Bandcamp Series: Edenian - Winter Shades (2012)

Edenian was formed in 2010 in Kharkov, Ukraine and is currently made up of Max ‘External Tom’ Molodtsov and Valery Chudentsova. They cite their influences to be artists such as Draconian, Swallow The Sun and Sirenia and those influences are clear on this album.

This album is mesmerising with atmospheric keyboards, intricate guitars and pounding drum beats. My favourite tracks include Winter Shades and The Field Where I Died, both of which make use of the Beauty and the Beast vocals to full effect and both instill a sense of sadness and loneliness in me.

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Bandcamp Series: Solsticio - Lost Souls (2012)

Released in 2012, Lost Souls is the first album from Argentine heavy metal band Solsticio.

Combining Gothic Metal with Argentina’s Tango, this album offers a fabulous mix of both the distinctive tango music and haunting gothic vocals with a metal undertone.  The album delivers with every song, truly beautiful and original.

Favourite tracks for me are Fairy Tale, which starts almost dreamlike but then continues into a multitude of dark and uplifting beats that completely draw you in and Free which has a symphonic style throughout along with a stampede of drums and guitar riffs.

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Crowd Funding and Trees.

Independent music artists are every where at the moment, you won't see them if you just watch the telly, listen to the national radio stations or generally refuse to move away from the dross you are are fed via the mainstream, but it is everywhere.  In every town and city across the world there are people making music and promoting and performing it without any outside support or influence.  This makes me happy, but it also makes me sad.

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Sirenia - Perils of the Deep Blue

In June 2013, Sirenia released their 6th album 'Perils of the Deep Blue'.  The video for  'Seven Widows Deep' was released earlier in June.  Sirenia are a great female fronted gothic metal band from Norway and this album is another solid release with Spanish vocalist Ailyn at the helm.

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Tarja - Colours in the Dark

In September 2013 Tarja Turunen releases her long awaited 4th solo album, Colours in the Dark.  I absolutely love Tara's unique vocal style and really appreciate the operatic/metal musical style that she has been developing and making her own over the last few years since leaving Nightwish.

'Victim of Ritual' was the first single to be released from the album on 12th July and is heavily inspired by Bolero by Maurice Ravel (famously danced to by Torvill and Dean in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics). It is quite distinctive, certainly at the beginning.  A stunning piece of music which I hope leads the way for the rest of the album.

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Within Temptation Covering ... everything?

To celebrate their 15th anniversary Within Temptation decided to do something a little different and released a new cover every week leading up to their celebratory live 15th anniversary performance in Antwerp in November 2012.

I am a big fan of metal bands covering more generic popular music and making them awesome and these covers are just genius.

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Anette Olzon - Solo Project

Recently Nightwish parted company with singer Anette Olzon.  Soon after I went to see Nightwish in Manchester with the awesome Floor Jansen.  I have to say it was a treat.  However, Anette has been working hard since the split and it seems that she recently posted this to her official blog:

"I just finished writing my new song that I've been working on for some weeks... This time I am doing the lyrics in Swedish and it was a bit hard but also challenging to do that, and now I've just sent it to my friend Fredrik Bergh to see how it will sound after the music is added. Since I don't play instruments so well, I always need help with recording. That, and Fredrik is fast and really good at what he does.

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