

7) “Electric Eye” by Judas Priest: Although Judas Priest’s 1982 heavy metal song “Electric Eye” is more “eerily prescient near-future sci-fi” than the type of epic sci-fi found in other songs on this list, it is still a timelessly cool-sounding heavy metal classic 🙂

Although technically set in a dystopian future, the song is more of a satirical song about surveillance that is sung from the perspective of a mysterious spy satellite gloating about how it can watch everyone. This seems to have been a common anxiety in the “alternative” music of the 1980s, since Bad Religion’s dystopian 1988 punk song “Part II (The Numbers Game)” also includes lines about an “electric eye” and spy satellites too.

6) “Mechanicals” by Rage Of Light: Although the song “Mechanicals” isn’t quite the best track on this innovative trance metal band’s 2019 debut album “Imploder”, its the most sci-fi song on the album and still an amazingly dramatic song (even if “I Can, I Will” or “Nothingness” is probably the best track on there).

Telling the story of a space station that has been overrun by evil robots, it contains a brilliant musical mixture of trance-like electronica, metal guitars, growled vocals and clean vocals. Although the song’s music video is pretty much the dictionary definition of “low budget”, the decision to film in an abandoned factory of some kind still fits in surprisingly well with the song’s space station setting.

5) “Twilight Of The Gods” by Helloween: Helloween’s 1987 power metal song “Twilight Of The Gods” is an intensely thrilling metal song about a civilisation that casts off its old gods and builds robotic ones instead… only for the robots to turn on them, resulting in an epic battle between man and machine.

Although its a well-worn sci-fi theme, it is carried off in a brilliantly dramatic and epic way. One of the other cool parts of the song is the sparing use of a robot-style vocal effect during one of the more dramatic parts, which really adds something extra to it.

4) “Tribute To The Past” by Gamma Ray: It was a really difficult decision between this 1993 power metal song by Gamma Ray (which also has an amazing live version from 1995 too) and two other time-travel themed metal songs, namely “Ripping Through Time” (2011) by Unleash The Archers and “The Time Machine” (2021) by Iron Maiden.

All three are absolutely amazing songs. But, since Gamma Ray’s “Tribute To The Past” was the first one of these songs that I heard, I decided to include it on this list (also, I already have songs by the other two bands on this list too. Oops! Spoilers).

Combining more energetic segments with slower and more melancholy moments, this song is a truly epic piece of fast-paced sci-fi metal. Telling the story of a man who experiments with a time machine, but finds himself stranded in time – including a visit to an apocalyptic future – it reminded me a lot of a more “metal” version of an amazing sci-fi novel from 2007 called “The Accidental Time Machine” by Joe Haldeman, with maybe some tiny hints of the more dramatic parts of Jodi Taylor’s amazing “Chronicles Of St. Mary’s” (2013? – present) series of time travel-based sci-fi comedy thriller novels too.

3) “Abyss” by Unleash The Archers: It’s impossible to write a list of sci-fi metal songs without including something from the modern traditional metal/power metal band Unleash The Archers, who are pretty much the poster band for sci-fi metal. It was difficult to choose just one song by them, but I eventually settled on their 2020 song “Abyss”.

Telling the story of a slumbering immortal who awakens in the future and travels across the galaxy, this song is at least mildly evocative of something like Robert Heinlein’s 1961 sci-fi novel “Stranger In A Strange Land” or even elements of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World“. I’ve chosen this song because of both its epic sound – the musical equivalent of travelling through space at light-speed – and the amazingly dramatic way that lead vocalist Brittney Slayes delivers some of the verses.

It is “epic sci-fi” in musical form, not to mention that the music video for it is also an amazingly cool-looking piece of short sci-fi filmmaking too. Seriously, don’t let the more understated early parts of this video put you off, it builds into something truly epic 🙂

2) “To Tame A Land” by Iron Maiden: Legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden have written a few sci-fi themed songs over the years (including ones based on the two sci-fi novels I mentioned in the previous entry) and it was really difficult to choose just one, especially since some songs like their amazing 2015 song “If Eternity Should Fail” sit somewhere on the ambiguous border between sci-fi and fantasy. Still, I eventually settled on their 1983 song “To Tame A Land”.

Although heavily inspired by Frank Herbert’s legendary 1965 sci-fi novel “Dune” and consisting of a vague retelling of the story, the band famously couldn’t title the song “Dune” because Herbert didn’t like metal bands and obstinately refused to allow them to use the title.

Still, if you’re a fan of this novel (and I really must re-read it sometime, it’s been over a decade and a half…), then “To Tame A Land” is a really good musical distillation of it – capturing the epic scale and atmosphere of the story in both its dramatic lyrics and melodic guitars. Yes, it misses out on some of the thematic subtleties of the book – such as how Paul is meant to be a critique of heroes and rulers – but, as a seven and a half-minute distillation, it still perfectly captures the sheer epic-ness of this pivotal sci-fi novel.

1) “Stargazers” by Nightwish: Although a studio version of this majestic symphonic metal song initially appeared as the opening track of Nightwish’s 1998 album “Oceanborn”, I’d argue that this is one of those songs that is at its very best in live recordings and/or videos.

It is also, like their 2002 song “Ever Dream”, a song that is equally good regardless of whether it is sung live by original vocalist Tarja Turunen’s solo band or by Nightwish’s current vocalist Floor Jansen. Just be sure to look for a live recording and/or video to hear this song at its very best though.

