a few days ago, the finnish prog-metal project crimson lotus released a new single, called miseria. it’s awesome. it’s really too bad that they’re too busy to produce more stuff…

besides apocalyptica, there’s another creat classic/metal crossover to mention, lingua mortis by rage and the symphonic orchestra prague. this is not simply a version of some songs with an orchestra in the background (that’s more common, see, for example, metallica‘s s&m and dream theater‘s score), but a complete rewrite of several older rage songs for orchestra together with the usual rage instruments. my first contact with this really excellent piece of music was, again, the sampler dark winter nights, which contained the alive but dead.
this year, rage was on tour with the lingua mortis orchestra, playing in Київ, Санкт-Петербург, Москва, vizovice and, finally, at the wacken open air. originally, they were supposed to also play at the metal dayz in pratteln, but as these were cancelled, i had no chance to see them… :-(

no, this post is not about the area of abstract algebra in mathematics, but about the experimental metal project abstrakt algebra founded after candlemass‘ dismanteling by leif edling. they released one album and started with a second, but ran out of money, and leif ended up escaping bankrupcy by re-using some of the second albums material to create another candlemass album, dactylis glomerata (named after a flower he’s allergic to). the 2006 reissue of dactylis glomerata contains as a bonus disk the unfinished version of the second abstrakt algebra album, entitled abstrakt algebra ii (now guess how the first one was called). well. the arrival of that one kicked me out of bed this morning, when the mailman rang the doorbell. but it was worth getting up for it, and even if it is not a very good album, it is not good, it is interesting, and it is one of the albums every mathematician who has a similar strange taste of music than me should have in his cd shelf. of course, together with their first album, which i just ordered. ;-)

right now i’m listening to mandylion by the gathering, their first album with the great dutch vocalist anneke van giersbergen. (if you’re interested, take a look at her new solo project agua de annique. if i recall correctly it’s not metal, so worth listening to for everyone reading here.)
this is one of the first metal albums i bought, after hearing the song leaves too many times on some sampler (called dark winter nights; that one also introduced me to rage and samael). it’s a really great, emotional song, touching me deep inside. probably the first song qualifying to be called gothic rock/metal which i loved listening to. a few lines from the song:

“now that you’re gone i don’t know
how to really feel inside
baring the hope to see you again
i guess i never will”

i’ll stop typing know, in favor of catching some sleep… closing with a tbl quote: thank you & good night!

if you’ve ever seen the cover of opeth‘s fifth masterpiece blackwater park, you’ll know what i mean with opethesque (if you haven’t, look here). i took some similar shots this morning throu the train’s window:

unfortunately i missed to catch some more impressions which were even more opethesque… well, maybe next time.

i first met swallow the sun on their concert in the z-7 in april, as a co-headliner of moonsorrow. lately, i’ve again started listening to their album hope, which i bought directly after the concert, and decided to get more, namely first their second album ghosts of loss and, finally, their debut, the morning never came. their music is dark, really dark. full of beauty, of intensity, of gloom, of melancholy. so intriguing, gripping me, making me longing for more. slow moments alternating with blasting, heavy moments. clear voice alternating with death voice, giving another example where death voice fits perfectly, increasing the intenseness of the music. as the line “insane pain” in the giant—one of my favorite songs—which, if presented in clear voice, would not making me shiver that much, would not paint the pictures in my head in such intense, vivid colors. a few lines from that song:

“i’ve been hiding this giant for too long
and it’s grown like a parasite inside me
under this shadow i’ve been walking
now it’s taken over me, and she…
the pure girl, leave me before it’s too late
or i will cut your wings”

another favorite of mine, gloom, beauty and despair, another song from the great ghosts of loss album (containing several twin peaks references), is not using clear vocals after all. the first three minutes, the music being slow, melodic, melancholic, the lyrics, telling the story of someone mourning the loss of his loved one, being barely understandable, as it’s screamed and whispered at the same time, making me feel the desperation, the anger, the mourning. simply beautiful. then, piano hits in, picking up the theme from the beginning, until the guitars and the death growls take over, the music still being slow, melancholic, but heavier, more desperate, making me feeling with the narrator.
i’m really looking forward to see them again.

today i bought altar, a collaberation between boris and sunn o))). a really impressive, very abstract, dark, droning piece of art. making me want to rip off my headphones and keep listening the same time. making me addicted, to keep listening, my thoughts drifting away. having no clear images in my head. just feelings. creepy. noises are floating around, feeling as if the air would be liquid and different currents make the air look like an animated fractal, always changing shape, always in motion. making me want to move along. inevitably swallowing my attention, my thoughts. still, seeing nothing. giving me the creeps. i like it. love it.

