Avantasia - Draconian Love

If there is one takeaway from this blog it is this: Avantasia is the greatest music act in the world today.

I love a lot of bands but few have I reviewed five times, in fact I believe Avantasia takes the lead now with this new review. I have been devotedly following Tobias Sammet’s career ever since I discovered the Lost in Space LPs, the teaser before the launch of “The Scarecrow” album, and as such I have reviewed every album as they came out since then. This year, 2016, Tobias released the seventh studio Avantasia album “Ghostlights,” naturally I feel like I should talk about it.

There is one downside to falling in love, everything else seems less special. I fell in love with “The Scarecrow” and “The Wicked Symphony,” I still regularly listen to those albums and I cannot honestly say that about the other four albums predating “Ghostlights.” It is important that we understand that, “Angel of Babylon,” “The Mystery of Time,” and the original “Metal Opera” albums are all really good, it is just that everything, and I mean basically everything, in all of creation, pales in comparison to “The Scarecrow” and “The Wicked Symphony.” So really… no matter how good “Ghostlights” turned out to be I would always compare it to those two titan albums and be at least partially unimpressed.

Tobias Sammet, still earth's greatest
song writer.

“So how is ‘Ghostlights?’” You might ask me. It is really good.

The wonderful adventure of Avantasia has been such a joyous journey (to Arcadia) that there is really only so much more Tobias can do to allow it to feel original. The continue addition of new guest singers is a perpetual development that helps keep things fresh but surely Tobais is slowly, but surely, running out of heroes to invite to his super group.

Similar to “The Mystery of Time,” “Ghostlights” appears to have a fantasy/science fiction theme involving once again time as focal point, and once again, most wisely, Tobias has left the story open enough for individualized interpretation. The similarities to “Mystery of Time” are in fact so great that it turns out this new album is meant to be the conclusion of that story.

I really like the first two tracks on the album “Mystery of a Blood Red Rose” and “Let the Storm Descend Upon You” and for exact opposite reasons.

I really like “Mystery of a Blood Red Rose” because there is no guest singer and it is one of the very few tracks in the Avantasia library where Tobias sings alone. It gives the creator of the whole thing a chance to truly shine and it is a really good song. 

Mystery Of a Blood Red Rose

  

I really like “Let the Storm Descend Upon You” because it has the most guest singers of any song on the album, including Jorn Lande, Ronnie Atkins, and Robert Mason. A twelve-minute epic that does in fact descend us into a storm of music that is the album itself. 

Let the Storm Descend Upon You

 

I have thought long and hard about which song to focus on and after four hundred and ninty-three words of introduction I think I have settled on “Draconian Love.”

“Draconian Love” opens with a nice piano that segues into the rhythm section, and is joined mostly by the haunting tone of Herbie Langhans’ voice repeating what will become the chorus:

“You shed draconian love.”

It is an effective chorus and tells us basically all we need to know about the metaphor for this song. Draconian, meaning dragon like, shedding its love, not dissimilar to not a snake molting, shedding its skin. Dragon love, sure that works, and evidently it is fleeting, or peeling if you will.

“Draconian Love” is a song of peaks and valleys as far as volume and intensity fluctuate. The verses are somber and gentle in tempo, meanwhile whenever the chorus hits everything picks up with the drums rising before every instrument strikes all at once and Tobias and Herbie sing with spite and anger. We get the full gambit of emotion with a sense of rising tension as we near the song’s climax. Before the last repetition of the chorus we are met with our greatest contrast; every instrument goes silent except for the keyboard and Herbie both being their quietest during this song, then when the last chorus opens it crashes into us with the greatest of intensity.

This contrast in sound is also a contrast of emotion, the verses are sad and lonely grieving over lost love. The chorus is a fury demanding to know “where are you now?”

Herbie Langhans.

One last thing to note is just how good Herbie is on “Draconian Love.” Which raises the question that you might ask me, “who is Herbie Langhans?” Honestly? I have no idea. This is actually why “Draconian Love” won out in the end for my song of focus, because it brings forth this paragraph of discussion. Apparently, Herbie is part of Sinbreed, Symphonity, Beyond the Bridge and Whispers in Crimson, four bands I have never heard of before, though he appears to be most famous for his work with Seventh Avenue, another band I have never heard of before.

