scroogles

Re: New Purchases/Acquisitions Ensiferum, Unsung Heroes. I know I'm probably well behind most people on this forum, but it's worth a mention - totally bonkers!

Re: Femininity and Sexuality in Metal @Strategos - although, you might want to check out this little Japanese outfit for female guitarists...

Re: Meat Loaf Ahhhhhh, guys! How can you be saying this? A true legend of hard rock - where would the operatic side of metal be without the Steinman/Loaf combination? Btw, I'd have loved to have been there when the man in question was christened: "So, Mr. and Mrs. Loaf, what have you decided to name your child?"

Re: Femininity and Sexuality in Metal Hey, ladies and gents - absolutely fascinating! Sorry I've been away for a little while (holidays!)... @Strategos - that's really interesting about the pervasive nature of female sexuality throughout history. The reason I wanted to highlight the role of religion when it comes to female sexuality was the relevance of messianic religious themes to metal, in particular gothic metal (in which I would certainly count bands like Cradle of Filth et al.). There's overwhelming focus on notions of "dark" and "light", which - while not necessarily Christian - are central to religious ideas of morality. But it's really interesting to see how far back all this goes! @Murph - definitely. In that respect, metal's no different from any other walk of life, but I for one would like to see heavy metal - especially the sub-strands and genres within it - which has so often been the champion of diversity and individuality take a really revolutionary stance on the issue. Which it doesn't. At least not usually. @Iceni - true, that, and it'd be wrong to tar all musical genres with the same brush. I just really wanted to draw attention to the issue of femininity and sexuality, in particular.

Re: Femininity and Sexuality in Metal I see you guys' points on the issue of sexual promiscuity and temptation in religious values. But, that said, there's been a very, very long history of specific demonisation (perhaps literally!) of female sexuality as something inherently deviant and dangerous. Of course, fully-blown expressions of male lust were never valued highly either, but there has often been an idea that a main part of the problem was women leading men astray. You'll search the bible in vain for direct references to this idea, I'd guess, but in the popular religious mentality, it's always been common and, as I said before, is firmly rooted in many of the fundamental ideas behind with witchcraft. @Strategos - you're right, of course, about female-fronted bands. Metal's very much a mixed bag, but the rise of the frontwoman has been a massively valuable phenomenon. It's probably not a coincidence that some of the bands that most aggressively pursue ideas of provocative and manipulative female sexuality (CoF, being a particularly good example) are male fronted (although my other original example, Silentium, would be an exception here).

This has been something bugging me for ages, so I thought I'd see what the opinion was. Open sexuality (and sensuality) has been expressed by particularly darker metal bands to provide a harsh, risqué edge their work, and helps conjure visions of carnal lust and uncontrolled, sinful passion. More importantly, it seems to be seen as a way of steering morality away from the old Christian values of chastity and sexual modesty. Based on this, a lot is made of womanhood in the symbolism and imagery – both in lyrics and in images themselves – of dark metal genres. In particular, the image of the female temptress, with deep sexual passions and wielding massive power (especially over men) as a result, has been used extensively. Thinking back to the likes of Cradle of Filth’s Nymphetamine, or Silentium’s Seducia, this involves a sweetly-voiced female protagonist singing sexually alluring words to her helpless male counterpart. On the one hand, this acknowledges female sexuality in a way which traditional social attitudes refused to do. It can be understood as a fairly modern phenomenon in the sense of making female sexuality a visible issue, rather than leaving hidden. On the other hand, the idea of the temptress is a very, very old one. It was key, for example, to the medieval witch hunts, and revolves not around the idea that women have moral equality in their sexuality to men, but, in fact, the total opposite: that they are prone to uncontrolled sexual passions which make them dangerous to men and, in moral terms, make themselves particularly vulnerable to sin. In re-establishing this vision of the temptress to portray ideas of sexuality, metal bands are not being anywhere near as risqué or cutting edge as they might think they are. In fact, they’re being totally regressive. Even though this is portrayed in a glorified manner, treating female sexuality woman as a sinful, uncontrollable lust robs it of its moral legitimacy in exactly the same way as traditional, religious attitudes do: men wanting sex are acting in a normal and reasonable way; women wanting the same thing are dangerous and unpredictable. Sorry for the mini essay, but I wanted to bounce these ideas off you guys quickly. What do you think? Am I right, or have I misinterpreted this whole thing?

