ALBUM REVIEW: Songs The Night Sings by The Dark Element

When I found out that Anette Olzon, the former frontwoman of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, joined forces with Jani Liimatainen, who used to play in another Finnish metal band Sonata Arctica, I was overjoyed. After her departure from Nightwish and the release of her first solo album, it wasn’t clear whether she’d ever return to metal music. I was saddened by the idea that metal music could possibly lose the theatrical and joyful Anette forever, so you can probably imagine how delighted the formation of The Dark Element made me feel.

The first album was very good – dynamic, catchy and overall interesting even though there are some things that bother me about the album. But when their second album was announced, I tried, once again, not to get too excited about it (which I already explained in the previous review). This album, named “Songs The Night Sings”, was released this year on November 6 by Frontiers Music and contains eleven songs in total, including one eponymous song (well, there can’t be more than one, right?).

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ALBUM REVIEW: Lacuna Coil's new album Black Anima

Long-time, no see, right? After several months of hiatus caused by my university studies, I finally have enough time to pay attention to my blog too. So let’s start with a review, shall we? Hopefully, there is still someone out there to actually read this despite my long inactivity.

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Noty pro píseň Jarilo (Yarilo) od skupiny Arkona

Je to už nějaká doba od chvíle, kdy se tu objevil posladní článek, jehož prostřednictvím bych se s vámi podělila o noty nějaké písně, ale nakonec jste se opět dočkali (pozn.: samozřejmě tím nechci říct, že moje transkripce jsou něčím, bez čeho byste se neobešli).

Tentokrát jde, jak jste mohli vyčíst z nadpisu (za předpokladu, že jste na článek pouze bezkyšlenkovitě neklikli), o transkripci písničky Jarilo (Yarilo) od ruské folk metalové kapely jménem Arkona a možná vás překvapí, co vlastně bylo na celém hudebním přepisu tím nejsložitějším. Jestli chcete vědět, co to bylo, podívat se na noty a poslechnout si výsledek, pokračujte ve čtení.  

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Symphonic metal sins

My story of a metalhead started when I discovered the Finnish metal band Nightwish. I simply fell in love with their music, which made me more curious about other metal bands. That's how I discovered metal.

There was, however, one particular sub-genre which captivated my attention the most: symphonic metal. It had everything I loved - heavy riffs, orchestra, and catchy melodies (although sometimes too catchy to my liking as I love complex compositions, which symphonic metal bands' songs don't always have). I still love these elements in music, but the more symphonic metal bands I knew, the more I actually realized that most of these bands are pretty much the same in some aspects, and as I grew up and discovered more bands and sub-genres, the mutual similarity of some bands started to get boring (maybe I could even say it started to be annoying).

But don't get me wrong - I haven't given up on the symphonic metal, I have only become a bit picky (well, maybe more than just a bit). Of course, there are also great symphonic metal bands which are really original and unique, but most of these bands are not strictly symphonic metal - they use elements of other genres or subgenres and they do not restrict themselves to the metal genre only. What makes them stand out is that they're not afraid to do some experiments. There are, however, a lot of absolutely stereotypical symphonic metal bands that sound really the same and that's what I want to dedicate this article to. So let's see what bothers me about this metal subgenre the most...

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Noty pro hlas a klavír k písni The Escapist (Nightwish)

Jednou z mých zálib je také hraní na key board a psaní hudebních transkripcí k písničkám, které mám ráda. Netroufám si tvrdit, že jsem v tom nějak zvlášť dobrá - spíš naopak, protože hrát jsem se začala učit v době, kdy mi bylo přibližně patnáct a půl roku a čtení not mi taky moc nešlo (v tom se stále snažím zdokonalovat - například hraní šestnáctinových a kratších not s tečkou, prodloužených ligaturou nebo oddělených pomlkou). Navíc mě nikdy nenapadalo nic moc vhodného a originálního, co by se dalo hrát levou rukou jako doprovod, což je poměrně zásadní věc, nicméně se snažím po všech stranách neustále zdokonalovat. Muzikant ze mě ovšem nikdy nebude ;-)

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