Over the last 6 months or so, I have stated in other blogs that, I have trawled through You Tube watching random videos, anyway, one day I was watching some AC DC, I was watching Who Made Who, Back In Black, Hells Bells and so on, but when I came to Thunderstruck (my favourite AC DC track), You Tube put up 2Cellos, so I clicked on it thinking "What the hell is this" but I'd give them a chance. I was watching, "OK, bit of classical music" I thought, but then it got faster and heavier and then it went into Thunderstruck, "This is way cool, I like these", so when the video finished, I checked what else they have done. They have done covered everything from Michael Jackson to Katherine Jenkins, from Guns N Roses to The Rolling Stones.
When I saw that they did a cover of The Trooper by Iron Maiden, I was horrified. Iron Maiden for me is THE band, they do top every list that I've compiled over the last 28 years, since I have been a fan of Maiden. When I watched 2Cellos version of The Trooper I was hoping against all hope that they didn't kill it, but thankfully they didn't. They actually did it justice, to the point that their version is brilliant, not as good as the original but its up there.
I have watched some of their live shows on You Tube and on some of their performances they are accompanied by a drummer, in my opinion the drummer makes what ever song they are doing, it gives the song soul and sounds, plus it gives it richness to the performance.
When I saw that they had Celloverse out on general sale, I bought it, and most of the tracks have been on my play list for a while now. They cover a lot of genres here, they cover Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Rock and Pop just to name a few.
If you haven't heard of them, go check them out, and buy Celloverse you'll won't regret it.
I will give Celloverse 4 out of 5. I need to see more of these to see if they can do better on their next album.
Project Metal Music
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cilgrug / Blog
Lawnmower Deth
Well, what can I say about Lawnmower Deth, apart from that they are fucking mental, but in a good way. I first heard of Lawnmower Deth back in 1991 when they did Kim Wilde's Kids In America. When I heard of them, it was through Kim Wilde herself, when she was in Germany doing an interview on German TV. The presenter showed her the video by Lawnmower Deth and she turned around and said that "This was the best version of Kids In America that I ever seen" and this got back to the UK and Lawnmower Deth had a minor hit on the rock charts here in the UK. In the 90's Lawnmower Deth faded from my memory and so did the band, as they disbanded in 1993, and I completely forgot about them by the late 90's. In 2008 they reunited to support Bullet For My Valentine for a few gigs, at this point I didn't know that they had reunited, it wasn't until 2nd December 2015 that I found out that they were together again. On the day in question, I was minding my own business, listening to BBC Radio 2 as I always do, because I do like listening to Steve Wright's The Big Show and Simon Mayo's Drivetime, as they do play a lot of Rock and Metal on their shows. Anyway, as I was listening to Simon Mayo's Drive Time. *On 2 December 2015, Lawnmower Deth exploded back onto the UK music scene when they were mentioned by a contributor to the BBC Radio 2 Simon Mayo Drivetime shows' 'Drivetime Confessions'. The contributor was mistakenly identified at a Lawnmower Deth concert by Kerrang magazine and the contributor was seeking forgiveness by the Confessional for misleadingly depriving the real individual at the concert from claiming goods released by Kerrang. When this was mentioned on the Drivetime Confessional, Simon Mayo managed to locate a track from Lawnmower Deth and played the cover track of 'Kids in America' on air. As a result the BBC stated that they were flooded with calls regarding the band wanting to know more. As a follow up, on the 3rd December 2015, Simon Mayo called Peter Lee and discovered that Peter had been washing up at the time on the 2nd and, immediately after the airing of 'Kids In America', his telephone didn't stop ringing. Local band makes good*. On the 2 December I was trying to remember where and when I heard these. When Simon Mayo played Kids in America, that triggered a memory, and it annoyed the living shit out me, as I couldn't remember for the life of me where I heard it from. It wasn't until Pete Lee, whilst being interview by Simon Mayo on the 3rd of December and said that Kim Wilde, whilst herself was being interview by a German TV station and she said that she loved the video to Kids In America, and thats when she pretty much endorsed the band. That's when the penny dropped and thats when I remembered where I heard them, it was back in the early 90's, as I am a fan of Kim Wilde, that Kim Wilde interview stuck in my mind. Ever since then, I have been watching live videos of the band, and the only conclusion that I can come up with about the band is that they are mental, they might act like fools on stage, but they are talented musicians and proper entertainers, and they get the crowd involved, and this is what you want in a band. Where can you go to a gig to see a band and be entertained. This is what gets me about some bands in the world today, that they forget to entertain the fans, and it is all about the fans, as the fans put the bands where they are. But with Lawnmower Deth they do entertain their fans, they do give their fans value for money. Project Metal Music * This Was Taken From Lawnmower Deth's Wikipedia Page
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Iron Maiden The Book Of Souls Album Review
Iron Maiden is one of the best British Metal bands on the planet, they have sold millions of records over last 35 years. When I was growing up in the early 80's i was aware of Maiden, but I didn't pay much attention to them. When I did get into them in 1988 they had just released the single Can I Play With Madness off the album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. After that I was instantly a fan.
