What music are you listening to?

I am almost old enough to remember when this song originally came out. Alice Cooper has been a fixture in rock almost my entire life and is still going strong at 77. And his backing band is one of the best in the business to boot. Here he is at Hellfest 2022 telling the audience in no uncertain terms that "School's out for Summer".

Stumbled over this band on the weekend. Lay Of The Autumn are Italian but the lead vocalist hails from Ukraine and has some history as a solo artist as well, including trying out to be Ukraine's Eurovision entry in 2018. She's good but it's the instrumentalists who are the real stars. All terrific players at their positions, esp. the guitarist and keyboardist. Style is basically symphonic metal but with some other elements woven in.

This instrumental may actually be their best work, with all the players at their finest.

And this is a terrific song both vocally and instrumentally.

It's getting hot here, so maybe some "Hellfire" is in order. Band is Visions of Atlantis and the lady with the dreamy voice is their female lead singer, French metal soprano Clementine Delauney.

Finnish heavy metal band Battle Beast are an incredible band and a lot of that is due to the powerhouse vocals of Noora Louhimo. She screams, shouts, belts at volumes seemingly beyond what a human voice should be capable of. Has some absolutely wonderful over-the-top stage costumes, too. From their new live album, Circus of Doom - Live in Helsinki 2023.

Jazz-pop star Laufey continues her ascendence in the pop world. Her new album is due later this summer. She's announced an arena tour (seriously), which is amazing for someone singing in a style that was already considered "old people music" in my youth. I love it myself, but it's hardly what I expected would drive a stellar career in the 2020s. The next single from her upcoming album dropped yesterday and it's another of her forays into bossa nova, the hybrid of American Jazz and Brazilian music introduced by figures like Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Kenton in the 50s and 60s. She recently played in Brazil for the first time and was very thankful to them for their contribution to her music.

Bearwood is an interesting project. Blues-inflected rock ensemble headed by guitarist (and a damn fine one) Marko Karhu. Vocalist is Finnish singer and bassist Marko Hietala, who I know from his time in Nightwish and more recently his solo career. Magnificent musician whether he's singing or playing or both (he just sings in Bearwood). The band has several singles out now but still no indication if an album is the ultimate goal here.

The other release burning up my buds this week is from another Finnish act with a Nightwish connection, the folk-prog-rock-whatever (it's bloody hard to classify) ensemble Auri. Auri is a trio consisting of Tuomas Holopainen (keys, songwriter), Troy Donockley (various other instruments, occasional vocals), and Johanna Kurkela (lead vocals). Tuomas and Troy are longtime bandmates in Nightwish, Tuomas and Johanna are a married couple. They are coming up to the release of their third studio LP and a major European tour.

New (to me, they've been kicking around for a few years now) symphonic metal band that came up in my recommendations the other day. Flowerleaf is originally from Brazil but has made Germany their home base for now. They have two albums out and, based on this new single, another must on the way. Great song, too. Lead singer Vivs Takahashi has a wonderful voice for this kind of music and is pretty good songwriter, too, based on what I have listened to so far.

Floor Jansen is doing a tour of European festivals this month and with her regular band Nightwish off the road, she got to give the debut live performance of one of the songs off their last album. It was a terrific song to start with and I thought from its release that is was very much a song that could work as a Floor solo piece. Hearing her actually do it with the wonderful band she's lined up to back her at these concerts was a treat. This is actually the second live performance, from Masters of Rock in the Czech Republic. The actual debut was the day before at Rockwave in Greece.

By the way, she's doing this tour with a broken bone in her foot. Kitchen accident, or so she said on . Doesn't seem to be slowing her down much but she's also gone onstage with the flu at least twice that I know of. Yeah, she's tough.

Oh, and the backup singer is bassist Jascha Offermans, who is fast becoming my favourite of her band. Solid on bass and a good enough singer to be able to back up one of the finest voices in rock.