This is one of the greatest things about Avantasia however. I had never heard of Bob Catley or Magnum before “The Story Ain’t Over.” I had never heard of Ronnie Atkins or Pretty Maids before “Invoke the Machine.” Amazingly I had never heard of Michael Kiske or Helloween before “Another Angel Down.” I had heard of Jorn Lande and Masterplan, before I heard “Promised Land” but still, you see my point. How I have Herbie Langhans and Seventh Avenue, and apparently, a bunch of other bands, to go and discover now, and if they are even half as good as the bands and artist mentioned above then my life is about to be immeasurably enriched once more.

The moral of the story is “Ghostlights” along with it’s predecessor “The Mystery of Time” cannot compete with “The Scarecrow” and “The Wicked Symphony” but they are fantastic nonetheless. The awesome adventure that is Avantasia continues and they are still the greatest musical act in the world, and I will never, ever, understand why it is so difficult for me to get more people to listen to them.

- King of Braves

Ghost - Square Hammer

I really like Nuclear Blast Records. They produce a majority of my favorite active bands and I keep discovering new artist I love through Nuclear Blast’s website and youtube channel. One band that kept popping up in my recommendation feed recently was a Swedish band simply called Ghost, and after having multiple songs thrown my way I decided that I really liked the song “He Is.”

This is where I would normally start talking about the song mentioned in the opening paragraph, but “He Is” may have to wait for another day for a review, because there is another song that boldly stood out to me.

I made a number of really interesting friends when I travelled to Europe several years ago and they really paid off as facebook friends, as it turns out I have a lot in common with the random cool dudes I met in Hamburg. One was a fellow Canadian working in the United Kingdom, whom recently, shared Ghost’s “Square Hammer.” I am so thankful he shared that song, I love it. The moral of the story it is wise to make friends, presumably for a lot reasons, but one of those reasons is discovering more awesome music.

Before we go any further I should give Ghost a proper introduction because they are a complicated entity. Coming from the Daft Punk School of wishing to keep their identities secret, everyone in the band is dressed completely in costume of their fictional entities. The lead singer is called Papa Emeritus and he wears full face paint that resembles a skull and is often deck out in the mock attire of a satanic version of the Vatican’s pope, so yeah, that is pretty intense. The other five members of the band all wear ghoul masks and are literally referred to as “Nameless Ghouls” and are only identifiable by the unique alchemy signs they wear representing the five elements of fire, water, earth, air and ether. Hey remember when people thought ether was a thing? That’s some old school archaic science. 

Papa Emeritus and the Nameless Ghouls

There are a few advantages to hiding your identity the way the band members of Ghost have. The first is that it forces the audience and listeners to focus less on the men behind the craft and more on the actual art itself.

Another advantage is turnover; a lot of European bands have experienced major issues with band turnover. If no one knows who any of the band members are, then replacing them can go largely unnoticed and theoretically not harm or change the style of the band and its music in any meaningful way. The band Ghost, claim they have had a different Papa Emeritus on every album thus far, totaling three. The fictional reasons behind the replacements has to do with Emeritus the first and second failing to destroy churches and promote Satan effectively, which as I type out, sounds ridiculous, but hey Ghost are playing Satanist so that’s what we get. Rumor is that it has been the same Papa Emeritus this whole time and Ghost is just joking with us claiming they have ran through three lead singers and since we do not know the real identity of anyone in the band we cannot confirm or deny the validity of this claim.

Another interesting rumor is that Dave Grohl was one of the ghouls on one of the tours, just for a goof, since you know, Dave Grohl is kind of a lovable goof and that is the sort of thing he would do.

Now let us return to “Square Hammer.”

The song “Square Hammer” is a very catchy song, and when I first heard it I found myself bobbing my head along and let every hook catch unto to me. I read somewhere that Ghost were heavily influenced by Iron Maiden and that I think is a fair comparison, the base line gallops like Steve Harris, and two lead/rhythm guitars is arguably the greatest charm of later days Iron Maiden music and is mimicked in nature by the band Ghost. As an intense lover of string instruments, having three guitars filling the sound of the melody and harmony is something I also love. “Square Hammer” is a song I would describe as full and rich, there is very little empty sound in the song, a note or a beat fills every part of the song and is flush at every second from beginning to end, a very alive song.

I did not take particular notice of the lyrics at first few listens but around listen twenty or so I naturally started to memorize the chorus and verses and in that moment I knew just how casually Satanic Ghost was.

“Are you on the square?
Are you on the level?
Are you ready to swear right here, right now,
Before the devil?”

Well that is fun. Despite being so very Satanic, worship of the devil is not something that is forced into the song, it is just there, like it is the most natural thing in the world to bring up swearing before the devil, because for the fictional entities Papa Emeritus and the Nameless Ghouls it is the most natural thing.

