Sonata Arctica part 2 - Power Progressive metal - Reckoning Night

Here it is the second part of my Sonata Artica Post, this time about Reckoning Night, one again I will share some songs with you and share my extracted meaning form them, with you.
I Will start with Ain't Your Fairytale, it's a very strong song, there are lots of bands in metal who talk about werewolves as it is a fantasy common thing. But almost none talks about the Wolves on themselves.
Ain't Your Fairytale, shows us the story of I think an Ancient Wolf who shares the story of its ancestors to their young fellows. And talks how first man and Wolves had a pact to not attack each other, but then things changed. Wolves haven't being very lucky recently while being hunted as the ones from the same species, dogs are treated almost as kings. something is not that right in this equation.

The second one is Don't way a word, the second part of End of This Chapter trilogy, in this case he is back, he is decided to end what he has started, he is disposed to kill the girl to have peace, as sh says to the girl if she can't fulfil her part of the pact they might have done in the past, done she might be quiet. I don't know the third part that well, Juliet as I don't like the album where the song is, but for the name of the song, I think he really kills the girl on this song, his sickened ways arrive to an end.

The Third one, The Boy Who Wanted to be a Real Puppet, This one is quiet simple it's a boy who has so much anxiety to become a real puppet that allow his greed to take over, on the process the puppeteer turns him a puppet but soon the boy understands the life of a Puppet is hard, he realises he submitted to greed and says only a knife could end this story, being him a puppet now i think it's easy to understand what the knife would do

The 4th one, My Selene, a song that starts like a dream, he always awaits his Selene, every night, but as soon as he realises his Selene is a way for he, who was always alone, be able to feel less alone. But as he understands Selene will never apear, and the would never meet, the dream becomes a nightmare, and then his hope fades. At some point we understand the title Selene, with the reference to Endymion, because being she a goddess, goddess of the moon, being in love with a mortal can only bring pain.

The Last one Shamandalie, well this talks about a friendship become something else, and has he understands while becoming lovers and the situation ending the feelings he had for her seem like a sham and a Lie. More direct than this a song can't be. The song as lots of emotion associated

Sonata Artica part 1 - Silence

 Today I bring you my Favourite period of Sonata Arctica the Albums Silence(2001) and Reckoning Night (2004)
I think what makes this two albums my favourite ones is the the presence of the progressive part, but mainly if in Silence we have Tony kakko, Jani Liimatainen and Mikko Härkin, in Reckoning Night we stil lhave the first two, where the presence of Jani is well noted. From this album the band has lacked the heart and the soul it had before.
In this first part I will share the ones from Silence, where I will share some of the ones who have more meaning to me, and try to share with you the meaning I found in them.
The first one: False News Travel Fast, with the participation of Timo Kotipelto from Stratovarius, This talks about how fast nasty and false news arrive everywhere and sometimes how someone may be hurt for somthing he might not have done

The second one: The end of This Chapter, here is the first part of a triology found by the fans. In this song, he contacts her beloved one, everyone told them to be put apart of each other and he never accepted, arriving to a point where he stalks her and sings bed side with her, but at this time he can't to anything. He assumes he is not stable and just wants to be sure she haven't forgot her, but does this in a real sick away

Third one, Last Drop Falls, this one is about love how sometimes a man in love accepts everything his partner does, and even at any repeated mistake she does he accepts her back. However at the end of the song he sweats the last word on their relationship will be from him and says he will scream out the love for her until the last drop. A bit dramatic song but if you like emotion, well here you have plenty

Now one of the most strong songs in content, Sing in Silence, maybe a lot don't know about this side of Sonata Arctica but sometimes they had some important stuff in their songs, not that love is not important, but share some other situations. Sing in Silence is an excellent Analogy to a drug addict, the monkey is the burden brought by the drugs, and how so many times our friends and family fail to notice, the "monkey" climbing on our back or even helps the monkey out. When the girl tries to shoo away the monkey she can, and the song ends:

How can I erase your pain and aid you
When Death wants to kiss you and you want kiss Him back... 

