Graspop Metal Meeting 2017

Greetings, dear readers!
I am so incredibly happy and excited! I’m going to this year’s Graspop Metal Meeting. I finally get to see my all time favorite band, Evanescence! Not only that, but I’ll be staying for the whole festival, and get to enjoy bands like Axel Rudi Pell, Five Finger Death Punch, Rammstein, Alter Bridge, Epica and In Flames. On that occasion, I’ve made a playlist with the bands that I’m definitely going to see. You can find the list here on Spotify. I will of course see a lot of other stuff, but my main goal is to see these bands. The festival is from Thursday 15^th to Sunday 18^th, so it will be four days of pure metal epicness. Please let me know what you think of the list, and which other bands you think would make for an incredible memory.

“Do what you, what you want 
If you have a dream for better”
(What You Want – Evanescence)

 

Soundgarden – Live To Rise

Hi everyone. I was very sad to hear today that Chris Cornell has died. I don’t want to speculate on how or why, but I felt it was right to post a song that has helped me through some tough times, and which have given me inspiration. That song is Live To Rise by Soundgarden, which was published on the The Avengers soundtrack Avengers Assemble (2012). Here are the lyrics.

I first heard this song in the end credits to the Marvel Studios film The Avengers, in a movie theater. And if you know how Marvel works, you know to sit through the end credits of every film they make. So I did. And since then, I’ve been listening to this song, which was how I got introduced to Soundgarden and Chris Cornell as an artist. I’ve already posted a review on Show Me How To Live by Audioslave, which was one of his other bands, and which you can read here. I even included both that and this song on my “Most iconic songs”-list, which you can find here. Holy crap he was talented. But this wasn’t supposed to be a eulogy, so here we go:
The intro is a funky and catchy riff, and I like how the drums stop to let us get a clear listen at the sound of the guitar before the song continues. The song slows down for the verses to a simple playing of guitar and bass chords, drum, and Chris Cornell’s voice, with a little flavor of sound from the electric guitar. Chris has the most improbable and effortlessly high voice I’ve heard from a male vocalist before, and yet it is deep and soulful as well, and calming as he sings “Warm my face, warm your face”. I just dig the guitar solo, it kicks ass, and you can hear it continuing in the background as Chris sings out the last two rounds of the chorus, ending the song. This isn’t the most popular song, or even the best, but this is a song that mean something to me, and that I wanted to share with you all. Rest in peace, Chris Cornell.

“What if the one thing that I missed
Was everything I need to pass the test?
And if I fail what happens then?
Can I still count on you as a friend?
We’re insane but not alone,
You hold on and let go”
(Live To Rise – Soundgarden)

 

Alter Bridge – Slip to the Void Live at Wembley – European Tour 2011

Hi everyone! Today is the National Day of Norway! So congratulations to all my Norwegian readers! I hope you all have had a wonderful day. Just to finish the day off nicely, I wanted to share the live version of the song Slip to the Void by Alter Bridge, which I did a review on in February this year. I got goosebumps when I heard the start of this live version so I decided you all also needed to hear it. Here are the lyrics for you again, and below is the video. If you want to listen to it on Spotify, you can do that here!

This is a somewhat sped-up version, which is cool, even though I love Myles Kennedy’s voice, and would have loved to have it in the normal tempo, so that he would use it in his even more extraordinary way, as he usually does. Now, if you want to read the review, you can do it here. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

“Peel back the skin
Close your eyes
Hell is born
To the abyss but be warned”
(Slip to the Void – Alter Bridge)

Machine Head – Take Me Through The Fire

Hi there! So, I was suddenly very inspired by this song, and had a sliver of time that I didn’t need to use studying, so I thought this would be the perfect moment to write a blog post! So, I want to review the song Take Me Through The Fire by Machine Head, off their album Bloodstone And Diamonds (2014). Here are the lyrics. (Also, much to my annoyance, the recorded version of the song is not on YouTube, so for the video, I hope you can enjoy the live version, and if you want to listen to the recorded version, you can do so on Spotify here). Enjoy!

