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It's been more than three years since bassist-singer-songwriter Marko Hietala left the band Nightwish and went quiet for a year. But he's been back for a couple years now and the good stuff just keeps coming. A reunion and reconciliation with former Nightwish lead singer Tarja; tours with her and Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen as well as on his own; a reunion with Tarot, the band founded by Marko and his brother that launched his career; and two new solo singles, the latest of which dropped yesterday. Hopefully, we are looking at a new album in 2025 but nothing's confirmed yet.

Dutch symphonic metal band Delain basically blew itself apart in 2021, replacing the entire lineup except founder and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt. Lead singer Charlotte Wessels went solo in the wake, leaving Martijn to replace one of the best and most experienced of the female metal leads. And he found a great young voice to do the job. Diana Leah has been excellent in the new lineup of the band, singing both new material and Wessels-era classics with skill and enthusiasm. They released the first single from an upcoming EP today.

Sharon Den Adel of the band Within Temptation packs an incredible voice. So does Finnish rocker, and former Nightwish lead, Tarja. So how about Sharon covering a Tarja song? I'm in.

Within Temptation is doing some concerts with Tarja (crossing my fingers for performances of Paradise (What About Us), the amazing collaboration they did years ago) and this cover is the first in a tit for tat cover game WT is doing with her and annisokay, another band they are doing dates with.

The recent return of nu/alt-metal greats Linkin Park came as a bit of a surprise, given vocalist and founding member Chester Bennington committed suicide in 2017. However, co-vocalist/rapper/multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda and other surviving members recruited a couple new faces, including vocalist Emily Armstrong of the band Dead Sara, and are now back in action. New album From Zero is due in November. It's a controversial move given Chester was much-beloved among their fans but Emily is a solid vocalist and has the right voice for it so there's hope this might work out. Here's one classic and one new song from the livestreamed concert where they introduced her.

Nightwish dropped a bit of a surprise when they announced the release of Ocean of Strange Islands as the third single from upcoming album Yesterwynde. That makes originally announced third single Lanternlight (a personal choice of lead singer Floor Jansen) to be the fourth when it comes out on the album's release date. Ocean... is much more in the vein of classic Nightwish in style than it's two predecessors, even if the soft ending featuring the uillean pipes of Troy Donockley is a bit unexpected.

And then a man whose career predates the births of all the members of Nightwish, even 60-year-old Troy. David Gilmour is best known for his tenure as guitarist and singer in Pink Floyd, which he joined in 1967, but began his musical career in 1962 and continues to this day with a new solo album out a week ago. This is the title track, which reunites David with Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright. And the song is probably the most Floyd-ish sounding track I've heard so far from the new album.

Five days until Nightwish's new album, but fans of the band's lead singer Floor Jansen are still basking in the glow of her triumphant final solo show of 2024.

"Bridle Passion" originally appeared on Northward, a one-off band and album of songs written by Floor and Norwegian guitarist Jorn Viggo Lofstad. While Northward never did perform live, Floor has been using the songs in her solo shows ever since she started exploring a solo career in 2019.

Going, Going, Gone - Stars

Last single before the release of The Obsession, third solo album from Dutch metal singer Charlotte Wessels, features her friend and frequent collaborator Alissa White-Gluz, best known as lead singer of melodic death metal band Arch-Enemy. Here, Alissa's lovely singing voice is ascendent, with her death metal growls being used more in the background.

And from the West Coast of Canada, the second single/video from Powernerd, the forthcoming album from multitalented Devin Townsend.

I listened to Yesterwynde, the new Nightwish album, today and it is magnificent. But the song that really takes the show is perhaps the most beautiful song ever to emerge from this band. "Lanternlight" features a stellar vocal performance by Floor Jansen with just keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and a light string section behind her. Troy Donockley slips in with some backing vocals. And it is just beautiful. And keep in mind, Floor recorded this at the end of a 12-month period when she had cancer treatment and gave birth. And she still knocked it out of the park. Tuomas told interviewers that they arrived at Floor's home studio to record her vocals for the album prepared for two weeks of recording, but she was done in six days. It is some of her best work to date.

Ummet Ozcan - Xanadu (Mongolian Techno)

Sing - Travis

German hurdy-gurdy player and singer Patty Gurdy has been posting vlogs about the progress of her next album for a while now. The first video came out yesterday and has her performing in a medieval tavern with great fun and frolic.