my first contact with moonsorrow was on the 9th of april this year, when they were playing at the z-7 in pratteln. i didn’t knew them before, but i was told that i might like them. well. i did. after the concert, i decided i had to buy one of their albums, namely viides luku: hävitetty, which is finnish and means chapter five: ravaged, being their fifth album, and i immediately listened to it when i came home after the concert. less than two weeks later i also had the rest of their albums lying on my desk.
simlarly to finntroll’s visor om slutet, v: hävitetty is a very special album. consisting of just two tracks, each having around 30 minutes of music, it builds up an intense atmosphere throwing you back into the old times, when vikings were sailing the northern seas. in contrast to visor om slutet, most of this album is heavy, very heavy, transporting a completely different mood. the first six minutes of the first track can be seen as a separate song, called jäästä syntynyt (born of ice), a very atmospheric, slow, dreamy piece, featuring a short poem:

“auringon kuoleman syntyäkseen
uusi maailma tarvitsee
vain pisaran vettä kylmyyteen
käsillä juoksemaan ihmisten”

which translates to:

“through the death of the sun
a new world is born
a drop of water in cold
to run on the hands of man”

other bands would let this be a whole song.
after this, a twenty-five minutes long heavy sound scape named varjojen virta (stream of shadows) breaks loose on the listener, never being boring, recurring motifs varied, always melodic, sometimes a bit slower, mostly fast, screaming. closing my eyes, i can see vast landscapes and seascapes, raging storms, ships fighting the rough sea, endless forests, fog, darkness, bleak lives, people dying, battles raging. the music makes me want to move, it’s so intense, so beautiful, intoxicating. the lyrics are in finnish, with an english translation being provided in the booklet, allowing to enrich the experience, putting more emotions and emphasis into the music. they transport dreary feelings, are depressing, make me shiver. beautiful, in some sense, sorrowful, in another.
the second song on this album, tuleen ajettu maa, which means a land driven into the fire, begins with shaman chants, quickly progressing to heavy riffs, screams. similarly to varjojen virta, this sound scape is intense, dense, heavy, varying between more silent, folkish parts, many heavy parts, black metal thunderstorms, forming a fascinating masterpiece.
this one feels similarly depressing, bleak, even more aggressive. i can see boats floating, shaking on rough water, the sea trying to swallow the boats, i can see battles, fights, man against man, dying and dead people, the distinction between victor and loser being that one is dead, whereas the other is dying. skimming through the lyrics, i read as the last verse:

“näin kaikki päättyy, näen sen nyt
tämä sivu on viimeinen
näin kaikki päättyy, tyhjään ja unohdukseen
eikä kukaan tänne palaa”

translating to:

“this is how it ends, i can see it now
this page will be the last
this is how it ends, to emptiness, to oblivion
and none will ever return”

this is what the music makes me feel. makes me see, makes me think about, when i listen to it.

while searching for bands making similar music to the israli progdeath band orphaned land, i recently stumbled across another isreali band named distorted. i would describe their style as very progressive melodic oriental death metal, featuring a female clean voice besides the usual (male) death voice.
when i first stumbled about their homepage and started reading their member profiles, i was stunned: many of them are inspired by and listen to music which i like a lot:

• guy, their bass player, lists for example orphaned land, opeth and porcupine tree as his influences, and his top album of all time is orphaned land’s mabool;
• benny, their guitar player, mentions nevermore as one of his musical influences, and also lists mabool as his top album of all time;
• miri, their (clean voice) singer, lists the gathering, nevermore and opeth in her musical influence list, and mentions nevermore’s ingenious dead heart in a dead world, opeth’s deliverence, the gathering’s mandolyion and nevermore’s dreaming neon black as her top albums of all time;
• raffy, their (death voice) singer and guitarist, names tool, nevermore and opeth as his influences and lists tool’s aenima, nevermore’s enemies of reality and opeth’s deliverance as his top albums of all time.

well, this is a > 100 % increase of people i know who like pretty much the same music than me :-)
after seeing this and listening to one of their tracks (redemption) from their debut album (memorial) which they put online, i decided that i have to order their album. and so i did. it took some time until it arrived, but then, listening to it at a whole, i was pretty much blown away. it is simply great! it combines the oriental influences form orphaned land with the progressive death metal from opeth, adding a female voice (i know some of you will be sceptical about the latter, but i’d say it fits well and i don’t want to miss it). for me, this is one of the best albums (or maybe even, the best?) i’ve heard this year.

in 2003, the finnish humppa metal band finntroll released an accoustic album called visor om slutet (songs about the end). unfortunately (for me), it took me four years to find out about it. it features a variety of folk songs: some rythmic, intense and melodic themes, some sound scapes which, when i close my eyes and let my thoughts go, paint beautiful pictures inside my head. it feels like roaming through ancient finnish forests, as in a fairy tale… so beautiful… meeting tweeting birds, trees swaying in the wind, trolls, chanting shamans… so many different instruments… if you have never listened to this, you definitely should. in my opinion, it’s worth every minute of time spend hearing it (even if you don’t like metal).