As I said, I was just suddenly struck by inspiration, and this was because of the guitar riffs, that are just so magnificently great. Rob Flynn sounds like he is in such despair as he gnarls the words “The drum beats on as I fall in trance / Stepping away from the endless dance”. Flynn has a rough, raspy voice through the whole of the song, making it sound more angry. The drum beats makes the song perfect for perfect head-banging and generally this song is awesome to see and hear live, as the audience definitely get carried away. I get carried away just by listening to this in my living room! The steady drum beat almost counting up to the chorus is incredibly effective, building up to the chorus. I also just love the chanting before the bridge to the guitar solo, and of course the guitar solo itself is amazing. This is just simply a well composed, really heavy metal song, just what I needed right now.

“No subtleties truth is all that I ask
No pleasantries you can take off that mask”
(Take Me Through The Fire – Machine Head)

March – the concert month

Hi there! It’s been a crazy few weeks now, with a lot of stuff to catch up on for me. I’ve been so lucky to have attended 3 concerts this past month, and I thought I would share it all at once for you. (This post has been almost a week in the making already, so now I will just publish it to you).
The first one was with Chevelle, Disturbed and Avenged Sevenfold. It was just incredibly awesome. I tried to take some pictures and film a bit, but my phone is such a mess, that it was poor quality and the short videos I filmed on Snapchat were all ruined, so I have no footage what so ever of Disturbed and Chevelle, which is quite dissapointing. I enjoyed myself immensely though, and didn’t spend a lot of time trying to film or take pictures anyways, as I feel it is more important to enjoy the moment while it lasts, not look at it afterwards and wish you had payed more attention. I was so incredibly tired afterwards, after shouting and singing along, headbanging and raising my fists and making devil horns.
We entered the concert hall just as Chevelle was about to start, so we got to enjoy the entire sets of all the bands. Chevelle got the mood up really quick after standing in line freezing and bullied by people trying to get in front of us. They delivered a short, but well composed set to get the party started. I really wished they would have played “The Red”, though, as I really like that song and would have loved to hear it live. Anyways, they really delivered and got everyone in the right place for a night of metal.

There was quite a wait between bands, and I get why, because between the epic pyro show Disturbed displayed, and the huge cube floating above our heads with images and lights that Avenged Sevenfold had going on, not to mention the epic, ginormous space suit they had in the back of the stage floating around, I guess the technicians had A LOT to do to rig it up and down. David Draiman was unfortunately a little sick, so he held back a little singing some of the songs, and you could tell he was not at his best, but he still knocked it out of the park for me. He’s really dedicated to the job and his fans for going through with the concert. He still hit all the right notes on The Sound Of Silence, which was as magical as I imagined it would be, with people holding up their cell phones with lights on. A really beautiful moment. The thing with people holding their cell phones with lights in the air repeated itself as David asked people to do so only when he sung the words “the light” in the song The Light, which was also created some quite beautiful moments with a magical atmosphere. And, as I mentioned, the pyro show was incredible, and even though I stood a bit far back, to be able to see the stage and not be squished to pieces by the crowd, I could still feel the heat from the flames very well. I can’t imagine how Mike Wengren (the drummer) had it, sitting right in it all while the flames climbed the back line on Inside The Fire. And the rest of the band, for that matter, but they could at least move around. I loved the fact that David laughed demonically at the start and end of this song, as it appears on the recorded version. The band kicked ass with jumping and head banging and making a show of it all the time, and David appealed to the audience for help singing some of the songs, and encouraged us to raise our fists and devil horns in the sky. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of Disturbed at the concert, I only filmed a little bit and the footage was destroyed, but fortunately a friend of mine which I attended the concert with gave me permission to use one of her pictures.

Avenged Sevenfold was even better this time than the last, and I heard and saw them a lot better now than I did in 2013, when my friend and I stood a lot closer. Pretty much all we saw were people’s backs and the lights. This time I got to see quite a lot of what was happening on stage, and there was a catwalk the band came down to sing and play on many times. They opened the concert by putting on Rocket Man by Elton John, and Space Oddity by David Bowie in the background, before entering the stage and playing The Stage, with the music video showing in the background. I think that was a genius thing to do, considering their latest album is a science concept album.