Appropriately dramatic.

The video itself is fantastic. I really like Papa Emeritus, I liked his dramatic body language, every gesture he made significant and made me pay greater attention, it was almost like he was a silent film actor, which is appropriate since the video for “Square Hammer” is an ode to the 1920’s German silent film era.

I got the impression the video was a silent film concept but I did not pick up on the smaller details until I showed the video to a friend of mine who is a huge movie buff, upon seeing the opening shot, he says to me “Ah Metropolis.” I had actually seen that one and had to agree with him. He then continued pointing out the 1920’s German silent film references for me, most notably the part where a coffin opens on its own was a direct reference to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

“Hiding from the light,
Sacrificing nothing,
Still you call on me for entrance to the shrine.
Hammering the nails,
Into a sacred coffin,
You call on me for powers clandestine.”

Like I said earlier, it is good to have friends, you can learn a lot about the history of film.

One last thing before I wrap this up. While writing this review, it was a Sunday night I thought I would check and see if Ghost were coming to town anytime soon. Tuesday. Literally two days and they would be in Calgary. So naturally I went. I was excited because I freaking love “Square Hammer” and “He Is,” I had learned a passing familiarity with a few of their other songs but I mostly going into the concert blind, not entirely knowing what to expect. It was a perfect storm of a good time.

My discovery of Ghost was still so fresh that not one second of the show felt slow of mundane, everything was exciting and new to me; most of the songs were new to me anyway. The live performance was masterful with excellent execution. Papa Emeritus had amazing stage presence and all those gesture and body language of quirky interest from the “Square Hammer” video were present on stage. The bits of dialogue were amusing on every imaginable front, curious and humorous and wonderfully casually satanic. When introducing the final song of the night “Monstrance Clock” Emeritus said, “This song is celebrating the female orgasm... in the name of Satan!”

I had a really good time.

It is not every day I get to discover a band like Ghost were literally about them and everything I learn about them I enjoy and crave more. This is indeed a wonderful world we live in where a satanic metal band can be so thoroughly enjoyable.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

P.S.

They won a Grammy:

Priestess - Blood

Priestess is a Montreal based rock and roll band. With all the genres and sub genres of music in the world today a band like Priestess is rather refreshing insofar that they are a straight forward rock band, there are not too many of those nowadays.

In 2005 Priestess released their first album “Hello Master,” an album I am quite fond of. Outside of Norwegian black metal and other more intense metal bands there are not a lot of musings about Satan, but if you examine the overarching theme of “Hello Master” it becomes more and more clear, at least to me, that the “master” in question is probably Satan. However there is nowhere on the album an over indulgence about the lord of darkness and the album’s songs focus on such things as love, violence and death, usual rock and roll fare. The closer “Blood” for example is about a vampire.

“Blood” represents an interesting moment on “Hello Master” as the closer it is literally the final note from the band on this offering, and it is the most unique song on the album as it is structured uniquely different and represents a notable shift in style from all the songs previous. The entire albums sounds somewhat similar to Wolfmother or to a lesser degree Queens of the Stone Age, with inspirations coming from Black Sabath and ACDC, but this last song “Blood” is less clear in what modern and classic inspirations and similarities it shares with other bands. This is probably why I like it so much.

The most popular song off of “Hello Master” has to be “Lay Down” a good rock and roll song. It helps that this song was features in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and this inclusion on this popular video game is the source of the majority of Priestess’ fame, which serves as a double edged sword. By being on Guitar Hero III significantly more people discovered Priestess however few purchased “Hello Master” and even fewer familiarized themselves with the album as a whole.

In 2009 Priestess would release a second album “Prior to the Fire” an album I failed to notice upon release and have to this day never found the time to pick up a copy, only now I have learned my apathy and poverty were only part of the problem preventing me from acquiring a copy. Priestess had a hell of a time finding an international distributor for “Prior to the Fire” as the content was not considered “commercial” enough, it is strange to discover that this is still happening given the deep well of genres and sub genres enjoyed by the international community representing the consumers of the music industry. This problem was exasperated as their local Canadian distributor refused to release the album until they found an international distributor; thus barricading Priestess from any meaningful commercial release or marketing.

There is a high level of mystery how surrounding the existence of Priestess and they appear to have more or less disbanded at this time; they are calling it a hiatus, but I am not so sure I believe them. Unknown and un-discussed problems in the band prevented them from committing to a European tour and the producing of a third album. While I hope Priestess can return on day, it has been eight years and I am dubious of their musical future.