 At last I will share the Wolf and the raven, there were some others I could share too, but I don't want to make this post even bigger than it already is. Wolf and the Raven is a story, where a Wolf is being held captive and slavery controled by the raven, all time he begs for mercy to be set free and at a point the Wolf dreams of eating the raven. And the wolf talks about how enticed he is. In the song it's an analogy he shows how he is like the wolf tired of the situation and one day he will turn against the raven of his life.

Scott Walker - Out of metal/out of prog

Today I bring you something totally different, one of my recently pleasurable findings. Directly form late 60's, the first time I heard it, I intermediately started to love it. Scott Walker is an North American singer, born in Hamilton, Ohio, USA.
I stumble upon Scott Walker after while listening The Last Shadow Puppets, Age of the understatement, someone pointed the influence of Scott Walker there
Music to hear with pleasure, songs beautifully constructed, some from already existing ones in France and Belgium.

The first one I am going to show you is called "Jackie", From Scott 2, a song which is a remake of an original one from Jacques Brel.

This one is my favourite one, a Ballad from Scott 2 album, "Best of Both Worlds"

This one is a version of a Frank Sinatra's song, which on it's hand is a version of Ne Me Quittes Pas from Jacques Brel, it's called "If you go Away"

The last song is a strong one, very well composed with a sound more elaborated, from "Five easy pieces, 2nd album" Joanna.

Hope you enjoy this as much as me, After several day posting stuff I start to publish more spaced in time to let who may be able to read my blog to listen carefully what I bring
Greetings, and see you soon

Caligula's Horse - Progressive rock/metal

Today I present you Caligula's Horse a band from Australia, In this blog you will be presented with bands from all over the world, if there is a good band in a country  i hope to be able to find it.

The first song I bring to you is "The City has no Empathy" from Moments of Ephemeral City album from 2011, their first album

 Recently in 2015, they release a new album Bloom where I share with you "Firelight", Their sound is more near what a progressive rock band sounds like but here and there we see some of the elements from progressive metal. Check it out

Steven Wilson - Insurgentes, The Raven that Refused to Sing, Hand.Cannpt.Erase

This post is to evoke an amazing concert I was lucky to assist from Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson in September here in Portugal. As a good English artist one of the first concerts ever that started at supposed time, really good

The first song from Steven Wilson work I will share is the amazing Harmony Corine from 2011's album Insurgentes, energy, strength in a single music, simply amazing, when it plays live everyone notices immediately

From The Raven that Refused to Sing from 2013 I have to share both singles with you, such a strong message, don't know if Steven lost someone on his life, but this songs remind how when we tragically lost someone we knew and loved, sometimes is hard to let it go. This two Songs The Raven that Refused to Sing and Drive Home, shows us how in those moments, sometimes the biggest darkness is in ourselves, we forgot to live stuck in guilt, sometimes for something we are not guilty. enjoy

From the last album, I could have shared a lot of songs as all of them are amazing, but I will leave you today with Hand. Cannot. Erase song which is the same name as the album, release in 2015, this year.

Prog Rock - Porcupine Tree Stupid Dream, In Absentia and Deadwing

Today I will share with you one awesome band which I ignored for quiet a while until my two months in India, where I started hearing it with much frequence. The soul of this band is Steven Wilson an amazing musician

The first Song I am going to share with all of you is "Don't hate me" from Stupid Dream album of 1999, I really enjoy this song is strong without being harsh at any point, helps soothe the soul

The second song I am going to share with you is called Trains, from In Absentia album release on 2002

The last song, they Have so wonderful songs/musics, check them all out if you don't know porcupine Tree, is Lazarus a strong song which Steven Wilson always dedicates to someone on concerts, this song is From 2005's album Deadwing

Soen - Cognitive and Tellurian

Greetings
Today I am going to show you a band most of people never heard about before, for those of you who did it, it's never too much hear them again
I am talking about Soen

This band is composed by Martin Lopez(Opeth, Amon Amarth), Steve DiGiorgio (Death, Testament, Sadus), Kim Platbarzdis and Joel Ekelöf.
The main note here is the similarities with Tool, especially the vocalist Joel Ekelöf which sound so much like Maynnard James Keenan from Tool.
I don't know if it because of Bassist change, the first Album Cognitive is for me much better than the second one, Tellurian
The progressive elements are present, the presence of many musicians of progressive bands helps understand the influence, as their sound is not so dark in ambience as Tool's

               

Cognitive - 2012

Tellurian - 2014

The Song I will share from Cognitive is the official video, Savia. This song I think is about independence and autonomy of decision.

