while browsing around my back then favourite music store, the guy working there tried to sell me an album by negură bunget called om, which was supposed to sound “similar to moonsorrow”. well, that’s kind of a strong statement, but there is a bit of truth in it. but the main thing is, this made me experience a great band i haven’t heard of before. negură bunget is a romanian experimental black metal band. let me start with the first full song from the om album. this song is a beautiful stream of heavy guitarwork, great riffs, a awesome intertwine of almost spherical music with sounds of nature and black metal. i just love this.

the second song is the second to last song from the om album. beginning with 22 seconds of black metal, it evolves into a folk/ambient song, which eventually starts to get heavy again. a really crazy song.

the third song is the first part of the ‘n crugu bradului album, a concept album containing four songs about the four seasons. this song is about spring (and unfortunately, the youtube version is crippled; the beginning is chopped of by over two minutes :-( ). this song is, as is the whole album, very experimental, dark, technical, diversified.

unfortunately, two of the three band members left negură bunget in 2009 after some “differences”, and the remaining member found some new bandmates to continue the band. since the two members who left were responsible for many parts of the unique music of negură bunget, i consider the new lineup as a different band. maybe i’ll write something about them in the future…

moonsorrow is a finnish pagan metal band. i first saw them easter 2007 in the z-7, which was also the first time i heard anything from them. going there was a good idea, in fact i liked moonsorrow so much that it almost instantly got one of my most favourite bands. (i also mentioned them several times on spielwiese.) using elements from folk and black metal, they produced a variety of different, but almost always very good songs. the first song i want to present is pakanajuhla from their 2001 suden uni (wolf’s dream) album; it is a good example of moonsorrow‘s more folkish sound:

the second song i wanted to present is the balad sankaritarina from the 2001 voimasta ja kunniasta album. unfortunately it cannot be embedded, whence you have to listen to it here.

the next song is from their 2003 kivenkantaja (stone bearer) album. its a mostly instrumental piece, only featuring some heavy parts. a real beauty.

the last song is karhunkynsi from their 2005 verisäkeetalbum. this was one of the first of their albums i owned, and especially this song, which is the opener of the album, made me want more. its a beautiful mix of folk and metal, and finally ends with a black metal thunderstorm. a true masterpiece.

after verisäkeet, they released their album viides lukiu: hävitetty in 2007. it consists of two songs, each having around 30 minutes. its a fantastic album, and i already raved about it here. since its hard to rip something out of this album, i won’t embed a sample here. go listen to it completely. there’s also another album coming up, varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa to be released tomorrow (or a few days later, depending on where you live). i’m really looking forward to that one…

today i want to write about the norwegian symphonic gothic metal band tristania. at least, about its beginning. tristania, founded 1996, combined melodic death metal with keyboards and choirs, creating a highly complex, wonderful gothicesque soundscape. later, the complexity of the songs reduced, and i stopped listening to them.

the first song i want to present already appeared on their demo, called tristania, and was also contained on their debut album, widow’s weeds.

the second song is from their album beyond the veil, called heretique. a beautiful, complex and highly melodic mixture. never boring, always carrying the listener along.

the third song is from the same album and is called opus relinque. an interesting soundscape, and similar to heretique, never boring. i think beyond the veil is probably the best tristania album ever.

the last song is from their 2001 world of glass album, called the shining path. before this album, morton veland left the band and founded sirenia, who continued the “old” tristania sound, while tristania started to change their sound.

after writing about opeth’s forest era, i want to write about their recent albums, starting with deliverance. let me begin with their progressive rock side (i.e. no metal! for all of you who don’t like metal), with the song coil from their newest album watershed. a very untypical opeth song, very easy to listen to, yet beautiful.

the second song is from their 2003 album damnation, which is closely linked to the 2002 album deliverance. both albums were recorded at the same time; while deliverance features mostly heavy songs, damnation is a progressive rock album. to rid the disease is my most favourite song from the damnation album.

the third song is from the 2005 ghost reveries album. it’s a very beautiful instrumental progressive rock piece. somewhat spacey.

the fourth song is a balad from the deliverance album. the first song today which includes heavy parts.

the next song is also from their newest album watershed (which, not surprisingly, did very well on the charts especially in scandinavian countries). a very progressive, complex song, with some surprises.

the sixth song, the lotus eater, is also from watershed. if i recall correctly, it was the first song officially released before the album. a very nice piece of progressive metal.

the seventh song is ghost reveries, the opener of the ghost reveries album. another beautiful progressive metal piece.

the last song is deliverance from the album deliverance. a wonderful piece of progressive death metal, with a very interesting ending starting at 9:38. i once heard a rumor that the strange drum patterns for the ending appeared while fooling around with a drum computer, and in consequence opeth‘s drummer had to learn how to play this.

deliverance
thrown back at me
 
deliverance
laughing at me

if you like something heavier, you can try wreath, another song from the deliverance album.

one of my long-time favourite bands is the swedish progressive death metal band opeth. (if measured by band t-shirts i possess, this is my absolutely favourite band.) over their existence – they had their 20th anniversary last year –, their sound shifted from a more “foggy forest” style to a more progressive one. in this post, i want to shed light on the older period, when they did their “famous melodic progressive forest death metal”, as someone fittingly called their style back then.

let me begin with one of my most favourite songs, under the weeping moon. its from their 1995 debut album, orchid. when i first listened to it, it reminded me a lot of the soundtrack of one of my favourite movies, dead man, which was done by neil young. and the first time i saw opeth live, which was 2005 in zürich, they played this song as well.

the second song is another song from orchid, called the apostle in triumph.

the third song is the night and the silent water from the 1996 morningrise album. a song about mikael åkerfeld‘s grandfather, being sick, and who died before the release of the album. this is another one of my favourite opeth songs.

the fourth song is the moor from the 1999 album still life, which is still one of my most favourite albums ever. not only the sound of this song is great, the interweaved melodies, which make you think you’re walking through a foggy moor, but also the twisted, complex lyrics, such as:

the sigh of summer upon my return
fifteen alike since I was here
bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail
snuffing the first morning rays
 
weary from what might have been ages
still calm with my mind at peace
would I prosper or fall, drain the past
the lapse of the moment took it’s turn

the fifth song is face of melinda from the same album. the album is a concept album, centered around the story of an outcast returning home to take his girlfriend with him. the girlfriend’s name is melinda (after whom mikael later named his first daughter). this song tells the part of the story where the storyteller meets melinda, and asks her to come with him. the first half of the song is rather calm, until it becomes more heavy, when he meets her:

i took her by the hand to say
all faith forever has been washed away
i returned for you in great dismay
come with me, far away to stay

the sixth song is from the blackwater park album, which was opeth‘s breakthrough. the song’s bleak; a dark, angry, powerful song, with beautiful and calm intermissions.

the last song is blackwater park, also from the blackwater park album. bleak and blackwater park are my favourite songs from this album, and some of my most favourite opeth songs. another powerful, fast song, featuring a wonderful calm instrumental part over 2 1/2 minutes long. (for other bands, this would be a full song. it’s good that opeth is not other bands…)