Returning to the song “Blood” there are few lyrics to dissect but we a presented with a short narrative that tells of a lady vampire seducing a mortal man with some hesitation, possibly because of love, after all we have romanticized vampires to extraordinary lengths in modern fiction. The second verse appears to have a reversal in narrative as it is now describing the human’s side of the relationship as someone urges him to slay the lady vampire via a stake through the heart, as failing to do so would only allow her to further control and dominate him, presumably leading to his death.

It is short and it is simple.

I like the lyrics, and I like the juxtaposition of the two narrative forces; one warning of the dangers of the human and the other warning of the danger of the vampire. It is charming and clever. However it is the strong base line and punching drums that really give “Blood” its kick. It is instantly identifiable as its own unique entity in music from the very first note and is unforgettably catchy.

I honestly expected Priestess to do a lot in times gone by and it is sad to see that they have fizzled out of existence, and will unlikely ever create any new material but alas we can rest comfortably knowing that at the least we got “Hello Master” and songs like “Blood.”

- King of Braves

Covenant - Brave New World

Let us return to that kitchen prep hall I mentioned in the last review, where my younger brother and I are listening to a lot of HIM and that one song by The Kovenant, among other things. We were in a used record store buying used CDs, as was the custom back then when people still listened to CDs. My younger brother decided, entirely on a whim, to buy an album by Covenant titled “Northern Light.” The Kovenant, spelled with a “K” was unknown to us back then, we thought it was the same band and even though neither one of us could identify a single song on the album my kid brother, adventurous as he is, decided to pick it up.

We loved it.

You see, we were also listening to a lot of VNV Nation in that prep hall and Sweden’s electronic band Covenant, spelt with a “C,” is a fine contributor to that whole music scene. We were a little thrown off at the clear difference in style compared to “Mirror’s Paradise” by Kovenant, and it took a year or so before we discovered the small, but important spelling difference.

I had thought this mix up was a silly mistake made exclusively by the two of us, but no, apparently this was actually a big thing. Kovenant, of Norway, used to be Covenant but were sued and forced to change their name to “The” Covenant, but that did not work either because there was already a Dutch metal band called The Covenant, because of course there was, so The Kovenant was the final name for the Norwegian metal band discussed in the last review.

Nonetheless Covenant, the Swedish one, and their 2002 fifth studio album “Northern Light” was enjoyed among one half of the Kelly brothers so much that my same kid brother went out and got their at the time new album “Skyshaper.”

We loved it.

“Skyshaper” came out in 2006, and holy shit, that was eleven years ago, where has the time gone.

I really enjoyed songs like “Call the Ships to Port,” “We Stand Alone,” and “Invisible and Silent,” off of “Northern Light” so it seemed doubtful that a better offering of music could have been put forward by the Swedish electronic band, but Covenant delivered with “Skyshaper.” From the fantastic opening of “Ritual Noise” to the satisfying ending of “The World is Growing Loud” a more or less perfect electronic album exists. There are a great couple of humours, but somewhat introspective songs like “Happy Man” and “The Men.” More than anything the track that stood out to me was “Brave New World.”

As someone who makes the effort to read a lot, my natural instinct when someone utters the words “Brave New World” is to make a connection to Aldous Huxley. In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” technology has made it possible for people to be produced in labs and everyone is sedated into numb happiness. That is not what is being described in the song by Covenant.

The “Brave New World” the idea, the term, the expression, has become a vague colloquialism to broadly mean “the future.” Much like how “Utopia,” which is Greek for “nowhere,” and Thomas More was attempting to describe a civilization that was the total opposite of English society, but now the word is thought to describe paradise; Huxley’s “Brave New World” now simple means a radical, often assumed, technologically advanced, super society. This is the “Brave New World” which we are engaging when listening to Covenant; Covenant’s “Brave New World” is the promised land.

“Where is the promised land?
Where is the brave new world?
Where do all dreams go when they die?
Oh, we can move the streets today.”

Covenant in this song is describing the disappointment and the surprise that the future world is not what was expected, it is not paradise, it is not brave or new, or really anything to be thrilled about. The future just ain’t what it used to be.

There is a verse describing growing isolation:

“The lights are fading out,
Before our eyes.
We lose each other,
And we celebrate the peace.”

Another describing a lost sense of purpose:

“Our lives are changing,
Faster than we think.
We flow like dancers,
Crashing in the dark.”