 

  

 From Tellurian I leave you Tabula Rasa. About this one I leave you to extract the meaning of this one.

 

Silent Force - DC Cooper project while out of Royal Hunt

This was another project where DC Cooper was in between appearances in Royal Hunt, this album Walk the Earth from 2007 is one of the albums, I leave you my favourite Track with the same name, Walk The earth is a song about finding our place on this Earth

DC Cooper Solo Album 1999

After my last Post, some might ask what DC Cooper did out of Royal Hunt? so the answer is an amazing solo album, where for instance he has also David Readman, Ex-Adagio, Pink Cream 69 with him as back vocals.

All The album is so much a must hear, I decide to leave you my favourite ones, one that I felt the need to upload it to Youtube, and two more of my recent addictions.
Starting with Three Generations, the song is about having an absent/bad father and being eager to not be like him, but realising we ended just like him

Then to Take Me In, a romantic song a bit about forgiveness

This one is heavy emotionally, Forgive Me, where the one who sings it apologizes for something he must have made

Royal Hunt - Return of DC cooper 2011 - 2013 - 2015 - ??? Show Me Hot To live, A Life To Die For, Devil's Dozen

After quitting in 1997 a lot of fans never ceases to ask for the return of North American DC Cooper to the band
in 2011, after a first appearance live with the band, DC returned to the band to a new official album "Show me How to Live". Now we can hear, DC Cooper is more mature as the sound of the band, more than 10 years passed.

In 2013 another Album "A Life to Die For", here I leave you Signs of Yesterday my favourite track from this album, for me the album is a bit weaker than the 2011 one, but still pretty good:

In 2015, Royal Hunt started a Crowdfunding to get the funds to make a new album, Devil's Dozen, Here I leave you the song, Until the day, I think some of you might still enjoy the sound, but for me is not so pleasurable has other albums it lacks some originality, the major point to me is still DC Cooper's voice. The things is even the less good works of Royal Hunt are still so much better than several mainstream albums of most bands

Royal Hunt - 1st DC Cooper era: 1995-1997 Moving Target and Paradox

In 1995 album Moving Target, Royal Hunt not only embraces completely the progressive metal in its splendour as DC Cooper enters the band, the difference is immense, DC is for me one of the best metal vocalists, clean with good range voice. With DC Cooper enters the band also some need to embrace higher social worries.

DC Cooper

In Moving Target, the Single taken is called Last goodbye, Checking the part Down to the Needle Park on lyrics, is easy to understand the music is about a drug addicted.

In 1997, Royal Hunt Release my favourite album so far, Paradox, the one I felt the urge to Buy it as soon as i Found it, they touch strong thematics like religious scepticism, anguish, the markings of time and how a dependence of someone just to be able to live is too strong. The song I will leave you is Called Message to god, here the edited version of the official video

cross this Post and the last one and check the difference in the era with or without DC Cooper

Royal Hunt - pre-DC Cooper

Today I am going to start a 3 part post about one of my favourite bands of Progressive metal, Royal Hunt

I am going to divide the post in 3 and not 4 parts as it should for a reason I am about to explain
There are 4 phases in this Danish Band
1- Starting Phase where André Andersen does both Keyboards and Vocals
2 - DC Cooper from USA enters the band to make the vocals
3 - DC Cooper leaves Royal Hunt for some time, to do other projects
4 - DC Cooper returns to Royal Hunt After a lot of requests from fans to André Andersen

the thing is, for me the Royal Hunt in between DC Cooper is much weaker so I will leave not talk about it.

