today i want to present dark suns, a progressive metal band from leipzig, germany. they started with playing very melodic, progressive doom metal for their album swanlike, then changed over to a more emotional, less doomy style without death growls for their album existence, while finally changing to a emotional progressive metal style for their latest album grave human genuine. their second album, existence, is one of my most favourite albums.

let me start with a song from their first album, swanlike. a slow, doomy song, yet so beautiful, melodic. parts with death growls, parts with clean vocals. a wonderful mix.

the second song is the last song from swanlike. starting almost ambient, the song is divided into two parts. the first four minutes are rather calm, while the second half is more heavy, similar to the sun beyond your eden. the end, again, is calm, like the beginning. a song full of beauty.

the next three songs are from their second album, existence. no death growls to be found here. the first song is called the euphoric sense.

the second song is anemone, one of my favourite songs from that album.

the third song is patterns of oblivion, featuring a variety of styles.

the existence album is really one of the best albums i know of. the last song i want to present is from their latest album, grave human genuine, called the chameleon defect. the whole album is different from the previous two; i personally prefer the first two albums. this song is a mixture between many calm parts and some heavy, fast parts. it also comes with a video, called the chameleon conflict. the video reminds me of certain david lynch movies…

clawfinger is a swedish rap metal band. in fact, they are one of the first band combining rap with metal. i already presented one of their most famous songs, nigger, on spielwiese. the first song i want to present here is two sides, a very critical song on religion.

the second song is biggest & the best, about a completely self possessed person.

there were two more songs i wanted to embed, which unfortunately cannot be embedded. they are both from the a whole lot of nothing album. the first is burn in hell, a song about someone whose god is money. the last song is vienna, a cover of a ultravox song. the clawfinger cover is one of my favourite clawfinger songs.

timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus (timo rautiainen & the headshot trio) was a finnish metal band, having five members despite their name, led by timo rautiainen. usually they made songs in finnish, with two exceptions. a friend convinced timo to make an album in german, called in frostigen tälern (in frozen valleys), and later the band produced a second album in german, hartes land (tough land). the german of in frostigen tälern is not very good, making parts of the lyrics somewhat comical, even though they are very serious. the following is a song from the former album. the song is called liebe ohne grenzen (love without boundaries) and tells the story of a farmer, left by his wife and kids, who tries to commit suicide, unsuccessfully.

the next song, fernfahrer (long-haul truck driver), is about a truck driver, stranded far away from home, his driver licence apparently taken away, thinking about his wife, his kids, and the new husband of his wife.

the third song, also from the same album, is called russlands waisen (russia’s orphans).

the next two songs are from the second album in german, hartes land. the first is hartes land, a song on the death of a father, which means that his property is split up among his two sons. one gets the house, the other the frozen land, the beloveth land. listen to its sound.

the last song is zeit der steigenden säfte, about the crazy son of a couple. mocked by the others, and finally taken away.

(the strings were played by eicca toppinen of apocalyptica.)