Over the years, since 1988 I have tried to buy everything from Maiden, but I had to put a limit on how much. If I did buy everything I'd be broke. But I do have all of their albums, a few singles and DVD's. I have seen them in concert 3 times, once with Blaze Bayley and twice with Bruce Dickinson. While Bayley was a good singer when he was in Wolfsbane and as a solo artist, but when he followed Dickinson, he didn't have enough power to do the songs. To give him credit, he did do two decent albums, The X Factor and Virtual XI. Bruce Dickinson is one of the best entertainers on the planet, he's up there with the likes of Freddie Mercury. Bruce, is one of those guys where you think "Where the Fuck does he get the energy". Not only is he a metal singer, he is also a commercial airline pilot (which he flies Ed Force 1), he is a radio DJ, TV presenter, he fences, and also helped with the recipe for the bands beer The Trooper. As everyone knows Dickinson had cancer at the back of his tongue, luckily his doctors found it in the early stages and successfully removed it.
The Book Of Souls album is the first double studio album from Maiden and it is brilliant, Bruce hasn't lost anything from his voice, since his brush with cancer in early 2015, he still has the power, he is still like the Air Raid Siren that he is. The song Speed of Light is one of my favourites off the album.
There are tracks on this album that are on the epic scale like, The Red And The Black at 13 mins 33 secs, The Book Of Souls at 10 mins 29 secs and Empire Of The Clouds at 18 mins 02 secs. This piece of music from Maiden is epic in every sense of the word, this could be the best album ever from Maiden. Its hard to describe this album, the only way that you get my meaning is to got out and get it, you will NOT regret it. I would give this album 5 out of 5 for the best album of 2015 if not the decade Project Metal Music
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Arch Enemy War Eternal Album Review
Ever since Arch Enemy released War Eternal in 2014 I have been listening to it on and off in that time. When I heard that Angela Gossow stepped down from being the bands lead singer to become the band's manager, I was thinking "No, Why? Why have you done that?" then I realized that, what she was doing with Arch Enemy, as lead singer, it would of taken a toll on her throat and vocal cords, doing death growls etc and wanting to spend time with family, which is totally understandable. When she did step down, to become the band's manager, she passed the torch on to Alissa White-Gluz from the band The Agonist. (A band that I never really listened to. But will be doing.) As I am a massive fan of Angela, at the time when I got the War Eternal album I was saying to myself "Alissa you have to seriously impress me here, as Angela set the bar very high". After the initial going through the album, my initial impressions were Alissa did a pretty decent job on the album. Over the last year and a half, that I have had the album, I have periodically listened to it and I am impressed with Alissa singing on War Eternal, she is up there with Angela, but is right behind Angela. I do need to hear another album from Arch Enemy with Alissa on vocals to see if Alissa is on the same level or surpasses Angela.
The music for War Eternal is absolutely brilliant from Michael Amott, Nick Cordie and Daniel Erlandsson who wrote the music. After I have listened to the album a good few times, you do here some influences on some of the tracks, most notably Paganini's 24th Caprice on Avalanche.
War Eternal is a really good album, if you are just getting into Arch Enemy start of with Wages Of Sin album, then work up to War Eternal.
I give this album 4.5 out of 5, need to hear more from Alissa and Arch Enemy together before I can give them a 5
Project Metal Music
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Battle Beast: Steel and Battle Beast Albums Review
A few years back I was playing and online game and I was talking to one of the lads who was playing, it turns out that he was a huge Metal fan, we'd talked about different bands, he'd asked me what bands I liked, so I told and when I asked him what his favourite band was, he was thinking for a while and said "Oh it has to be Battle Beast, you should go and check them out" so I did, what he didn't tell me was that Battle Beast is a female fronted metal band from Finland.
So when got my hands on a couple of Battle Beast album from my local record shop. I got home and started to listen to Steel (Released in 2012) and Battle Beast (Released in 2013), the overall sound of these albums (at the time), reminded me of some bands from the late 70s and early 80s, but then I couldn't remember who. Now that I had time to think of who Battle Beast reminds me, and they sound very much like Judas Priest from the early days when they started out. Both albums are brilliant, as they give a very big nod to Judas Priest, who had a big presence on the band. and the other big factor on Battle Beast is the Metal Legend that is Ronnie James Dio.
If you like Judas Priest and Dio you will like Battle Beast and would highly recommend that you go out and get their albums.