So let's start with the first phase with André Andersen in Keyboards and Vocals 
There are 2 albums to talk about in this part of Royal Hunt's life

Land of Broken Hearts 
In this album we see a clear influence of typical metal of early 90's as this album is from 1991. More of a harsh, raw sound
Here I leave you, Running Wild

Clown in the Mirror

Here starts to gain evidence the tendency to Progressive metal, but still a lot of influence from early 90's power metal. the melody mainly in song with same name as the album is notorious.
Here for you Clown in the mirror

Royal Hunt is a problem to put videos, easily they are removed from youtube, I can't understand this, mainly with albums impossible to find Nowadays

Painted Black - Portuguese Progressive/doom

I already posted something with portuguese influence, however, Ava despite being amazing are not entirelly portuguese the founding member is from Norway, Rune Eriksen.
So today I bring you an 100% portuguese band, Painted Black, I could define their sound as a heavy and dark atmosphere, with some evolution of sound, merging together the progressive and doom metal, to an extent that I appreciate, probably not the biggest new band out there, but worth to hear

follow their Website at: http://www.painted-black.org/ if you like what I am about to share with you, I will start with the first album Cold Comfort from 2010, starting with my favourite song, Shadowbound

There is also available from the same album a song called Inevitability, which someone used the song for the backmusic of a video about the movie "The Fountain", this movie I confess is one of the most fucked up ones I already seen, but yet a good one to see as only at the end you will understand anything.

Recently in 2014 they released a new EP, called "Quarto Vazio", it was available for download at their website, don't know if it is by time I am posting this. One of the songs on this EP is a version of Perfect Drug, from Nine Inch Nails
The song Quarto Vazio, is one emotionally heavy song

Gloryhammer - called geek power metal, few elements of progressive

Well I have several bands on progressive to post, but as they need much more time to prepare what I want to share, I decided to post something still on metal. This is a remembrance of the original power metal with only an addition, the super cool costumes they were, this a band started from the mentor of Alestorm Christopher Bowes.
The first Album revealed us the "Tales from the Kingdom of Fife", where we learned a lot of what is about to come and how evil the wizard Zargothrax is. Muahahahah, cof cof
well This one is from 2013, I heard it a lot when I was in India

this band recalls more the fantastic world, and they are amazing at that, with a different voice with a voice not so sharp, more powerful, more deep

Recently, very recently, in late September they released "Space 1992: Rise Of The Chaos Wizards", now the battle leaves Scotland and Dundee, and becomes an intergalatic battle, First with "Rise of the chaos Wizards" and then "Universe on fire"

Out of metal, Progressive Rock - The Tea Party

This band is not from metal either, but is totally from progressive rock, I stumble upon this one in May/June and since than I have been sharing it with some people, and a lot seem to enjoy as much as me. This band are original from Canada, With a name that brought them some problems, already, at this times being connected with the Tea Party in a political prespective is not that good.
So they are called The Tea Party, released the new album at the end of 2014, form the album "The Ocean At The End".
If you like songs with a slow start, which evolve  constantly with some experimental sounds and sound involvement all over the song, than The Tea Party is impossible to miss. Here with a special Participation of Jethro Tull, on a song called "The Ocean at the End"

I Left a curious conversation I found on web:

Samir Nagheenanajar: "No-one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It..it's not that hard. Na-ghee-na-na-jar...Nagheenanajar."
The Tea Party: "Well, at least your name isn't The Tea Party."
Samir Nagheenanajar: "You know, there is nothing wrong with that name."
The Tea Party: "No, there WAS nothing wrong with it, until we were about 12 years old and those no talent ass-clowns became famous for starting a political movement."
Samir Nagheenanajar: "Why don't you just go by The Party instead of The Tea Party?"
The Tea Party: "No way, why should we change? They're the ones who suck."

Out of metal, elements of progressive

At the time I was written my previous Post I found an addictive song/band. It isn't metal but has some elements of progressive rock, we can say some evolution in sound, the presence of the guitars, is not all the music in progressive, but has several elements.