It's been a while, so I thought, how about another novel of an album review? This time it's a curious little one from Japan. Enjoy! Symphonic Moon. That’s a violinist flashing their arse, right? Well, if you’re as puerile as I am, prepare to be swiftly put in your place. Symphonic Moon is actually the title of the latest record by Swedish-born, Japanese/Korean/Polish symphonic metal sensation, Liv Moon. She and her band of the rising sun might not have been going for too long, but, since starting out in 2009, they’ve churned out almost as many albums as Liv has passports, consistently releasing one a year. This is 2012’s contribution, and it might just be that rare sparkle you can’t do without. This being my first proper taste of Far Eastern metal, you might have thought I’d struggle to work out a whole album. Lucky for me, then, that this in no way qualifies as an “album”. What we have here is a pile of songs, many of which have so little in common with each other that they could have been assembled in literally any order. And so they have been. 12 tracks bubble excitedly from the speakers with all the coherence of a bag of pick-n-mix sweets, from brightly-coloured, tangy rocks of power-prog, to dark, swirled clusters of symphonic matter. Arriving at the final song, what small degree of cohesion existed is finally destroyed by a burlesque-themed marshmallow of a track with so little to do with any of its predecessors it that it could have dropped clean out of the sky. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the producers giggling impishly to themselves. Yup, it’s certainly bonkers. But anyone hoping for a metal revolution is in for a disappointment. The strange anomaly of track 12 aside, this is the fairly standard mix of power and symphonic metals that you might find in anywhere from Nightwish and Epica to Sonata Arctica and Rhapsody of Fire. Inevitably, there are hints of cheap imitation. The pelting rhythms and flashy riffs which dominate track 9, the foremost example of Liv Moon’s power metal style, entitled The Last Savior, are musically impressive but come as standard across that genre. The chorus of the album’s first full-blooded symphonic metal track, Alchemy, features rhythms and chord progressions that will be so hauntingly familiar to fans of Nightwish, that you might just start mumbling the lyrics of Amaranth to yourself. On closer inspection, however, the Liv Moon have been able to stamp their own distinctive marks all over this record. A lot of this can be traced back to the phenomenon of Visual Kei, a Japanese craze which inspires its followers to dress up as Anime caricatures of figures everything from pirates and the living dead to the deceased court of Louis XVI. And while you won’t find Liv Moon at the top of any Wikipedia lists of Visual Kei outfits (at least, I didn’t), there’s more than a touch of this expressive Japanese mania in the garishly dressed outfits and seductive facial expressions of the album cover. European metal has its fair share of strangely dressed fellows, from face-masks to spike-studded boots, but to my modest fashion consciousness, the absurdity of this Japanese style easily tops the lot. In the absence of serious personal interest in this trend, the only thing left for a majority of metal fans will be to submit to the madness. And the band’s music certainly helps this cause. Liv’s vocalisation is, quite literally, sugar and spice. Between softly-spoken interludes, her impressive vocal range fluctuates between syrupy sweetness in the bubbly Amen! and The Last Savior, and fiery passion in Kiss Me Kill Me, Shingetsuse, and Datenshino Emi. Her unique vocal chords flit around arcing melodic lines, providing colour to playful fairytale lyrics. When they’re dark, they’re naughty: “Take off the ring/Take off my clothes/Dance with me now” (Kiss Me Kill Me); when they’re mysterious, they’re true toyland: “Among the fancy clowns and grinning princes/I’m trapped inside a lonely masquerade” (Masquerade). Orchestral accompaniment offers another outlet for this bubbling folly, ranging from the massive string and brass ensembles featured in Black Serenade, to the whimsical hide-and-seek of plucked strings and woodwind in Masquerade and Fugitive (if you want to know what a fairy being chased by a butterfly net sounds like, check out the bizarre, glittering orchestral fills in this song). But all the pixie-dust in the work still couldn’t prevent a lingering sense of the music’s tackiness. The booming orchestral extravaganza that the band employ can be so overpowering that it hinders the development of musical themes. In particular, tracks 7, Black Serenade, and 9, The Last Savior, feature such dense musical textures throughout that almost no room is left for crescendos into rip-roaring choruses. A seeming lack of discipline also afflicts the vocals, where Liv’s spectacular extravagance often borders on the absurd. By track 9, as the Japanese singer pelts out “Saviour’s coming”, it becomes clear that excessive vibrato and screeching pitch are not the only problems afflicting the vocal lines. All too often, English lyrics sound what they are, literally foreign. On the one hand, the phrasing of lyrics often doesn’t quite work: see, for example, the seemingly unfinished lyric in Kiss Me Kill Me, “How can I change/Who can change me/No one can do”. At the same time, Liv’s Japanese tone just fails to capture the English sounds. In Kiss Me Kill Me, “Dance with me now” becomes “Dance wiss me now”, while “throw the dice” in Alchemy turns into “srow the dice”. As unwarranted as this attack on English pronunciation might seem, it should serve to highlight an important point: Liv Moon are a band which are best when unhindered by the expectations of others’ musical styles. Immediately noticeable, for example, is how much more comfortable the band’s Japanese lyrics sound than the English, giving full expression to what is a superb vocal talent. Between mouthfuls of Jasmine tea and uninformed mutterings of “those Japanese”, we might like, therefore, to ponder the some more of the band’s successes. There are a number of peculiarities with the record, which bring various influences to the fore. In particular, this includes the stylings of modern film music. The impact of film soundtracks on metal has been enormous, from the cataclysmic orchestral landscapes of film scores providing inspiration to bands seeking similarly formidable sounds, to film composers stepping in to orchestrate for bands directly (a good example would be Norwegian composer, Gaute Storås, who has arranged orchestral scores for Dimmu Borgir). The booming orchestras of Symphonic Moon are used to create exactly such cinematic landscapes, in particular through the regal, sloping orchestral lines of Kiss Me Kill Me, Shingetsuse, and Datenshino Emi. Meanwhile, intricate, flickering melodies which run above these deep harmonies replicate the best tradition of the classic film score. In the final track, Masquerade, French horns which would hardly have been out of place in a James Bond movie enter, giving a wholly cinematic feel to the occasion. But while these booming orchestras may suggest the influence of European cinema music, the film scores that seem to have given most to Liv Moon seem to me to have been those of the Japanese filmmakers, Studio Ghibli, and, in particular, legendary Japanese composer, Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi has developed a two-pronged approach to his music, which involves bold and majestic strings, on the one hand, and soft, misty textures full of intrigue, on the other. These distinct sounds are recreated on numerous occasions in Symphonic Moon, perhaps most noticeably in Kiss Me Kill Me, when, towards the song’s climax, all instruments but for orchestral strings are dropped from the ensemble. Powerful violins, superbly exploiting the song’s 6:8 time signature, drive forward with a majestic waltz which could have been spun straight from the production floor of Howl’s Moving Castle. In the following song, Koorino Hitsugi, misty strings and dense, foggy brass cloud music in a damp, mysterious fog, which returns in track 11, the instrumental Interlude by the Ruin. All of these little innovations make Symphonic Moon a unique and thoroughly enjoyable experience. Liv Moon have a fascinating sound, and have been able to make such effective use of their considerable talent that they almost obscure all the blatant shortcomings which plague this record. But only almost. The unrestrained exuberance which persists throughout gives rise to wild vocal wailings and lavish use of orchestral tones, creating a sense of complete musical indiscipline. This can only partly be explained away as a manifestation of the band’s openly playful approach to their music. More disappointing are barely-disguised efforts to replicate the established sounds of European metal, at the expense of the band’s own distinct style. But when you can simply skip from one track to the next, there’s always the temptation to ignore these flaws. In this freeform collection of songs, it’s probably best to pick and choose. Select your favourites, power up the volume, and embrace the moon! Score: 68/100