I would give both of these albums 4 out of 5
Project Metal Music
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She Pulled The Trigger Music Review
For the last few months I have been speaking to She Pulled The Trigger on Twitter, over that time, I have come to a conclusion that, these lads from the US are passionate about what they are doing.
At the moment they have produce a couple of songs and videos to go with those songs. The first one that they done is Stand Up And Fight, OK this video is a bit weird with Chris and the band are wearing costumes, but it has meaning, the section below is taken from the video's description on You Tube, its about the symbolism of what they are wearing in the video and the actual video
SYMBOLOGY: Each of the 4 band members is a character representing something that everyone fights for. Guitarist's 3rd eye stands for truth and knowledge. Everyone's ability to control their surroundings is largely based on their knowledge and ability to recognize the difference between "good" and "bad" information. The horns on the singer represent our free will. Although it's easy to look at the person and say "That's the devil", the message he gives is positive and uplifting to anyone who hears it. So don't judge people based on their looks. Some of the scariest looking people and the nicest you'll ever meet. Bassist's mechanical eye is for our growing dependence on advancing technology. If all electronic devices vanished from the world, would we survive? Are we converging into a part organic and part artificially intelligent life form on Earth? The drummer represents our Humanity. No mutations or mechanical attachments. Regardless of everything else, the one thing we cannot live without is each other. We are social beings and we must all come together to change this life into what it is meant to be.
This song is very well written and performed.
This song, Dying to Shine is different from Stand Up and Fight. It is about rebuilding your life after a tragedy, and it is trying find a way to put your life back together.
From the messages that the band have put up on their Twitter and Facebook pages, that they are in the studio putting together another couple of songs. Go check out their pages, the links are below.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SPTTmusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shepulledthetrigger
From what I have heard from this band, up to now, I would give them a 4.5 out of 5, I can't wait for what they have planned with the new songs.
Project Metal Music
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2Cellos Celloverse Album Review
Over the last 6 months or so, I have stated in other blogs that, I have trawled through You Tube watching random videos, anyway, one day I was watching some AC DC, I was watching Who Made Who, Back In Black, Hells Bells and so on, but when I came to Thunderstruck (my favourite AC DC track), You Tube put up 2Cellos, so I clicked on it thinking "What the hell is this" but I'd give them a chance. I was watching, "OK, bit of classical music" I thought, but then it got faster and heavier and then it went into Thunderstruck, "This is way cool, I like these", so when the video finished, I checked what else they have done. They have done covered everything from Michael Jackson to Katherine Jenkins, from Guns N Roses to The Rolling Stones.
When I saw that they did a cover of The Trooper by Iron Maiden, I was horrified. Iron Maiden for me is THE band, they do top every list that I've compiled over the last 28 years, since I have been a fan of Maiden. When I watched 2Cellos version of The Trooper I was hoping against all hope that they didn't kill it, but thankfully they didn't. They actually did it justice, to the point that their version is brilliant, not as good as the original but its up there.
I have watched some of their live shows on You Tube and on some of their performances they are accompanied by a drummer, in my opinion the drummer makes what ever song they are doing, it gives the song soul and sounds, plus it gives it richness to the performance.
When I saw that they had Celloverse out on general sale, I bought it, and most of the tracks have been on my play list for a while now. They cover a lot of genres here, they cover Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Rock and Pop just to name a few.
If you haven't heard of them, go check them out, and buy Celloverse you'll won't regret it.
I will give Celloverse 4 out of 5. I need to see more of these to see if they can do better on their next album.
