What music are you listening to?

Tonight I am having an evening withEivør. This one is called, Patience.

Floor Jansen has announced officially that she is a mommy for the second time. In celebration, here she is in her younger days with After Forever, the band that launched her 25+ year music career.

And from about a year ago with Nightwish, her current band, and her friend Henk Poort.

Another fine, if less experienced and powerful, female voice is up-and-coming singer Lucy Thomas. Among her current projects is releasing material from the upcoming musical Rosie, in which she will star. Here's the latest.

Exit Eden is an all-female metal vocal supergroup that happens to include French soprano Clementine Delauney, a favourite of mine. They used to be a quartet but founding member Amanda Somerville has left leaving them a trio. This is the first original song from the group who started as a cover band. And the icing on the cake is that ex-Nightwish bassist and singer Marko Hietala is along for the ride on this one and I swear it is one of his best vocal performances in a while, certainly since leaving Nightwish at the end of 2020.

And from their first album, featuring now ex-member Amanda Somerville on lead vocals.

The late Jim Steinman wasn't really a heavy metal writer, but his songs often work well as metal nonetheless. This one, of course, made a star of Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler.

Oo, a new metal cover of Total Eclipse of the Heart and it may be even better. The singers each has over 40 years experience. Doro Pesch fronted the band Warlock in the eighties and her own self-titled group DORO since. Rob Halford has been lead vocalist of Judas Priest for most of the band's history. The track is from Doro's new album Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud, which also came out today.

And that's actually the second duet with Halford on the album. The other is, not surprisingly, one of his old hits from Judas Priest, "Living After Midnight"

A song from the Nightwish album Imaginaerum that inspired me to write a story on another site. 😉

With Annette Olzon singing, this is A Song of Me.

Going back a bit and listening to a playlist of the now-defunct Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. The band gave us, among many good things, singer Floor Jansen of Nightwish and the unrelated guitarist-growler-songwriter Mark Jansen of the current bands Epica and Mayan (who announced recently that he and partner Laura Macri are having a baby). And, of course, lots of terrific music.

Since tonight is All Hallows Eve... Here are Elle and the Pocket Belles with Dancing with the Devil.

You know, I am a big fan of Finnish metal soprano Tarja. But, um, a dark, gothic take on "Frosty the Snowman" might be a bit much, even for me. See what you think.

bad guy - by Billie Eilish

A new video from Natalia Tsarikova & Heaven's Guardian. This is The Sirens of the Past.

Quote by Mendalla

You know, I am a big fan of Finnish metal soprano Tarja. But, um, a dark, gothic take on "Frosty the Snowman" might be a bit much, even for me. See what you think.

It doesn't work for me. It begins well but loses the sinister feel fairly quickly.

I prefer this for gothic Christmas.

Finally got around to listening to the debut album from Mia x Ally. It's a lively, enjoyable collection. Most of the tracks are ones they have covered to varying degrees finally getting full covers, but there's some new material, too. Electric violin and bagpipes seems like an odd combo (did to me at first, anyhow), but these two make it work. Both are lifelong musicians with both conservatory training and a heap of raw talent, which helps. They are currently touring the US in support of the album.

In response to a question on another thread...

Nightwish - Ghost Love Score (Instrumental)

Marcela Bovio began her career in metal and still performs metal a lot (e.g. she revived her old band Stream of Passion for an EP and concert this Fall). However, in her solo career, she has a much softer, more subdued sound, usually backed by a classical string trio. This is from her second solo album Through Your Eyes, which is one of my favourite albums right now.

So found out that Spiritbox, a metal band from BC, Canada that touches on many influences and styles, made the nominations for Best Metal Performance at the Grammy Awards. That puts them alongside popular metal luminaries Metallica, Slipknot, Ghost, and Disturbed. Not bad for a band that's only been going for six years with 1 LP and 3 EPs in that time. The nominated performance is from their EP The Fear of Fear, which dropped a week ago. I note that it is also the only female-fronted metal in the list, a nice feather in the cap of lead singer and band co-founder Courtney Laplante.

I have never really listened to the Foo Fighters. However, I watched their film, Studio 666, on Netflix last night.

It is an absolute B-rated gore fest, but really funny for it. Now I am listening to their Greatest Hits album and enjoying it. I don't think I will buy it, too many 'F' bombs for me, but the music is good.

Here is 'The Pretender'.

Maybe it's listening to Spiritbox and Courtney's growls, but I'm back into melodic death metal again. And my favourite band of that ilk at the moment is Sweden's Arch Enemy. Though are a rather multinational band now, featuring a Canadian lead singer and an American as one of the guitarists.

Here's one from 2017 with current lead singer Alissa White-Gluz

And from 2003 featuring her predecessor, German Angela Gossow. Angela quit singing and became the band's manager in 2014 so she could have more time for other interests and her family.

So after an extended break including giving birth to her second child, Floor Jansen is getting back into action. She finished laying down vocal tracks for the next Nightwish album this week (per the band's drummer Kai Hahto) and has a major solo gig coming up in Amsterdam in two weeks. Supporting act, as for many of her other solo concerts, is fellow Dutch vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen.

Floor:

Anneke (song is from her old band The Gathering):

Taking a step back several decades. One of my favourite songs from the immensely talented Mark Knopfler. Here, live in 1993 with his band Dire Straits, this is Private Investigations.

Was watching the set by Visions of Atlantis, an Austrian symphonic metal band, at Bloodstock Open Air this year. Here's the set opener. There's another video with the full 42 minute performance. VoA has become a favourite of mine over the past couple years. Solid symphonic metal band with a pair of engaging lead singers, French Clementine Delauney (a favourite of mine in just about anything she does, if you scroll up this page to October 24, you can see her in the female metal supergroup Exit Eden) and Italian Michele Guaitioli.

And some more straight forward, old school heavy metal from metal legends Judas Priest. Rob Halford looks and sounds pretty good for a 72 year old who has been belting out heavy metal for something like 50 years.

A new video from Natalia Tsarikova and her band Heaven's Guardian.

This is Artificial times.

Whoa, that is some seriously epic symphonic metal. Not a surprise to see Natalya working with them. She's always done a great job with symphonic metal covers. Apparently the album came out November 3 so I am off to Amazon Music, my streamer, to see if they have it.

A song that amused me from the very time I heard it, all those years ago.

Johnny Cash - One piece at a time.