the twentyfourth video is winter wind sings by the black league. the lyrics can be found here.

this is doom metal. try it if you like darker, heavier stuff.

i like it because… it’s a dark and heavy earworm, sung by taneli jarva in his typical dark voice.
another song on the same album, ichor, is an interpretation of the sonnet ozymandias by percy bysshe shelley. if it would come with a video, it would be the main feature of this post.

the twentythird video is lumessakahlaajat (german: schneewanderer) by the finnish band timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus. it is about the finnish-russian war (though i also read that it is about the yugoslavian war, and the video seems to back this up), when many finnish people had to leave their towns behind and flee into the forests, leaving them with the only two choices of dying or leaving their heimat. a really depressing song. the finnish lyrics can be found here, and the german lyrics here. the video here is the finnish version; in case you want to prefer german: the german version can be found here.

this is metal. you might like it.

i like it because… it is a very sad, very moving story, about the dark side of wars, about the endless suffering of the civilians. i think this is really well delivered by the rather plain, but intensive style of the band.
the band usually makes finnish songs, but they have two german albums, with translated songs. the results are very remarkable, and sometimes pretty strange, especially the first album, “in frostigen tälern”. schneewanderer can be found on the second album, “hartes land”.

the twentysecond video is alive but dead by rage. this is a live version of a song from a metal band for an orchestra with amplified guitars, played with the lingua mortis orchestra from minsk, belarus. other bands did such projects earlier, but this is still one of my favorite orchestra and metal combinations (next to waltari, but more about that later ;-) ). the lyrics can be found here.

this is metal. it also has an orchestra. try it if you want.

i like it because… it’s a really good blend of classic and metal. in my opinion, one of the best. i also first heard this on the dark winter nights sampler, which i already mentioned several times during this series :-)

the twentyfirst video is doomed to walk the earth by swallow the sun. the lyrics can be found here.

this is death doom metal. try it if you know you like this.

edit: another one which cannot be embedded. here‘s the video. here’s another version of the same video which seems to work:

i like it because… it’s dark, gloomy, heavy, interleaved with dark, gloomy, mellow parts. there’s always melody, some kind of beauty. and blackness.
there are other swallow the sun songs which i would also like to put here, but which do not come with a video, like the giant and too cold for tears. if you are interested, look for them on youtube…

today i saw a movie, called flatland, based on a 126 years old novel. a must-see for any mathematician (or must-read). it’s about politics. about thinking. about imagination.
in flatland, a two dimensional world, the third dimension is known as a myth, and it is forbidden to talk about it. there are hints, which are well-hidden from the public by the rulers. until one day, little hex went out to see these hints, and her grandfather, after having more than dream, in more than two dimensions, tries to protect her.
apparently, the movie is much easier to digest than the novel.
another reason to read that book.

the twentith video is strip the soul by porcupine tree. this song is about family brutality, about dark family secrets. the lyrics can be found here.

this is progressive rock/metal. you can try it.

edit: another one i cannot embed. here‘s the video. and here’s an embedable version, without video though:

i like it because… it somehow surprised me: such a dark story, crawling under the skin, while compared to this, the music seems casual, not suggesting such abysses.

the ninteenth video is engel by rammstein. the lyrics can be found here.

this is (industrial?) rock. it was played on radio in my youth, so i guess you can listen to it.

i like it because… of a very catchy melody, an interesting interpretation about angels, and, not directly related, a cover version by kebby. well. i listened a lot to this a long time ago, and started again a couple of years ago when i finally got rammstein’s sehnsucht album which contains the song. brings up memories…
the video is kind of strange, reminds a lot of the second part of from dusk till dawn.

the eighteenth video is norra el norra by orphaned land. it’s sung in hebrew. the lyrics can be found here, together with an english translation.

this is progressive oriental metal, and mostly accoustic. you can give it a try.

i like it because… it’s a beautiful song, mostly accoustic, but partly also very heavy. the video has a strange story, but is well-done and i like to watch it.
there’s another very good video of orphaned land, namely sapari, which i embeded almost eleven months ago (which also doesn’t work anymore as an embedded video… this is really annoying!). i like sapari even more than this one, but then, i didn’t want to repeat myself :)
it’s really a pitty that orphaned land’s north america tour came nowhere close to calgary (the closest place in canada was vancouver, almost 1000 km away…), and that their europe tour is this month, i.e. before i’ll be back to europe. i really want to see them live once…

this weekend, i was in vancouver. a second time. this time, i attended the cms winter meeting. the computational number theory session was hosted in a hotel suite on the 29th floor, with a great view over the english bay. we also had a non-mathematician attending the session:

on my last day, i decided to go to stanley park another time. in fact, i walked once around it. here are some impressions from the walk and from the view we had during the session:

and sorry for the photo quality… i forgot to bring any camera, so i had to abuse my mobile phone…

the seventeenth video is set the world on fire by symphony x. you can find the lyrics here.

this is progressive power metal. you can try it if you want.

i like it because… is a very powerful song, making me want to jump up, throw my hair around, with a lord of the rings like story based video which just fits perfect to the music.
another symphony x song i really like is through the looking glass. i really love the part ii, starting at 5:19 in the link’s video. (part iii apparently was cut off from this video…)