Although light on futuristic technology, this song tops the list because it captures the feeling of wonder and awe associated with the very best science fiction. Telling the story of a tour through galaxies and across planets, everything about this song – from the operatic vocals, to the amazing keyboard riffs to the ornately poetic language (eg: “tragedienne”, “ambrosial”, “ephemeral” etc...) – is just epic in scale and delivery.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Five Amazing Re-Recorded Songs

First of all, sorry that this article is slightly shorter than usual. I’d originally planned to write a completely different article – but that didn’t really work out and I ended up deleting it. Still, I wanted to write something and another music-based list seemed like a good idea. So, I thought that I’d list a few amazing re-recorded songs.

5) “The Neverending Story” by The Birthday Massacre: Back when the gothic synth-metal band The Birthday Massacre were still called “Imagica”, they recorded a cover version of Limahl’s 1984 theme tune to the movie “The NeverEnding Story”.

This seems to have been an obscure demo recording from the early 2000s that didn’t really get a proper release, but – of course – ended up floating around on sites like Youtube and being something that most fans of the band have heard. It’s a good cover version which really shows off the band’s unique “style”.

In 2021, the band officially released a re-recording of the song as a stand-alone single. Not only is the recording quality a lot better, but the synth elements sound a bit more complex and “smooth” than the original demo too. Whilst it perhaps lacks some of the slightly rougher intensity of the original demo, the re-recording is a much richer song in musical terms. Both versions are really good though.

4) “Beheaded” by The Offspring: In 1999, The Offspring re-recorded their gruesome horror-themed 1989 punk song “Beheaded” for use in the comedy horror movie “Idle Hands”. Not only was there a scene in the film of the band preforming this new version, but the full song was also released on both the film’s soundtrack and as a B-side on the band’s “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” single too.

Not only is the 1999 re-recording slightly louder and more intense than the 1989 version, but it also sounds a little bit more like an older T.S.O.L song than the original version too. Again, it’s fairly subtle, but Dexter Holland’s vocal style definitely seems just a little bit more theatrical and closer to one of the band’s formative influences in this version. Both versions are good, but I personally prefer the 1999 version.

Yes, the past two Offspring albums have also included re-recordings (“Dirty Magic” in 2012 and “Gone Away” in 2021), but “Beheaded” is definitely one of their best re-recordings. And, yes, there is an additional acoustic version of “Dirty Magic” too – but this version only appears as part of a bonus DVD on some editions of the band’s 2005 “Greatest Hits” compilation.

3) “Cigarettes And Valentines” by Green Day: This one is interesting because few people other than the band themselves have heard the original 2003 studio version of the song “Cigarettes And Valentines”. Famously, it was the title track of an abandoned album of the same name – which was scrapped after the recordings were reportedly stolen. This led to the band writing and recording their 2004 “American Idiot” album instead. Still, at a guess, it seems likely that a studio version of this song was probably recorded at some point.

Fans wouldn’t get to hear it until the band’s 2011 live album “Awesome As F**k”, which included a live re-recording of it that also got a music video (warning – flickering / flashing lights) too. And it is a really fascinating glimpse at what could have been – similar, yet also different, to the style of music on “American Idiot”. Not only that, the roughness and energy of this live recording – complete with audience interaction and what possibly seems to be an improvised repetition of one line – is probably better and more “punk” than a heavily-produced studio version of the song would have been.

The best illustration of this is probably this modern cover version of the song by Farley Drive, which was clearly meant to imagine what the “lost” studio version of this song could have sounded like. It’s a really good cover, but the studio-style recording still really doesn’t quite have the same intensity as the official live version.

2) “Last Year’s Troubles” by Suzanne Vega: In 2011, Suzanne Vega released the album “Close Up Vol 3: States Of Being”, which was part of a series of acoustic re-recordings of her earlier songs. One of the stand-out tracks on this album is probably the re-recording of her 2001 song “Last Year’s Troubles”. This is a song about rose-tinted versions of the past and how the world was as miserable then as it can be today.

The original version of this song, from “Songs In Red And Gray” (2001), is very much a heavily-produced studio version – with lots of background instrumentation and a style of enthusiastic vocals that probably played well on the radio. However, the 2011 re-recording pares all of this down to just one or two acoustic guitars (and maybe some drums) – allowing the lyrics to stand out a bit more.

Vega’s vocals in this acoustic version also sound a little bit less “cheerful” and a lot more “realistic”, which really helps to add emotional depth and nuance to this bittersweet song. It almost feels more like a live performance than a heavily-produced studio version as well, which adds even more depth. Both versions are good, but this one is definitely better.

1) “Motorhead (Alternate Take)” by Motorhead: Not only was this amazing – and better – unused “alternate take” version of the title track from the band’s debut 1977 album only eventually released on an expanded 1997 remaster of the album, but I was also genuinely surprised to learn that the song itself seems to have been a re-recording of an earlier Hawkwind B-side/bonus track, written by Lemmy, from 1975.

Comparing the two versions, the Motorhead re-recording (especially the “alternate take” version) absolutely blows the Hawkwind version out of the water. Whilst the Hawkwind version is still a rock song, it has hints of the 1960s, folk music elements and a very slightly slower pace, the Motorhead version really adds a lot of extra energy and intensity to the song 🙂

Sitting somewhere between hard rock (even including some classic style “rock n roll” style riffs in the background) and heavy metal, it is visceral and faster-paced in a way that really does the subject matter of the song justice. This clearly isn’t meant to be a slower song and the fact that Lemmy actually re-recorded it after leaving Hawkwind probably shows that this version is closer to his original vision for the song.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