Lights is a multitalented performer from Timmins, Ontario who for some reason has been flying under my radar since I came across her early in her career but her latest video came up in my recommendations yesterday. Besides music, she's also a writer and illustrator of the comic series Skin & Earth, which has tied into her music at times. Oh, and she directed this video.

Dreams So Real - Metric

I sang this song at the end of my eulogy for my Dad. He loved Kris Kristofferson, and he loved this song. Perhaps because it reminded him of me.

Nocturnes - Chopin

Spiritbox are the new hot thing of Canadian metal. Here they are joined by Ukrainian singer Tatiana Shmayluk of the band Jinjer. She's a near perfect match for Spiritbox lead singer Courtney Laplante, with a similar voice and style.

Spiritbox is the creation of Courtney and her husband, guitarist Mike Stringer. They met and fell for each other in another band, then wanted to try new things so left that band and started what became Spiritbox. The band has so far won two Juno awards (Canadian counterpart to the US Grammy) and was nominated for a Grammy early this year.

Amazon Love - Johnny Flynn feat. his sister, Lillie Flynn

Mongolian folk metal band The Hu are touring with British metal greats Iron Maiden this Fall. And in honour of that tour, they have covered "The Trooper", a Maiden classic. And it's an amazing performance from the band, full of their mix of Western metal and Mongol traditional music.

Who knew classic British heavy metal could sound so good in Mongol?

Finnish rocker Marko Hietala is the latest Nightwish member/ex-member to appear in a version of the European Best Singer franchise. Of course, it's the Finnish version. And his latest performance rocks (as is to be expected of Marko).

The other, by the way, is current Nightwish lead singer Floor Jansen who has appeared on both the Dutch and German editions.

Almost 3 years ago, Floor Jansen launched "Fire", her first original solo single after a 20+ career spent in bands. The song ended up being one of my favourite tracks on the eventual solo album.

And now she has a very nice new version, the "Stripped" version which cuts back on the instrumentation in favour of the one instrument that matters: her magnificent voice. It dropped on the streamers today and she will also be debuting it on Dutch television (given the time difference between here and Europe, probably already has).

Ankor are based in Spain but have a (fantastic) English lead singer and (absolutely amazing) Greek drummer. It's a great band that I came across maybe a year or two ago. Metalcore base with other musical influences layered around it. New album is out today. This is the title track.

My new metal obsession is Nordic supergroup Cemetary Skyline. Their title of their debut album, Nordic Gothic, pretty much says it all. The band all come from Nordic death and black metal but here they deliver a dark but beautiful collection of gothic metal. Lead singer is Swede Mikael Stanne, whose regular gig is in melodic death metal band Dark Tranquillity. Here, he puts his powerful growls aside and focuses instead on his remarkably smooth baritone clean voice. The results are magnificent and this is challenging a lot of bigger name albums for my "album of the year".

Something for Halloween. "The Ghost in Me" is by Dutch symphonic metal Epica based on Camile Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre, an 1874 orchestral work.

One of my songs of the year is probably going to be "Heavy Is The Crown", part of the surprise return of American rock greats Linkin Park. The band has always been hard to classify, with elements of alt-rock, metal, rap, and more, but their music is often powerful and dramatic.

New lead singer Emily Armstrong has been a bit of a surprise. Her previous band Dead Sara never came on my radar so my first experience of her was "The Emptiness Machine", the first new single. But it was the massive scream at around the 2 minute mark in "Heavy Is The Crown" that really sold me on Emily (it's at about 2:09 in this performance).

She's not a replacement for the late Chester Bennington, who was f-ing amazing in the band's noughties heyday, but kicks off a new era in the band's sound with rapper/vocalist Mike Shinoda and a couple other returning members providing continuity with the old era.

This is the song's live debut.

Normally I listen to the news in the morning, but I can’t bring myself to do that today. So here’s my favorite bluegrass girl, bringing us Appalachia by way of China.

Quote by verbal

Normally I listen to the news in the morning, but I can’t bring myself to do that today. So here’s my favorite bluegrass girl, bringing us Appalachia by way of China.

Very cool. Interesting how she's worked her time in China into her bluegrass career. Looked her up and her ties to my wife's homeland seem to run pretty deep. She lived there for a time and has both performed and taught there on multiple occasions. And she's married to Bela Fleck, which makes for one hell of a musical power couple.