What music are you listening to?

Quote by AnnaMayZing

Welcome to Jukka Koskinen, the now official bass player with Nightwish. Marko was a hard act to follow.

He took Marko's place whilst they toured, but now he is an official band member.

Here he is, at the Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands, June 2022.

I watched their shows at Hellfest and Deichbrand on livestream (saw Pinkpop, too, but not live) and Jukka was fantastic. Really working well with the rest of the band now. He did sing backup as well as playing bass in Wintersun so him joining Troy on male vocals is not impossible.

Been listening to and reviewing the early Nightwish albums (links can be found in Inspirations). This song, from their second album Oceanborn, one of their finest from that era or ever. Vocalist is original lead singer Tarja Turunen, who is my preferred voice for this song.

Another classic from that era. This song made it onto my mental soundtrack for The Healer's Secret, playing as Tana watches her father's army and sword crumble to dust. Again, this is one where I lean into the Tarja version, though current lead singer Floor Jansen sings it beautifully as well.

Today, I had the rare (these days) opportunity to sit in Starbucks and get down to some serious writing. I can write better when alone in a coffee shop, undisturbed. Don't ask me why but it seems to work for me. Anyway, whilst writing, I became aware of a song playing which brought back some great memories. Those who remember the seventies will surely remember More Than A Feeling from Boston.

They call Soilwork "melodic death metal" but I find they shade over into prog metal at times. A nice mix of both harsh and clean vocals, mostly from the same guy, Bjorn Strid though there are some guest vocalists. This is the title track from their latest, release a couple weeks ago.

And the second track from the album, which leans in more on a prog-ish sound.

More metal. Power metal veterans Blind Guardian dropped album #12 today (they've been in business since 1984). This single/video also came out today.

Lovin' this new acoustic track from Brazilian alto Violet Orlandi.

🤷🏽‍♀️

Heavy metal and traditional Chinese instruments are an odd mix, but Taiwanese Youtuber Nini pulls it off regularly. Here she covers a metal classic from the eighties.

And speaking of Ozzy, his new album is out and features collabs with a number of great guitarists including his old Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi.

Pachelbel's Canon in D

Currently enjoying Austrian-based symphonic metal band Visions of Atlantis. A bit lighter and more fun than Nightwish (who were definitely an influence on VoA) but still solid musically, too.

Sabaton is great. Swedish power metal with a very talented line-up and a fascination with history. Their last album was a concept album about WWI.

New-ish Dutch band I was introduced to by a friend on another site. The title translates into English as "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", and it takes inspiration from the Jules Verne novel of that title.

Quote by fuzzy1954

Great choice, Fuzzy. I love Nox Arcana. 😊

Music to celebrate our recent comp. Wish I had thought of this post earlier. Songs entitled "Dream On"

And I actually first discovered the second song through a cover by Canadian heavy metal band Helix, who hailed from my birthplace.

Wow, Ten Years!

I discovered Atlanta-based band Foxes & Fossils back during the dark days of the pandemic. They most do covers but have mentioned working on some original material. They've been going since 2009, when founder Tim Purcell decided he wanted to sing with his daughter Sammie. The rest, as they say, is history. Lead singer on this Tom Petty cover is Maggie Adams, who Tim and Sammie knew from their church and who became the second lead singer (they eventually added a third, Chase Truran, when the girls moved away for university so weren't consistently available for a period).

This song was my earworm-du-jour. I have no idea why other than it is one of my favorite Epica songs.

New track from symphonic metal band Ad Infinitum with their marvelous lead singer Melissa Bonny (it's basically her personal project) in fine form on both clean and harsh vocals.