Marco Pugno shoots some of the best fan vids I've seen and I sort of know him since he's another regular of Floor's fan site (Floorworld). This is an older Nightwish song that predates her joining the band but has been a fairly standard part of setlists during her time in the band. It is inspired by Stephen King's novel Wolves of the Calla from his Dark Tower series.

Slid a long way back in the history of Fleetwood Mac today. Before the era of Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. Before Christine Perfect (McVie), even. Right back to the days of blues and Peter Green.

This one is The Green Manalishi (with the Two Pronged Crown)

Quote by AnnaMayZing
The Green Manalishi (with the Two Pronged Crown)

That has got to be one of my favourite song titles ever. I haven't listened to much of the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac. First encountered them when Rumors dropped in 1977 so have been a fan of the Buckingham-Nicks-McVie lineup since I was a kid.

Was watching the full video of After Forever's set at Pinkpop 2004 (the band ran from 1997 to 2009 roughly). Amazing to see a 23-year-old Floor Jansen in action and realize how much of the Floor I watch today was already there and how much was still to come. This is lifted from that video.

An album about the end of the world (due to a Cretaceous-level asteroid impact, not any human action) sounds ... well, grim. And I suppose it is. But in the hands of Dutch musician-producer-songwriter and all-round musical genius, it also generates some fantastic music. The first release, The Final Song, was a complex fourteen minute piece of prog with four vocalists including Arjen himself.

The second pulls back, presenting a sad, melancholy ballad mourning a child who will never get to grow up due to the coming catastrophe. When one of the singers is also the mother of two young girls, that only ups the emotional ante. Arjen is joined here by Floor Jansen, stepping back for the final minute to let Floor have the mic and do what she does best ... powerful, emotional singing ending on a belt to bring the house down.

And on that first song I mentioned, one of the vocalists was Floor's little sister Irene, who is a formidable vocal powerhouse in her own right.

RIP, Ozzy. Rock on!!

Quote by Mendalla

That has got to be one of my favourite song titles ever. I haven't listened to much of the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac. First encountered them when Rumors dropped in 1977 so have been a fan of the Buckingham-Nicks-McVie lineup since I was a kid.

I well remember many of Peter Green's hits. Before Nicks, Buckingham and McVie, they were a blues band, and they could knock out some superb tunes.

This one is Oh Well (parts 1 & 2) from 1969.

Tina Guo celloist

Quote by rolandlytle

Tina Guo celloist

I love Tina. Fantastic cellist and utterly fearless in her choice of repertoire.

Traditional cello works (e.g. Elgar)? Check.

Movie soundtracks? Check

Rocking out to metal? Check

The latter is one of the inspirations for a story I wrote. Thought it would be my comp entry but went in another direction for that so it will come out later.

Tina actually co-wrote this with film composer Hans Zimmer. It's Wonder Woman's theme from the last round of DC movies (so Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman).

And some of the aforementioned metal, a collab with German band Lord of the Lost that will appear on their next album.

I love it when two bands I love get together and produce something that is more than the sum of the parts. Lord of the Lost are a German dark rock/metal band who I came across when they represented Germany in Eurovision. Within Temptation are from The Netherlands and are one of the OGs of symphonic metal. This song brings them together to spectacular effect.

Quote by rolandlytle

Tina Guo celloist

Here she is in full metal mode, joining the Finnish metal cello group Apocalyptica for a Metallica cover (something Apocalyptica kind of specializes in, though they have some good original material, too). This was one of the first official videos released from Wacken Open Air this year, one of the world's largest metal/rock festivals and regarded as a "Mecca" for metalheads. Nice to see Tina at Wacken again. She actually opened the festival not too many years ago.

While I may seem to be the site's resident headbanger, I do actually listen to more than just metal. One of my new favourite artists is singer-songwriter-guitarist Mary Spender. Nice, smooth pop sound with influences ranging from rock to folk to blues. Besides putting out top quality music, Mary also has courses out on things like music production and songwriting, and does videos in various venues on musical topics. She recently did a documentary on the legendary UK rock band Dire Straits and landed an interview with the band's bass player for it.