And another about pollution, physical and psychological, very topical:

“Another morning broken,
Shattered sheets of lead.
Clouds the size of oceans,
Inside and above our heads.”

There are not many words outside of the three verses listed above. The chorus repeats many times, asking the same three questions and no answer is ever given to the rhetoric. It feels very natural for a song of the nature and style of “Brave New World” to be repetitive; it is an electronic song and as such indulges into the hypnotic and atmospheric sounds. The “celebrated” beat is naturally both catchy and symbolically able to lull the listener into a complacent state of relaxed acceptance.

I would argue that the overall symbolism of this song is mild, but the sound is wonderful and attractive, and that is such a fine offer of art it leaves so little to demand more. The fact that there is anything of a conversation of value put forth is encouraging in its own right, Covenant could have elected to be a purely instrument/synthesised band but they elected to enrich their music, and us the listeners, with little drops of poetry, and in the end that is pretty much exactly what we all want in our music.

That random purchase by younger brother really worked out for the best.

Until next month keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

The Kovenant - Mirror's Paradise

My younger brother and I worked together in the kitchens for many years and we often found ourselves working the prep hall and listening to CDs, because people still listened to CDs back then. We both really enjoyed the music from the CKY soundtrack which was mostly songs by Finnish love metal band HIM, but there were other tracks we really enjoyed like Kovenant’s “Mirror’s Paradise.”

We must have listened to “Mirror’s Paradise” hundreds of times back then, and then as my music collection grew and grew the song was half lost in my now nearly ten thousand song playlist on my computer. It came up on random the other day, and for probably the first time in five years I heard “Mirror’s Paradise” and thought of my kid brother, those prep halls, and everything else that ran with my memories and those times.

It has been over a decade since I discovered “Mirror’s Paradise” and I surprise myself how I had never looked any deeper into Kovenant, and to this day I have barely heard an album’s worth of their tracks. Who are Kovenant?

Kovenant are a Norwegian black metal band, I probably could have guessed that, what from the screaming and everything; classic Norway.

To date they have released four studio album, with “Mirror’s Paradise” appearing as the first track on their third 1999 album “Animatronic.” They managed a fourth studio album release in 2003 but have been largely inactive since then. I would have suspected the band had dissolved but apparently there is still talk about producing a new album and the band claims Kovenant is still a thing. I have not had the time to dig up the details but it appears that fan reception to change was negative enough to really upset some of the members of Kovanent. Where they darker heavier before? I do not yet know.

If I am being perfectly honest about it, as I go through the various songs on youtube by Kovanent, I like them, but I do not love them. Nothing compares to “Mirror’s Paradise.”

Perhaps it was the right song presented to me at the right time in my life but “Mirror’s Paradise” is the sort of song I will never get tired of and could listen to every day for the rest of my life.

If you look at the other one-hundred ninety one reviews on this blog you will see that I like European metal a lot but I have little to no love for the “black” metal scene. The raw growling of a Gwar or the screeching of Cradle of Filth is a little too much for me. As someone who loves the melody of vocals these... interpretations of singing; and I use that word with its most liberal meaning imaginable; largely fail to be used effectively as a melody.

Someone on the track “Mirror’s Paradise” is doing their best Dani Filth impersonation. Ten plus years ago I did not think, or perhaps have the means, to look up who was singing on this track, but I always thought it might have featured that demon singer from Cradle of Filth, checking now I can find no such evidence suggesting so. What distinguishes “Mirror’s Paradise” from other extreme metal songs is the stoic and deep voice that sings the chorus, this strange notion that we should be able to decipher the words is present. I also really like the female harmony vocals. The overall final product is a more symphonic experience, which is exactly what I like.

The song “Mirror’s Paradise” still feels very demonic in sound and theme, but the lyrics reveal that true meaning of the song is an anti-religious one. This song is an aggressive song about how there is no after-life.

“How can you love it...
How can you believe it...
How can you need it...
When there’s nothing there?”

There is a very strong movement in Norwegian black metal towards Satanism, but there is an even stronger movement in Norway in the general population towards atheism and agnosticism, so I cannot feign even the smallest surprise that a Norwegian metal band would so directly and forcefully sing about the horrid nightmare of having all your dreams of an afterlife spirited away from you when you close your eyes for the last time.

It is a dark take on the subject, but reality is a brutal uncompromising beast with zero consideration for our emotions, and a if we wish to be honest in our philosophies about life and death we will have to weigh the overwhelming probable certainty that Kovanent are correct and there is literally nothing waiting for us when we take our great leap into the dark.

