Iron Maiden via Swedish Lounge Metal

Hellsongs are a “lounge metal” band from Sweden and their covers album “Hymns in the key of 666″ features a plethora of classic metal cuts of which this one, in particular, presently intrigues me. They may skirt the line somewhat when it comes to my “Rules for making great Cover Songs” (the musical link to the original songs can be tenuous at best) but someone in the band is clearly an old school metal fan and Hellsongs brings enough of their own charm to win me over xD.

The Iron Maiden original brings back memories of bad metal covers bands from a misspent youth and the entire album is full of ‘em! If this tickles your fancy be sure to check out the Black Sabbath, Megadeth and Slayer covers. There’s something quite wrong about the way lead singer Harriet Ohlsson sings “frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die” xD. Thanks fOo!

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Leave of Absence

Whoa! Sorry for the prolonged absence, friends. I came down with a severe case of Spore so I’ve been down for the count (and falling asleep at my desk during the day because of it ; ).

I’m back onboard now, though (not that anyone cares) and my NZ music post is back on the agenda xD. Here’s a great cover of “By This River” by Brian Eno (‘the father of ambient music’) from his album “Before and after Science”. (Brian is responsible for the procedural music in Will Wright’s “Spore”.) It’s nice to be reminded why a tune is beautiful after so long.

∞ Random Interest Snippet: Brian Eno is responsible for the Windows 95 startup sound. Brian says: “The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional”, this whole list of adjectives, and then, at the bottom, it said: “and it must be 3¼ seconds long”. I thought this was so funny, and an amazing thought, to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel. In fact, I made eighty-four pieces.”

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