noekk is a progressive rock / doom metal band from germany. they use a wide range of instruments, combined with vocals sung in an opera voice, to create a complex stream of music.

the first song, strange mountain, is from their debut album the water sprite.

the next song is from their second album, the grimalkin. consisting only of three songs, none of them shorter than 10 minutes, one even reaching 20 minutes, this album was the first one of noekk i listened to. personally, this is my favourite album.

the last song is from their latest album, the minstrel’s curse. that album goes a bit further in the metal direction, and the guitars are featured more prominently.

sirenia is a norwegian gothic/symphonic metal band founded by morten veland after leaving tristania. i do only know the first two albums of sirenia, so i will just write about these.

sirenia continues the style of early tristania: combining gothic and symphonic metal, with elements from death metal, into an easy digestable, but nonetheless beautiful stream of music. a good example is sister nightfall from their 2002 debut album at sixes and sevens:

two more excellent songs from the same album are on the wane and sixes and sevens. the former is, similar to sister nightfall, fast and catching:

the third song, at sixes and sevens, is more on the symphonic side.

the last song i want to present is seven sirens and a silver tear from their second album, an elixir for existence. a purely instrumental song, mostly piano. a wonderful piece…

communic is a norwegian progressive power metal band, often being compared to nevermore. so after writing about nevermore, communic is a good band to continue with.

the first song i want to present is from their debug album conspiracy in mind and called they feed on our fear. it shows the full spectrum of communic, from melodic, slow, beautiful parts to fast, powerful riffs, progressive elements here and there, and very good singing, somewhat similar to the one by warrel dane of nevermore.

the next two songs are from their second album, waves of visual decay. the first one, frozen asleep in the park, is very dark, sad.

the other one is waves of visual decay.

the last song is unpredictables of life from their 2008 album payment of existence.

today i want to write about nevermore, a seattle-based metal band. while collecting the songs i want to present here, i read that two members left the band a couple of weeks ago, which seems to me as essentially the death of the band. which is bad, since i really like their music.

nevermore combines several different metal styles, like progressive metal, power metal (there is a dispute about this, though), thrash metal, into a melodic stream of music. the lyrics are often centered around political/social topics.

let me begin in the past, with their 1996 ep in memory. the opener of that album is a song called optimist or pessimist.

the optimist understands why the world’s gone down the drain
the pessimist never bends, constricting thoughts in vain
from the pessimist’s point of view there’s nothing we can do
as i paint this picture gray and taste the pain
i’ll play the optimist

the second song, the tiananmen man, is about a man depicted in a famous photo taken during the tiananmen square protests of 1989. (you can see the photo here.) this song is from the the politics of ecstasy album, which also features the song next in line.

the third song is from the concept album dreaming neon black. it tells the story of a man, slowly loosing sanity, who lost a close to some cult. an incredibly emotional song, and so dark. the following song is the title song of the album; in my opinion, this is one of the best songs of nevermore.

sometimes i wonder where you are, can you feel my tears?
i never knew what changed you
did they paint your dreams in pale shades?
i wait for you, you know you cannot hide
division from within invalidates suffering
 
meet me in the dreamtime water, drown
shifting shaping currents flow in memory
(swim through me)
meet me in the drowning pool of tears
and wash away my innocence

released one year after the dreaming neon black album, dead heart in a dead world is another excellent album from nevermore. featuring many great songs, i decided to present you we disintegrate.

i want to present two songs from the enemies of reality album. first, there’s the title song, enemies of reality.

the second song is noumenon, which is rather special. it’s psychedelic, very slow, and dark.

the final song i want to present is from their latest album, the obsidian conspiracy. again, this is the title song. it is fast and heavy.