What are you listening to right now?

Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men

The Lighthouse - Stevie Nicks

I've heard worse from a 76-year-old!

She's amazing. It's great how many old classic artists are still hanging in and sounding pretty good into their seventies and even eighties. John Lodge, ex-Moody Blues, dropped a pretty good new EP a couple months ago and he's turning 82 this year and wrote at least one of the songs while recovering from a stroke.

New Evanesence and it's pretty good. Apparently it's from the soundtrack of Netflix's live action remake of the anime Devil May Cry.

Blackbriar is considered symphonic metal rather than goth metal but, dang, their videos are often dark as all hell. Gothic symphonic metal or maybe symphonic gothic metal? Anyhow, "The Fossilized Bride" (yeah, you can see where this is going already, right?) is classic Blackbriar with the guys as a band of ghost hunters or urban explorers and lead singer Zora Cock as the mysterious titular character. And who is that weird guy in the old clothes? The widow's lost love?

Finnish bassist and vocalist Marko Hietala is a bit of a journeyman musician nowadays. He has his solo career, he guests with other bands, he has been touring a lot with his former bandmate Tarja and reliving some of their Nightwish glory days. And he has become the lead vocalist of Bearwood, a new Finnish hard rock band whose founder and guitarist is another Marko; Marko Karhu. Both Markos are fantastic musicians so, needless to say, I am really loving this new project of theirs. Here's the latest video.

I recently saw a vlog on YouTube from 2021 with Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish). In it, he mentioned Darkwoods My Betrothed, a band with which he has played keyboard for many years, but has no other input. I thought I would take a listen... Nope, not for me. I prefer the more melodic metal rather than Black Metal.

Quote by AnnaMayZing

I recently saw a vlog on YouTube from 2021 with Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish). In it, he mentioned Darkwoods My Betrothed, a band with which he has played keyboard for many years, but has no other input. I thought I would take a listen... Nope, not for me. I prefer the more melodic metal rather than Black Metal.

I need to give them another listen. My appreciation for extreme metal styles has changed since I last tried them and I might be more amenable to them now. And Tuomas needs no other input, IMHO, just his style of playing reveals his presence if you're familiar with his work.

Kardashev, my new metal discovery of the week, kind of split the difference with their progressive deathgaze (as it's called). Some very heavy death metal elements including some of the fastest blastbeats I have ever heard, but also some lighter, more melodic moments. They are possibly the most extreme band that I have actually liked to date. Their 2022 album Liminal Rites, from which this comes, blew my mind yesterday.

Birds chipping. As it should be! The sounds of nature for me, thank you.