At some point during the concert, there was a surge of people moving perfectly, so that only short people were aligned in a straight line from me to the end of the catwalk, so I could see M. Shadows and Synyster Gates standing there and doing their awesomeness. It was very satisfying, until Shadows yelled out “put your hands in the fucking air!”, and then my line of sight was gone. This time around they had better screens showing what was going on on stage, so that when my feet and back became tired from stretching so much and standing on my toes, I could just relax a bit and look at the screens. The crowd sang along to almost all the songs, both when Disturbed played and when A7X played. People even tried to sing to the instrumental version of Warmness On The Soul. The crowd was even louder than M. Shadows as we all went “Ooooh, it’s your fucking Nightmare!”. I love those kind of moments, where everyone knows exactly what to do and everybody is in sync. Another great moment of that kind was when we all chanted “Hail! Hail! Hail!” in Hail To The King. I had a great time and people were generally nice, except for a couple of duchebags and almost being dragged down from the mosh pit that started right next to us, which was no fun at all. My friends and I were all satisfied and tired when it was all over, and I can’t wait to the next time I get to see these bands live, ’cause they kick ass!

Here are some pictures I took from when Avenged Sevenfold were on stage:

I also borrowed a few pictures from my friend from the Avenged Sevenfold concert:

The next concert I attended was Kvelertak, which is a Norwegian black/heavy metal band (the band name means “stranglehold”). They are currently on tour with their new album Nattesferd (“night journey” directly translated). They were awesome as well, with one of the best light shows I have seen in my life. The concert was held at the student house where I work, so I was lucky enough to get a free ticket! The front man is notoriously known for stage diving, but strangely enough he didn’t do it this time, only the guitarist did, and I got a nice shot of him being held up by the crowd on his feet, continuing to play. It was an incredibly electric mood in the place, and I really had a great time at this concert as well, and could even enjoy myself a bit more, not being forced to stand in the middle of a crowd with nowhere to go and familiarity with the place. Also, there’s a difference between 15 000+ people and 500+ people. Kvelertak played amazingly well, and people had a good time, some people even crowd-surfed.

My pictures from Kvelertak:

The final concert I went to this month was quite another story. It was with the pop band Sweet Like Chili, which is fronted by two of my friends. It was a very intimate and moving concert, there being only about 20 people (excluding the band), but it would have been quite a different mood I think, if there had been any more people. I really enjoyed that concert too, but in a completely different way, as this was a sitting-concert, with mellow sounds and delicate, yet powerful voices. I also love the fact that they write their lyrics in English, which makes them more relatable, and it makes this band much more open to international audience. I hope you would check them out and give them a chance, even though I know my audience, and know that this blog hasn’t exactly been super-positive to pop in the past. I might just be a little biased, as I know these people from childhood, and want to support them as much as I can. But don’t write them off at once, I can recommend Pavement, Ghost, Don’t Tell, and What We Give Away (Cheap). Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures, I was just caught up in the moment, but I might see them again before long, and maybe I will remember to take pictures then and post them here.

Anyways, I had a blast at all these amazing concerts with all these amazingly great musicians, and it’s going to be very hard to top this year with something greater than I have experienced this past month.

“Like your face getting forced to the floor
When either way, you’re way too close to it all”
(Face To The Floor – Chevelle)

“I’ll have you know
That I’ve become
Indestructible
Determination that is incorruptible”
(Indestructible – Disturbed)

“Selfish beneath the skin
But deep inside I’m not insane”
(Almost Easy – Avenged Sevenfold)

Concert time soon!