Project Metal Music
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Powerwolf Blessed And Possessed Album Review
In July 2015 I was trawling through You Tube watching random videos. This is when I stumbled on Powerwolf, a band that can only describe as "How the hell did I miss yet another good band". Granted there are times that I don't listen to much new music, but when I do, I make up for it. When I watched Powerwolf's videos for the Blessed And Possessed album, I was thinking "OMG this band is bloody good". After I did a bit of research on the band, I found out that the band is from Germany, consisting of two brothers named Charles and Matthew Greywolf with Roel van Helden and Falk Maria Schlegel and the lead singer Attila Dorn who is Romanian. Dorn is a classical operatic singer and wanted a change of direction at the time when Powerwolf was created. It was when Charles and Matthew were on holiday in Romania they met up with Dorn and asked him to join the band as they didn't have a suitable singer at the time, and the rest, as they say, is history. I noticed on some of the videos that they had released a new album, Blessed And Possessed. I went out and bought it. Over time I have listened to this album a good few times and I have to say: I'm Impressed. The album is a 2 disc affair, the first disc is of original material by Powerwolf, it is full of myth and legends about werewolves, vampires and the like, which is set to the thunderous sound of power and speed metal. The second disc is made up of covers of bands such as Iron Maiden's The Evil That Men Do and Gary Moore's Out In The Fields, which they do good justice and make the songs their own. If you haven't heard of Powerwolf go check them out, they are amazing. They do take themselves seriously enough to be brilliant musicians, but also have that tongue-in-cheek mentality that they can have a laugh at themselves, especially if you see any of their live videos on You Tube where they get their fans involved with the songs. If you are new to Powerwolf, you can't go wrong with getting the Blessed And Possessed album. If you are an existing fan and haven't heard the album, go out and get it now. I would give Blessed And Possessed 4.5 out of 5 Project Metal Music
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Nightwish Endless Forms Most Beautiful Album Review
I first heard Nightwish in 2005 performing the remake of Sleeping Sun on a classical music channel and thought they were a classical band. At that time I wasn't listening to much music and it wasn't until 2006 that I realized that they were a symphonic metal band. I started watching them on You Tube afterwards and really started to like them. Tarja as lead vocals was awesome. When she left Nightwish 2005/2006 and was replaced by Annette with whom they recorded Dark Passion Play 2007, I went off them for a while, because I didn't really rate Annette, when they did that album. In 2011 they released Imaginaerum, I thought that it was going to be another Dark Passion Play, but I can gladly admit that I was wrong about the album. It was brilliant and the video to Storytime superb and that got me back into Nightwish. Annette was then replaced by another singer in 2012/13, I was thinking "I was starting to like Annette's voice" on the Imaginaerum album and she slightly pulled ahead over Tarja in the who was the best Nightwish singer category. When I found out who took over the lead vocals of the band my jaw dropped, it was Floor Jansen of After Forever and ReVamp fame. I saw her live in 2012 with her own band ReVamp when she released ReVamp's debut album and went on tour as support of Epica's European tour. I am a huge fan of Floor Jansen and in my eyes she cannot do anything wrong. When I heard that Nightwish had a new album with Floor on lead vocals I was shouting "Yes" and rushed out and bought Endless Forms Most Beautiful album. When I got back home, I started to listen to it right away. The overall sound of this album is a marked difference from what Tarja and Annette have done with Nightwish. Tarja was more operatic, whilst Annette was more pop rock orientated. With Floor's singing style, it is vastly different as it is more symphonic and more in keeping with what the guys of Nightwish are aiming for. This album is a lot more melodic, heavier and darker than the last three Nightwish albums, this album has got a good few styles of music in it, such as folk and traditional, to the typical style of Nightwish which is melodic, symphonic heavy metal. Nightwish and Floor Jansen have come a long way since Tarja and Annette left. Floor has come a very long way since the days of when she was in After Forever, who had disbanded in 2009, after the self titled album After Forever 2007. Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a very good album in many ways. With Floor on vocals and the solid sounds the boys are producing. If you haven't got this album yet, go out and BUY IT NOW. I would give this album 5 out of 5 Project Metal Music
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LXSGV Music Review
As I sit here going through the artist on Reverbnation, I stumbled on a rock keyboardist from Imperial Beach, CA, USA called LXSGV. I listened to his music on his reverbnation page a good few times, I was surprised at how soulful and meaningful his music is.
LXSGV has some videos post on You Tube and from what I have seen and heard, he is good and he took me back to the late 70's, early 80's with bands from that era, such as Tubeway Army, OMD and The Human League which they use heavy Keyboards and Synths.
This guy is well worth a listen to either on You Tube or on ReverbNation link below:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoy2Lbop0iFGfpi6S53KeDw
I will give LXSGV 4 out of 5 for coming up with some really good stuff
Project Metal Music
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BABYMETAL Album Review
When I first heard of Babymetal back on the 12th of July 2015. I was listening to BBC Radio 6 as Ron and Russel Mael from Sparks who took over from Jarvis Cocker's show for the day, as he was on holiday. They started to do the show and I thought nothing of it as they were playing stuff that they found interesting, well about the 3rd track into the show they played BabyMetal's Headbangya song and I was thinking "What the hell is this" so I listened to the track and when it finished I checked them out and when I saw that they'd been out since 2010, I was thinking "How did I miss these". When I heard that they released their Debut album over here in the UK I went out and bought it. It has not been off my playlist ever since I got it with a few other album from different bands. I do not know what it is about BabyMetal, but every time I try to come up with a rational explaination for what Babymetal are and what they are about, there's always something new that batters my brain, I do not know if its the singing or the Kami Band or what ever it is, these kids are brilliant, and they have the guts to get up on stage in front of 20,000 pure metal heads and win them over when they were 12 and 14 years old, and have the Big 4 to back you up is a major feat in its self. This debut album of theirs is brilliant from start to finish so if you haven't got it already, go get it NOW. It has been announced that BABYMETAL is releasing a new album on the 1st of April 2016 and it is a worldwide release so I can't wait for that.
I would give this album 5 out of 5 Project Metal
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