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.

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.

arena is a british progressive rock band i saw live in 2007. here, i want to present four songs from their albums contagion and pepper’s ghost. the first song is never ending night from the 2003 album contagion. its a calm song, already displaying one big feature of arena: beautiful and catchy melodies.

the second song, riding the tide, is an instrumental song from the same album.

the pepper’s ghost album is a concept album, telling a story of five heroes in 19th century london. bedlam fayre is the opener:

the album is ended by a 13 minute song called opera fanatica, including some opera elements. this is one of my favourite arena songs.

today i want to cover parts of the gathering‘s musical history, stretching from their breakthrough album mandylion to the release if_then_else. i used the title “a noise severe” since this is also the name of one of their live dvds, featuring their heavier side.
the first song of the gathering which caught my attention was leaves, which i already presented on spielwiese. it appeared on the mandylion album, which was the first the gathering release with their new singer anneke van giersbergen. leaves is my favourite song from that album (even from all their albums). the album contains many great songs, so it was not easy to decide for another one. in the end, i choose two. the first is sand & mercury, a more heavy tune:

the second is mandylion, an instrumental tune:

their next release was nighttime birds, of which the title track on most surfaces is my favourite piece. its style is similar to the heavier side of the mandylion album.

the next album was very different to the albums released before. very experimental, very progressive, much less metal. it came on two cds, the title track how to measure a planet? filling up 28 minutes of the second cd. a more catchy tune from that album is liberty bell, which comes with a music video:

the last two songs i want to present are from the if_then_else album, released 2000. the first is beautiful war, a nice instrumental track featuring trumpets instead of the usual keyboard.

the last song is saturnine, about someone being left alone. this song made me buy the album; in fact, it was the second i knew after mandylion.

tiamat is a rather versatile swedish band. starting as a death/black metal band, they evolved to a gothic/doom rock/metal band with heavy progressive and/or psychedelic influences, producing a wide range of music which is sometimes not even near to metal anymore.

let me start with two wonderful instrumental, experimental tracks. the first is planets from their famous album wildhoney, from which i already presented gaia on spielwiese:

the second is sumer by night from their album judas christ:

while often playing with such instrumental, almost psychedelic parts, they also play various types of metal. a very easy going song is brighter than the sun from their album skeleton skeletron, which is almost a bit like popular music, wouldn’t it be so dark, so black:

any color you like as long as it’s black
you could have anything if you just give it back

two other songs i like a lot are cain and ten thousand tentacles, next to each other on the album prey. they are best listened to one after another, as ten thousand tentacles is an instrumental continuation of the ending of cain. a very fascinating piece of music.

another song from the same album, the pentagram, with lyrics taken from a poem by aleister crowly, is a very calm song. it’s pretty long, and contains many beautiful instrumental soundscapes.

finally, here’s a track from tiamat‘s newest album, anathemes, called katarraktis apo aima (greek for a waterfall of blood).