Re: Film Soundtracks I really don't like scifi, but if you compare it to crap like Promethius, it's an absolute classic!

Re: Film Soundtracks One really, really good recent one, actually, is the soundtrack to Moon. I think the film was released around 2009, and was directed by David Bowie's estranged son. It's worth a watch, too!

Re: Film Soundtracks The Dark Knight soundtrack was done by Hans Zimmer, who has also composed the soundtracks to Gladiator, one of the PotC films, Inception, and - amongst other things - the Simpsons! I'm not familiar with it personally, but you always know what you'll get from him: massive, deep sound, with powerful string and brass sections. I've not yet come across a bad soundtrack that he's done.

As a fan of symphonic and orchestral styles of metal, I also frequently enjoy whacking on the soundtracks from films. They're expressive, flowing pieces of music which capture a number of moods perfectly, and probably have a lot more influence on metal than you might think. After all, the guys who arrange orchestral backing the metal acts often have the same style of training and musical background to film composers. Feel the same? And which soundtracks do you guys tend to go towards? Here's a brief selection of my favourites: Pirates of the Caribbean (terrible, terrible films, but I try not to think about that ) Inception Lord of the Rings The soundtrack to the original Medal of Honor game

Re: Liv Moon?! Thanks, gus - I really think that was the answer I was looking for

Re: Liv Moon?! I dunno - judging by their style they have a bit of Nightwish/Sonata Arctica sort of stuff in them. I'll give Visual K a check, though. About time to expand my Japanese repetoir!

Messing around on youtube, I found a very interesting and (by my standards) unusual Japanese group/artist called Liv Moon. If you don't know anything about them, they're sort of girl-fronted, symphonic power-goth. If anyone does know anything about them, though, maybe you guys might be able to fill me in - what's their background, following, etc.?

Re: CRAP ALBUMS THAT YOU LIKE Nah, don't bother with that, Murph - I'll post my contact details on here for everyone to see and you can send them all on to me!