Hi there! Today it’s less than a week left till I’m going to Oslo again, to see Avenged Sevenfold live for the second time! This time, they will be joined by Disturbed and Chevelle! I’m really excited, and I think it will be great.
As some of you might remember, I went to see A7X in Oslo in November 2013, that time originally joined by Five Finger Death Punch and Device. Unfortunately for the fans, Device backed out of the concert because the son of David Draiman, vocalist of both Device and Disturbed, was born just a couple of months before the concert. However, we got to enjoy the Swedish talent of Avatar, which was (of course not as good as Device, but) a great replacement. The whole concert was amazing, and I hope and think this next one will be equally great.

In preparation of the concert coming up in less than a week (and a little late to the preparation, as I usually am), I have made a playlist on Spotify containing the entire discography of all three bands (of course, all that was available on Spotify, which is not all – among other things, the A7X album Diamonds in the Rough is not there) for me to listen to, which is close to 21 hours of playtime. I hope that by Thursday, I will have some clue of all the songs I could hear at the concert Friday. I haven’t listened as much to Chevelle before as I have to A7X or Disturbed, and I haven’t listened too much to the older albums of Disturbed either. I really hope this also can open my eyes to some new songs to listen to in the future as well.

Disturbed are still soaring on their success from their latest album “Immortalized”, released in 2015, while Chevelle and Avenged Sevenfold both released their latest albums, “The North Corridor” and “The Stage” respectively, in 2016.

So, to make this post more musical, and not all “news”, I wanted to add my current favorite song of all three bands:

Avenged Sevenfold – God Damn (The Stage)

Disturbed – The Light (Immortalized)

Chevelle – Got Burned (The North Corridor)

If any of my readers are going to the concert as well, or are going to a concert with these three bands in another country (or you just love these bands and want to listen to their music) you can check out my ready-made playlist here.

 

“Somtimes darkness can show you the light”
(The Light – Disturbed)

 

Alter Bridge – Slip To The Void

Hi there! It’s about time I did another song review, like I normally do. I’ve had this song stuck on my mind for the past week or so, which came out of nowhere – I haven’t listened to this song in a long time. The song I’m writing about today is called Slip To The Void by Alter Bridge off the album AB III (2010). I think you will notice I’ve thought of and listened to this song a lot. Here are the lyrics. Enjoy!

I can’t really put my finger on it, but there is just something about this song that is greatly satisfying to listen to. Myles Kennedy’s voice is amazing, the guitar riffs are heavy and sort of edgy, and the song just rocks out to lyrics that are actually pretty depressing and haunting. The intro is calm, with an eerie mood, introduced by a synth, and Kennedy’s voice almost whispering the imperative “Slip to the void, to the dark, to the fall…”. The calmness is not comforting, but more like a sense of  ‘calm before the storm’. Moving on, the song introduces the strumming of a guitar and muffled sound of the bass, as Kennedy goes on with more warnings, and you can almost feel the guilt sneak up on you with “My God, what have you done? You don’t belong here”.
The song hits a break-through point as Myles goes off with his voice “Sever the ties, trip the wire, dig your hole…”, and you can see the full potential of the song. Kennedy really can do wonders with his voice, taking it down to almost a whisper and up to those high notes.
Harmonizing vocals in the chorus and bridge with Mark Tremonti makes the sound very full in volume, their voices really fit well together. In the bridge there is a split guitar solo as well, between the singing, which is quite good, but isn’t very long in duration, and it seems like the guitar riffs is more important in this song rather than the solo, which I don’t mind.
The song finishes the way it started, drums stopping as sudden as they had started, fading out the guitars, and takes it down to only the synth as it also fades out to a stop. I’ve listened to this song so many times this week alone, I really can’t count it, and still manage to get a creepy feeling in the intro, a feeling of guilt and shame by the lyrics, and a sense of satisfaction by the harmonizing chorus and awesome guitar riffs.