“You smile... but it’s all despair.
You love... but there’s nothing there.”

So when we pause to take “Mirror’s Paradise” as a whole there is so much more than just sound and fury of their black metal origins, but an emotional and thoughtful truth being thrust forward to our ears and hopefully our minds. It is typical that a metal song should be about death, but “Mirror’s Paradise” evokes something a little more than raw death, it challenges the uncomfortable notion that we can cheat death; it demands a look at our true morality, and all that we are, one day ends. You can see why this song has stayed with me over all this time.

- King of Braves

Electric Youth & College - A Real Hero

They say history repeats itself, and in many ways they are right. Musically they are right.

There are a lot of reasonable explanations as to why trends and fads from the past can become popular again but I suspect the most powerful motivation is nostalgia. Young people are very impressionable, and your first love will typically carry greater weight on your heart then the loves that follow, and again I am talking about music here. So when people grow up and become creative persons there is often a very powerful urge to embrace the sorts of sounds and songs they adored when they were young, and this is probably why every decade has a resurgence approximately twenty or thirty years after the fact. If you do some quick math you should be quick to realize I am currently talking about the eighties.

The eighties were a different time, but I suppose all times are different from all other times when you think about it, anyway the eighties was a strange animal. Glam rock had influenced hair bands, garish bright neon colors were the new black, but so was black, metal music was born, and pop music entered its golden age. I was there; I was alive during the eighties, I was too young to fully appreciate how important Guns N Roses or Def Leppard would become, I just thought they were cool dudes, with cool music, and I had a cool T-shirt of them, and it is interesting to think I witnessed the whole gambit of their careers over my lifetime, but I am not the only one, my whole generation went through this together and it affected us; the eighties is our decade of nostalgia, whether we like it or not.

The eighties are popular again and this is no surprise, it has been thirty years past and artist now in their thirties are looking back to their childhoods and remember how much fun they had back then. Edguy’s last album “Space Police” was adverted as “more eighties than the eighties ever were” and Tobias Sammet made a serious effort to prove that claim true. Tegan and Sara’s recent album release “Love You to Death” is embracing the eighties style in a big way. It is sort of weird those two acts are the first examples I think of to prove this point, but the point still stands.

I think I should finally get to the point, another place we have seen a return and an embrace to the eighties is cinema, and since this is a music blog I should probably focus on soundtracks.

In recent years a handful of movies have stood out to me as very eighties, not just set in the eighties but embracing eighties themes and style. I am very fond of movies like “Nightcrawler,” “It Follows,” and the “Maniac” remark, all of which were very eighties and had really strong eighties inspired soundtracks. I also enjoyed the comedic “Turbo Kid” and “Kung Fury” but those movies while comparably eighties are in a whole other category of their own. Most importantly is the movie “Drive,” not only is this the best movie of all the films I just mentioned but it also has the best soundtrack and the best single song we could pull from this collection, Electric Youth & College’s “A Real Hero.”

Bronwyn Griffin and Austin
Garrick; Electric Youth.

Electric Youth is a musical duo from Toronto, where basically Bronwyn Griffin sings and Austin Garrick plays the synthesizer and drums.

College is one of many projects by David Grellier, who for as far as I know, functions similarly to Austin Garrick as far as purpose and function when it came to the collaborative creation that is “A Real Hero.”

“A Real Hero” is so convincingly eighties that I struggled to believe that is was a new song when I first heard it. Clearly very careful consideration and deliberation was invested in the selection of sounds that creates the rhythm section of this song, I would suspect a time machine was used, but time machines are not a thing still... thanks Obama.

But, what is “A Real Hero” about?

My first instinct was always to tie it to the movie “Drive,” and I always suspected the course had a direct meaning to Ryan Gosling’s character;

“And you, have proved, to be,
A real human being,
And a real hero.”

Ryan Gosling in "Drive."

Ryan Gosling effectively plays a sociopath in “Drive.” His lack of empathy comes across more stoic than anything else, but there is an uneasy intensity in the cold and cool way he handles the conflicts facing him. This manifests itself in the elevator scene where Gosling efficiently and brutally stomps a man to death in front of his love interest who is left horrified of him, with his reaction being one of distant indifference. So... it could be argued, and I believe very effectively, that Gosling’s character in “Drive” did indeed need to prove himself to be an actual human being, perhaps by becoming a hero and avenging Bryan Cranston’s death, and after all Gosling’s character is in fact “emotionally complex.”

Oh... spoilers by the way.

Mel Gibson in "The Road Warrior."

