Femme-Metal Friday: Tarja “Feliz Navidad”

Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe

I am back one more time with another Christmas video...I will share one more on Christmas Day, and then I promise to be done with the holiday music for the rest of the year!

The third and final Tarja video from her Christmas album From Spirits and Ghosts is her rendition of “Feliz Navidad”, known best by singer José Feliciano. Tarja also recorded a version featuring several other rock and metal singers to raise money for hurricane relief in Antigua, but I am going to write about the solo version featured on the album, because a lyric video was released for that song.

Unlike the other two videos, which showed the contrasting Light/Dark Tarja costumes, Tarja is dressed in a simple black dress in a room with a gold or beige background, with some lit candles and a comfortable-looking chair. The lyrics are in a lovely handwritten script, so that listeners can learn both the English and Spanish phrases. This is a stark contrast from the José Feliciano version: this song is known for being upbeat, cheery, and catchy. Tarja's version is subdued and dignified, as if to emphasize the solemnity of what Christmas means, and to convey that her wish to everyone for a Merry Christmas is not made lightly. It sounds almost like an entirely different song; any up-tempo elements have been completely stripped away and made into a somber, serious ballad that holds its own elegant charm and loveliness.

For more information on Tarja's Christmas album, visit the From Spirits and Ghosts website.

Season's greetings!

Femme-Metal Friday: Tarja “O Tannenbaum”

Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe

I'm back with another Christmas video from Tarja! Let's get started, shall we?

This video starts off with drawings of a busy city at Christmastime: people tramping through the streets in Santa hats, holiday lights illuminating shop windows, and a likeness of Tarja as she was dressed in the previous video  (“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”, which I reviewed last week). The camera pans out to show it is all inside the pages of a book that Tarja is reading.

This time, Tarja is wearing all black: her hair is raven-black, and the room is dark with black furniture. Tarja's face is painted white, and the small lights on the black Christmas tree give some brightness to the dark scenery. Again, the only spot of color can be found in the dark red on Tarja's lips.

As she sings the beloved Christmas carol in its native German, the drawings appear again, showing happy Nutcracker soldiers in the streets, while a lone shadowy figure approaches a cold and empty graveyard. Then the drawings dissolve to real images, returning to Tarja dressed in white. The camera alternates between her light and dark looks until the two are seen together, sitting across from one another. Now Tarja's dark side is seen in animation, approaching the graveyard as the holiday parade marches down the street. Dark Tarja looks as if she's about to start some trouble as a parade float drives by, and Light Tarja looks worried that something will happen. As the two sides draw nearer, the images flash between real and animated. Then we are left with the book closing on a drawing of the two Tarjas sitting across from each other.

For more information on Tarja or on her Christmas music, visit the official From Spirits and Ghosts website.

Femme-Metal Friday: Tarja “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe

As I promised on Wednesday, I was going to feature artists known for being particularly fond of Christmas. If you are a fan of symphonic metal, then the name Tarja already comes to mind; but she has also become known for her beautiful holiday musical renditions.

Ever since going solo, Tarja has consistently released Christmas albums and singles, and performs Christmas concerts in her home country of Finland each year. Her first solo project was a Christmas abum; counting her side project Harus, she has released 3 Christmas albums within the last decade (along with occasional holiday singles here and there). Needless to say, Tarja really knows how to get into the spirit of the season!

Her latest Christmas album, From Spirits and Ghosts, combines Tarja's love of Christmas music with her trademark dark gothic sound. The first video from the album is the one I'm reviewing today: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”.

The video itself is of Tarja performing the song amidst white, withered tree branches. She is also dressed completely in white—a white dress, a long white wig, and her face painted white—with a black backdrop, and dark circles painted around her eyes, the only touch of color being the crimson-painted lips, dramatically set against the stark white of her face. The imagery only seems dark and cheerless, but as Tarja sings and the light casts little orbs, the wintry color scheme is of little importance. At the end, the imagery switches to Tarja dressed all in black, but those dark red lips remain.

For more information on Tarja, visit her official website.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Cradle of Filth “Heartbreak and Seance”

Band photo

One of the premier names in extreme metal, Cradle of Filth has been going strong for nearly 3 decades and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Their unique blend of gothic, horror, and symphonic elements fused into a black metal visage, Cradle of Filth has survived every musical trend and silly fad, without ever compromising their trademark sound. Now embarking on their 12th album—Cryptoriana: The Seductiveness of Decay—Cradle of Filth is roaring back on the scene with that dramatic flair that is distinctly their own.