 

“Doubt is alive and you know
You were once led to believe
You were young and so naive
But now no longer”
(Slip To The Void – Alter Bridge)

 

List of most iconic/”need to know” songs by The Unseen And Unheard

Hey! It’s been a month since I last posted. I’ve thought a lot about writing something of finishing something I’ve already started, but I never got around to it. Now, I have a new idea! I “waste” a lot of time on a meme website called 9GAG. Right now, someone’s started a trend of making a list of “need to know” songs and putting their list on 9GAG. I thought I should hop on the train and make such a list of my own. The first one that started this trend (that I noticed, at least), had a rule not to include more than one song per artist/band, and so I wanted to do the same, but realized that it was too difficult for some bands, so I only tried to not include too many. I will just dive right into it, with no arrangement to the order in which I list the songs I feel you need to know. (of course this will be mainly rock/metal, since that’s my forte, but I might include some other songs as well, if I feel like you really need to know/listen to them).
I’ve made the list in Spotify, so you can go in and have a listen right away. Might get back to this post later and make a YouTube-playlist of it as well, but for now Spotify will have to do.

• Disturbed – The Sound Of Silence / Down With The Sickness
• Evanescence – Bring Me To Life / My Immortal
• Paramore – Misery Business
• Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Avenged Sevenfold – Nightmare / Afterlife
• Black Sabbath – Iron Man
• AC/DC – Thunderstruck
• Foo Fighers – The Best Of You
• Bullet For My Valentine – Tears Don’t Fall
• Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name
• Slipknot – Psychosocial / Duality
• Kings of Leon – Sex On Fire
• Royal Blood – Better Stangers
• Linkin Park – Numb / Faint
• Machine Head – Darkness Within / Davidian
• Korn – Thoughtless
• Coldplay – Fix You
• Imagine Dragons – Radioactive
• Helloween – Mr. Torture
• Halestorm – Love Bites (So Do I)
• Ghost B.C. – Cirice
• Dimmu Borgir – Gateways
• Five Finger Death Punch – Coming Down / House Of The Rising Sun
• Audioslave – Show Me How To Live
• Soundgarden – Live To Rise
• Drowning Pool – Bodies
• The Cranberries – Zombie
• Brandi Carlile – The Story
• Deftones – Change (In The House Of Flies)
• AWOLNATION – Sail
• Johnny Cash – Hurt
• Dream Theater – A Nightmare To Remember
• Nomy – Cocaine
• Radiohead – Creep
• Tribal Ink – Refugee
• Avantasia – The Scarecrow
• The Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
• Amy Lee – Lockdown
• Ed Sheeran – I See Fire
• System Of A Down – B.Y.O.B.
• Volbeat – Still Counting
• Alice Cooper – Poison
• Metallica – Enter Sandman
• Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
• Breaking Benjamin  – So Cold
• Iron Maiden – Fear Of The Dark
• Dio – Rainbow In The Dark / Holy Diver
• Rammstein – Du Hast
• Device/Lzzy Hale – Close My Eyes Forever
• Lady Gaga – Til It Happens To You
• Muse – Plug In Baby
• Rise Against – Hero Of War
• Chevelle – The Red
• Thee Days Grace – I Hate Everything About You
• Axel Rudi Pell – Glory Night
• In Flames – Alias
• My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade
• Green Day – 21 Guns
• Elton John – Candle In The Wind

There’s just a handful of these songs that I don’t know every single word to, but they still evoke something in me that makes me think everyone should hear them. These songs are iconic to me, representing the band, the genre and the time period they were produced in perfectly. A few of these are covers, but I included them because they are so good that I feel they both do justice to the original artists and the songs, in addition to the covers being iconic themselves.

Links to the two lists that I found already, there are some very good songs in there, and some I have yet to check out.

http://9gag.com/gag/aG1K8Xn

http://9gag.com/gag/amYNNyo

Am I missing something obvious to you? Would you perhaps replace the song I’ve chosen by a(n) artist/band? What would be your most iconic/”need to know”-songs? Please let me know in the comment section.

“So paint it black and take it back
Lets shout it loud and clear
Do you fight it to the end
We hear the call to
To carry on
We’ll carry on”
(Welcome To The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance)

“I raise my flag and dye my clothes
It’s a revolution, I suppose
We’re painted red to fit right in”
(Radioactive – Imagine Dragons)

My own list of 10 unforgettable crowd participation moments

Hey! Been working on this post all evening/night, and finally done, I don’t want to wait any longer to publish it. Inspired by Loudwire’s list of 10 unforgettable crowd participation moments (which you can find here), I wanted to make a list myself. It contains my favorites, including many of the suggestions made in the comment section on YouTube, which, in my opinion, were far better than many of the one’s on Loudwire’s list.
This is in no particular order, so don’t come complaining about that to me. I’m doing it this way because many of them are equally great in different ways, with their own qualities and moods which they evoke.