However there is an alternative source of inspiration for “Real Hero,” and that is the “The Road Warrior.” Speaking of the eighties... “The Road Warrior” is an awesome movie that tragically has been eclipsed in very nearly every way by “Mad Max Fury Road;” but this is not a movie review, though I doubt myself sometimes, this is a music review, and “A Real Hero” may be about Mad Max.

“Against the grain of dystopic claims,
Not the thoughts your actions entertain.”

Mel Gibson’s Mad Max, comes across as a heartless stranger, indifferent to the plights and struggles of others, but in the end he goes very far out of his way to save the day. His actions are not the same as his thoughts.

Captain Sully
Sullenberger, a real hero

But there is one more verse to consider:

“A pilot on a cold, cold morn,
155 people on board.
All safe and all rescued,
From the slowly sinking ship.
Water warmer than,
His head so cool,
In that tight bind knew what to do.”

Well... that is very specific, this has to be something; and it is! It is about Captain Sully Sullenberger, who successfully safety landed a plane, presumably with one hundred and fifty five passengers, after a flock of geese flew into the jet and disabled it. I think it is safe to say that Sullenberger is a real hero, a real life hero, and I doubt anyone has reason to question his qualification as a human being, a real one at that, unlike the last two fictional characters we just finished discussing.

I have to give credit to The Hollywood Reporter for informing me about some of the details here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/drive-soundtrack-captain-sully-254349

Evidently it is not reaching to project Mad Max onto this song; it is in part Austin Garrick’s intention.

It is an interest soup Electric Youth have stewed with “A Real Hero.” Triple heroic inspirations, with a collaboration of talents, and very heavy eighties influence. Not to repeat myself but “A Real Hero” so perfectly captures the sound of the eighties I thought for certain it was some lost classic from that decade, or maybe an Italian hit that never surfaced in North America. I always suspected Electric Youth to be Italian... I do not know why.

So the eighties are back, and depending on how you felt about it the first time around, this may or may not be a good thing. This too will pass and we will have yet another odd catalogue of great songs that seem out of time, belonging to other moments in history altogether, and that thing, history, will continue to repeat itself.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

P.S.

I really like this live version:

Lindsey Sterling - Shadows

In 2010 Lindsey Stirling competed on the fifth season of “America’s Got Talent.” She was voted out in the quarterfinals where professional British jerk Piers Morgan told her the world had no use for a hip-hop violinist. Like a lot of things Piers Morgan has said, he was wrong.

The music industry is changing. There was a time when most people were dependent on the radio to discover new music; then came music television; then for unknown reasons music television stop playing music, now we have the internet. No one, including Piers Morgan, could possibly have known how the internet would support and encourage musicians in so many new horizons. For Lindsey Sterling it was youtube; with a variety of videos comprised of original material, covers, and many collaborations, Lindsey Sterling has become incredibly popular, now maintaining eight million subscribers.

Sterling is an interesting case study for a variety of reasons; she is a fine example of the new blue print on how to gain an audience and become a musical sensation in the modern world, and also she is yet another reminder that the world craves original, unique experiences, and a hip-hop violinist is a new thing that Sterling currently holds the monopoly on. Lastly is the interesting divide between consumers, Lindsey’s audience exists almost exclusively online and it is almost entirely interacted with there, and then there is everyone else who still depends on radio and television to assist them on this front and they almost entirely have and could not have heard of Lindsey Stirling or any other internet based musician.

Two of my closest friends are huge fans of Lindsey Stirling. Many a drunken evening we have embarked upon taking turns choosing youtube videos to watch and every evening my two friends would go down a rabbit hole that always thoroughly endorsed Lindsey Sterling. To be honest I was not taken with Sterling initially. I had no negative comments to share but she struck me primarily as an interesting but forgettable creature. Given just how wild the internet has become a girl covering pop songs and video game music on violin did not overly impress me, but this got me thinking why do people like Lindsey Sterling so much?

There are several reasons.

Yeah, she is pretty cute.

Lindsey is unique. Piers Morgan was too quick to dismiss the popularity of something new and daring, and violin covers of hip hop songs was certainly something new.

Lindsey is talented. It is so strange we tend to overlook such obvious things when writing critiques, but we do. Lindsey is a very good violin player, and people like that, believe it or not.

