Femme-Metal Friday: Hail Sagan “Stealing the Crown”

Band photo

In case you missed my post yesterday, I am expanding on the Hump Day Hot Ticket feature due to a high volume of reviews. Now I will not only share a video on Wednesday to get you over the Hump Day slump, but now I will add a little extra goodness to your Fridays by featuring some of the best female-fronted metal I can find.

This week, for the first edition of “Femme-Metal Friday”, I bring to you a band I have written about here before: Hail Sagan, another L.A. band that I really enjoy and hope to share more of as time goes on. Consisting of vocalist Sagan Amery, guitarist Nick Quijano (also known as Sci55ors from the band Powerman 5000), and masked bandmates known as “The Nothing”, Hail Sagan brings together the sounds of goth, alternative, electronica, and puts a heavy metal bite into it.

As mentioned before in my review of the band's “Dark Cloud” video, Hail Sagan also uses music as a way to raise awareness for issues that matter to them: Sagan is an outspoken advocate for anti-bullying, and like fellow musicians Lindsay Schoolcraft and Alissa White-Gluz, promotes a healthy vegan lifestyle. The band also plays fundraisers for veterans and mental health awareness. One thing about bands from L.A. that often gets overlooked is that we are a socially conscious town, and even if a band is not openly political in their music, most local musicians can be found supporting one cause or another through their music (even Slayer, the most brutal metal band ever to come out of Huntington Park, has been known to cuddle with rescue cats!). It is something I have always been proud of as a native Southlander, and it is something I find very admirable about Hail Sagan.

For their latest video, “Stealing the Crown”, the band gets more in touch with their dark aesthetic sensibility by giving us imagery of a snowy landscape while we are still in the middle of summer! I once read somewhere that MTV Europe (or some other video music channel from way back when) never aired wintry-themed videos during summer months, and I can see why—seeing all this snow and fog when it is over 100 degrees outside makes me a little wistful for a chilly breeze. Then again, I'm from Southern California, where it never snows, so it has about the same effect in July as it would in January!

The Nothing is dressed all in black, a stark contrast in the white snow, as Sagan moves through the woods in her trademark purple, like a Little Violet Riding Hood! She is carrying a basket, dropping dollar bills along her path (just like Hansel and Gretel, she is leaving her figurative “bread” behind; “bread” being an old slang term for money). She is being followed by some shady characters known as the “Greed Monsters”, who immediately swipe her money no sooner than it hits the ground. Looking dead-eyed and listless, the Greed Monsters catch up to her, taking her basket away and ripping off her hood. The camera shows the torn cloak in the snow, as Sagan flees from them into an icy pool of slush, where she finds the titular crown and claims it for herself. Now wearing the crown on her head, she and the band are all dressed in white, blending in to the frosty backdrop.

For more information on Hail Sagan, visit their official website.

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.