The band is called Lonely Robot, check their new official video for the new album "Please Come Home", released on February, 2015. Lonely Robot is a project of John Mitchell from UK

Lyrics
He was a small boy, lived on the outside of the world you know
Stared at a ceiling, hollow of feeling, no real place to go
People would speak to him, words that were missing, made him feel apart
So his father bought him a metal companion, a voice that spoke afar

(Chorus)
So why did you go? You made it clear, you had no fear
You’re the boy in the radio
So why did you go? We fought these tears, we waited years
For the boy in the radio, the boy in the radio

Ever so slowly, it spoke to his soul and he started to feel alive
Out of the static and into the attic, came feeling from the wires
And turning the dial, he wished for a while that he could be there too
A valve or resistor he could call sister, a friend he could hold on to

(Chorus)
No more tears, living fears
No more tears now

Threshold - For the Journey, new album

To complete the first update about the bands I already presented on this blog, let's finish this part with one of my favourite bands, the British band Threshold. Recently They released a new album called For the Journey

 

As I stated in June 2014, Threshold sound different in every album and mainly with each vocalist
With Damian Wilson the progressive elements are more present than ever, his voice complements better this type of sound, increases the length of the instruments. Always with the caustic tone that's their trademark
I will start by sharing with you, Watchtower on the moon

And now the official video, which I appreciate a lot, Unforgiven

Stay tuned later today and in the next days cause there are some programmed posts to appear later. with new artists, only one really form progressive metal, but I think you would like what's about to come

Ava inferi - last ever released song

Ava Inferi have ended but they have released this last song, check it, even being in Portuguese, you can read the translation cause is already in youtube comments, called "Ao teu Lado"

Symphony X - new album released(Underworld) and some new discovered songs from (Iconoclast)

My last post was precisely about Symphony X, so what a better way to restart than with symphony X new material?
 Well there are Two Reasons, to which I decided to bring back Symphony X so soon after my post in late 2014, The first one and most important to me, they are back in Portugal, Lisbon, on February 28, 2016 and finally a good chance to hear them live, only dependent of some logistic problems, I went recently to 4 concerts and always buying something in the merchandising becomes expensive, but so worthy
The second good reason is the new album Underworld

 I haven't heard yet the new album as a whole, I like to hear the albums with ease to detect all there is to detect and because a lot of albums don't enter in our minds at the first audition, so I have so much to hear in these days, that I have to catch an opportunity.
I already heard several times the first lyric video for this album Nevermore, It makes me remember the power on Set the World on fire, and knowing Russel Allen was in a parallel project called Adrenaline Mob, that sound a bit alike this nevermore, A strong and powerful song, check it

Here it is another lyric video, lyric videos are a common thing now, they understood they promote better a song than just the music, another song from Underworld, this song is musically near the sound of When All is Lost, Candelight Fantasia, I love bands wich can produce a wide range of emotions in songs, this one is called Without You

I talked about Adrenaline Mob, a side project from Russel Allen, check this one to, maybe some of you will enjoy it, maybe even more than Symphony X.

 At last I am going to share another song from Iconoclast That I am becoming addicted, because of the lyrics, music, and all the musical environment around, the song is called, Electric Messiah, being a fan more of metal guitars than of drums as a lot of people I know, a messiah that's electric, almost like the guitar as the messiah, good connection

Almost a year passed since my last post

Yeah a lot happens in one month, sadly not professionally, but musically so much changed in this period, and I checked the way I was writing the posts here is not the smarter way. Makes the posts dated and harder to read later. so From now on despite keeping the old posts and editing to correct some huge english flaws, mainly cause by mistypes. However even if needed be to make more posts in a day it's better, not only to not keep this blog outdated but to be able now to post new stuff I found and to post all it's coming out.

 What can I say of what's about to come is some of the already posted bands released new material, some bands I was already to post something of released also new material, but the major point is some cool stuff I found in progressive, out of metal. and some out of metal stuff that are really enjoyable, to keep the pace balanced between heavier and soft sounds.

I am yet to decide the new post structure, but I will think about that tomorrow. Wait for it...