Lindsey is cute. Yeah, she is pretty cute. She has captured the market for magical violin playing frolicking elf girls. Speaking of magical frolicking elf girls:

Zelda Medley:

Lastly, video games, Lindsey is popular because of video games. My friends are gamers, a title I cannot honestly claim to wear anymore, I played the hell out of World of Warcraft for a while there (for the horde!), but as a “gamer” I checked out long ago. There is something fantastic about gamers they are infinitely loyal and supportive. If you like the game they like, you are suddenly friends. If an actor voice acts in a game, gamers will start following their entire acting career. If cute girl dresses up like a video game character, gamers fall in love with her; should she thereafter make music videos about games like “Assassins Creed,” “Halo,” “Dragon’s Age,” “Skyrim,” “Final Fantasy,” and “The Legend of Zelda,” she is set for life. Lindsey Sterling having done exactly this, she now has a huge loyal fan base who will follow and support her forever.

Well I am not a gamer, so that angle did not hook me.

I was on a rabbit hole adventure on youtube by myself when I stumbled across Sterling’s “Shadows.” It was then I began to truly appreciate what she was all about.

“Shadows” falls into the category of original material. It is no surprise that an original musical composition is what won me over, I firmly hold to the value that creation is just as, or more so, important then performance.

Broadly, Lindsey does two primary things, she plays violin (obviously), and she dances. Most of her music videos are a combination of playing violin and dancing about the place with the energy of a magical elf girl, as explained earlier. “Shadows” is a full on embrace of these two talents with a charming concept that is both artistic and fun.

The video for “Shadows” has Lindsey playing before a propped up wooden base board in presumably a garage, possibly a warehouse. The light is shot at such an angle to project her shadow upon this said baseboard and as the song progresses her shadow begins to deviate from her own actions, and then breaks into a full dance while Lindsey plays, then they play together again for a while, with the shadow’s accompaniment possessing a sound distortion that is muffled. This visual ascetic gives the viewer a very engaging representation for every sound that this song produces. I really, really like it.

I really like the song “Shadows” itself as well. I really like the ebbs and flows of Lindsey’s violin and I love the subdued accompaniment of the “shadow’s” violin. I also really like how the climax of the song punches out with a silencing of the backbeat just before it arrives. It is a really good instrumental, has a lot of personality.

My two friends, have discussed at length how one day they would plan a trip down to Seattle, or Portland, or Denver, or really anywhere in the United States and see Lindsey Sterling perform live, because they were quite convinced she would never tour Canada. I, the more experience concert goer, always told them to just wait. A few days ago, on August 4th, of this year, Lindsey Sterling played the Jubilee Auditorium in our home of Calgary. Naturally the three of us attended.

I have seen a lot of concerts now, and visually, Lindsey Sterling may have been one of the best. There was some very intelligent thought put into how to present the liveliness of her music videos into a live performance. I suppose I should talk about “Shadows.”

"Shadows" live in Los Angeles

The fourth song of the show was “Shadows.” The road crew brought out three projections and as Sterling played her shadow was projected onto one of the blank slates behind her. Then Lindsey acted all surprised and cute when her shadow began deviating from her own actions. Then about midway through the song a stage size projection screen was dropped and Lindsey’s shadow was then cast onto that and dances away as the song concludes.

This full screen backdrop served the next couple of songs really well. “Elements” was next and the visuals for the rain and then flames were very impressive. Then they played a song I am not familiar with, but I really liked it, Lindsey used one of those machines that records what you play and plays it back in a loop, allowing a single person to create their own rhythm section for a song live, I really dig that kind of stuff, and as for the visuals a bird cage was gradually drawn upon the empty canvas behind her and then a pair of trees, it was simple but nice.

I think Lindsey Sterling made a
pretty good Aerith.

If I had one complaint, it would be Lindsey did not indulge her gamer fans enough live. She performed a nice medley of five or her most popular video game covers, but it was fairly short. Dare I say most slyly, “do not forget who brought you to the dance Lindsey.” The bulk of Sterling’s popularity can be directly linked to gamers, and while not a gamer myself I thought that medley should have been at least twice as long. Also a huge part of Sterling’s charm is her willingness to dress up as video game characters. I cannot fault someone for preferring to focus on their own creative work, but still, you see what I am saying.

The music industry has changed. Taboos such as nerdy or non-mainstream subject matter and weird creativity techniques are no longer a barrier to entry, now they keys to success. The old music industry would never give Lindsey Sterling a serious chance, but the new one embraces her and lifts her up to heights once thought impossible. The times, they are in fact, changing.

- King of Braves

P.S.

It does feel a little bit odd/needless to post on the Internet an article promoting Lindsey Sterling, as this is the one realm she is so well known.