For the band's latest video (and Cryptoriana's first single), “Heartbreak and Seance”, there is no question you are watching a Cradle of Filth video from the start. The dark imagery that they are known for is all there: death and mourning to a snowy backdrop. Dani Filth's piercing scream cuts right through you, as he stands before a mic stand that looks like a cross between withered tree branches and antlers. A somber group of bereaved mourners stand beside a still and bloodied figure. Female vocalist Lindsay Schoolcraft is wearing a headdress fashioned like a skull, as she provides her heavenly vocals in contrast to Dani's harshness. More imagery of skulls and naked bodies, as the departed person is covered by a heavy black cloak and the grieving friends start playing on a Ouija board; all while a raven mentioned in the lyrics unobtrusively holds court.

The song's title is “Heartbreak and Seance”, so the theme of the video is plain to see. The attempt of the mourners to contact their departed loved one is not only shown with the Ouija board scene, but also with images of two naked bodies wrapped around a skeleton, and snakes slithering around the prostrate form of a woman in a white dress. The deceased returns again, this time painted completely in black—showing his ghostly state—holding the lifeless body of one of the grief-stricken women in his arms, as if offering a sacrifice.

For more information on Cradle of Filth, visit their official website.

Special thanks to Lindsay Schoolcraft.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Lighthouse in Darkness “Oceanbliss ”

Photo credit: Janine Buss

A while back, when I was first starting this blog and trying to think of things to write about, I made a list of bands and artists I liked who had not made any new music for quite some time, and hoped to hear from again. One of the bands on this list was the German gothic metal band Flowing Tears, who seemed to suddenly just disappear from the scene.

At the time I wrote the piece in early 2014, the band's website was up and running, but had not been updated since 2009. They had not made an album in nearly 6 years by that point; the last anyone had heard from them was with what many considered their finest work, the 2008 concept album Thy Kingdom Gone. Sadly, about a month or so after my article was written, the band announced that Flowing Tears was disbanding. So that was the end of the hope that one of the bands on my list would return. Or so I thought.

While 2016 had been a huge blow to the music world with so many legendary artists passing away, 2017 has appeared to be a year of growth and rebirth for many bands. One example is Lighthouse in Darkness, a project headed by Flowing Tears vocalist Helen Vogt and songwriter/producer Sascha Blach; a musical collaboration that has been building over the course of 5 years. While it is a far cry from the gothic rock sound of Flowing Tears, Helen's warm, velvety voice is instantly recognizable and pulls you in with that same dreamy charm.

Sound-wise, Lighthouse in Darkness is a blend of soundtrack music coupled with electronica, a touch of jazz, and a little bit of rock. It has this dark, theatric sensibility to it, but at the same time it is calming and relaxing. The duo describes their music as “cinema for the ears”, and it is right on the mark: when listening to their first single, “Oceanbliss”, you can almost envision the smoky clubs, white jackets and ties, and piano playing in the corner just like out of a 1940s movie.

The lyric video also plays into this theme with a record playing, filmed in black-and-white. There is something so old-school and yet so modern, with the hip-hop influences subtly threaded into the many different layers of this tune. If you are into bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode, but also love the old torch songs of the past, Lighthouse in Darkness is definitely worth a listen.

For more information on Lighthouse in Darkness, or more information on their upcoming album The Melancholy Movies, visit their official Facebook page.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Eivør “Into the Mist”

Photo by Sigga Ella

Time for something a little different this week...no, I am not reviewing a band from Italy! All joking aside, that isn't the only thing that's different. Usually I review music that is more rock or metal, but I have been known to delve into other types of music from time to time.

In almost a year since I started this weekly video review thing, I have found music from all over the globe. This week I have found a gem from the Faroe Islands named Eivør, who has apparently been making music since she was 16 and now has 9 albums to her credit, but whom I have only heard about over the past few months. Better late than never, as the saying goes.

That being said, it isn't hard to figure out why I would like Eivør's music: it has that gothic flair to it, that appeals to the musical side of me that loves female-fronted symphonic metal, and the side of me that grew up on poppy yet dark ’80s music like Depeche Mode and Kate Bush. She has a beautiful yet distinct voice, which I like a lot.

This video I am reviewing, “Into the Mist”, is a remake of an older song done in Eivør's native Faroese language, redone in English. Many comments on the video suggest that the original version is better, but I have not heard it yet, because I want to review this video without any bias towards the other version.

The video begins with Eivør standing on a bare, desolate hill, wearing a black dress with a sheer black cape covering her. Reminds me a little of Madonna's “Frozen” video. We see a hillside covered in mist (but of course, “into the mist”), a dark forest, and a rocky landscape. Eivør is seen again, this time wearing a white dress, her face painted in black like a mask. More footage of the scenery, interspersed with shots of Eivør “levitating” in her black dress; or standing by the water's edge in her white dress, the contrast of the black face paint looking very haunting, fitting the eerie vibe of the song.

For more information on Eivør, or to pre-order her upcoming album Siør, visit her official website.

Special thanks to Lou at Partisan PR.