Avenged Sevenfold – Unholy Confessions (Live in Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA, 2014)

 

Foo Fighters – My Hero (Live in Bogotá, Colombia, 2015)

 

Linkin Park – In The End (Live at Rock Am Ring in Mendig, Germany, 2004)

 

Metallica – Creeping Death (Live in Moscow, Russia, 1991)

 

Slash, Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Live in Mumbai, India, 2015)

 

Disturbed  – Down With The Sickness (Live at Rock Am Ring in Mendig, Germany, 2008)

 

Evanescence  – My Immortal (Live in Paris, France, 2004)

 

Rammstein – Du Hast (Live at Download Festival, Leicestershire, England, 2013)

 

AC/DC – Thunderstruck (Live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011)

 

Machine Head – Darkness Within (Live in London, England, 2014)

 

So, here you have it. I personally think these are just as good or even better than the list Loudwire made, even though several of the ones on Loudwire’s list were great (I couldn’t just copy it either, could I?). I could go on and on about things you should notice, like the band’s reaction to the fans, or the sheer loudness and harmony of the crowd. This kind of interaction between artists and fans is an extraordinary phenomenon.
I want to know what are your contribution(s) to the list, what do you think I should check out? Are there even better versions of the artists and songs I’ve chosen? Please leave a comment below.

 

“Music, my savior, save me”
(Darkness Within – Machine Head)

 

Corey Taylor, Dave Grohl, Rick Nielsen, Scott Reeder – From Can To Can’t

Happy holidays! Here comes the first in a line of blog posts in my holiday vacation free time, (that’s right, I haven’t had much free time to blog this holiday). We’ll see the when the next post will be, I really don’t know. Hope you are enjoying yourselves in these festive times. Today’s blog post will be a review of a little pearl of a song from a project by Dave Grohl, the frontman of Foo Fighters (and former drummer of Nirvana, for those of you that didn’t know that). The project is a documentary called Sound City (2013), and is a tribute to the recording studio and equipment used in Sound City Studios, where all the artists featured in the documentary and accompanying soundtrack (Sound City – From Real to Reel, 2013) have all recorded music when the studio was running. The song is called From Can To Can’t, sung by Corey Taylor of Slipknot (and Stone Sour), accompanied by Dave Grohl, Rick Nielsen (of Cheap Trick, among others) and Scott Reeder (of Kyuss, among others). Here are the lyrics. Enjoy.

Added the behind-the-scenes footage and music video of the song, makes you realize how great musicians they all are.

So much and at the same time so little to actually be said about the song. I adore it, the whole thing, with guitars and drums and bass and Corey Taylor’s amazing voice. The whole setup is just great, with a song that builds towards a climax, that hits every expectation in my book, and is taken to a short breakdown before a great finish. The melody is nice, as you can hear clearly in the first verse, with the strumming of the guitar and the bass, and then roughs it up with an electric guitar and drums, building up the song more. The lyrics are poetic and sore, together with the talent of Corey Taylor, which can do both careful vocals and add more force with a raspy voice, this seems like the perfect match for the complete song. After you’ve watched the behind-the-scenes part, you can better notice the small and yet significant details to the song, like the use of the E-Bow on the guitar in the background, especially in the first chorus. The music video is great, showing the parts of every musician in the song. A great piece of music, played with historically great equipment, by historically extraordinary great musicians.

“Look at all of these people
Tragic little people
They smile and then they don’t know what for”

“Our houses are haunted, dark and deserted
They’re made of my secrets and shame”
(From Can To Can’t – Corey Taylor, Dave Grohl, Rick Nielsen, Scott Reeder)