Femme-Metal Friday: Master Sword “Sanctuary”

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For the second week of Femme-Metal Friday, I'm going back to one of my favorites: Master Sword, the Legend of Zelda tribute band from Baltimore. They did not start out as a female-fronted band—their debut EP, Epoch, featured an array of talented vocalists, both male and female—but that all changed once vocalist Lily Hoy became a permanent fixture to the lineup in April 2016. Since then, the band continues to build a diversified audience: whether it is performing at gaming or comic book conventions, playing gigs with other similar tribute bands (who would have guessed that there was an entire local scene just for “video game music tribute bands”?!), or securing a slot at Baltimore's premiere femme-metal festival, Flight of the Valkyries; Master Sword is appealing to every demographic out there.

While the band continues work on their full-length album, Shadow and Steel, Master Sword has given fans a little taste of what they can expect with their latest lyric video for the song “Sanctuary”. The song is based on the Sanctuary theme from the classic game A Link to the Past from the early ’90s.

While all Zelda fans have their favorites in the series, A Link to the Past is a beloved game in the Zelda community for much the same reason as the eponymous first game, or Ocarina of Time: it is one of those iconic games that for many fans, was the first Zelda game they ever learned to play, or the game that got them interested in the franchise. It is a game that is rife with nostalgia for an entire generation of gamers, so if you are going to pay homage to something so cherished, expectations will be high; and if it isn't done right, you face the wrath of many angry fans who don't take kindly to having their childhood memories “trampled on”, or “disrespected”. No pressure, right?

Just like the hero in the green tunic that wields the weapon that gives the band its name, Master Sword is up to the challenge. After all, they are fans, too. These games mean as much to them as they do everyone else, and they show nothing but the highest respect for the source material in everything they do. Even for a simple lyric video that for some bands is no more than text with a run-of-the-mill backdrop, Master Sword cuts no corners in making the audience feel as if they have just stepped inside of an adventurous quest.

From the moment those dark, ominous tones kick in, the dungeon theme is instantly recognizable, and I can almost see the scary enemies lurking in the corners and almost feel inclined to look over my shoulder! Imagery of ink drawings of Link on aged parchment paper, misty visions of ethereal Sages, dim torchlight down a dark corridor, and the shadowy silhouette of Ganon (the antagonist of the series, or one of his forms, anyway!), all complement the eerie tone of the song.

For more information on Master Sword, visit the band's official Facebook page.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Grim Reaper “Wings of Angels”

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Over the past several months since I last wrote about Grim Reaper, a lot has been going on with them. Shortly after my blog entry reviewing their last video (“Walking in the Shadows”), frontman Steve Grimmett was performing for fans in South America when he was besieged by pain in his leg so bad that he had to finish the show sitting down. Rushed to the hospital immediately thereafter, a terrible infection ultimately resulted in the loss of his leg, and an extended stay in Ecuador.

However, through all of this, Steve still presses on, and has stated more than once that this will not end his musical career. To prove his point, within weeks of first learning to get around on his prosthetic, Grim Reaper was playing festivals!

Forget these icons of sex, drugs and rock ’n roll, who gain praise for getting shit-faced and banging groupies—all those guys can do that—but those aren't my rock heroes. When it comes to metal bad-assery, as far as I'm concerned, Steve Grimmett leaves them all in the dust. I think it's pretty fuckin' metal to endure that kind of pain to finish a show, lose a limb, go through months of strenuous therapy, and get on a plane to rock out before thousands of fans almost as soon as you are able to bear weight on a prosthetic. If that doesn't win you the lifelong title of a bad-ass, I don't know what does.

To show that they have no signs of slowing down, Grim Reaper has a new lyric video: “Wings of Angels”. The video is very cinematic; with black-and-white animation reminiscent of a 1940s war movie, a fighter plane swoops into view. As the aircraft zooms through the air, we see patchwork fields and ominously dark cloudy skies, as the lyrics scroll across the screen. The plane spins and nose-dives towards the ground as Steve sings the lyric, “out of control in a death roll, until you're slamming into earth”. The flashes of the plane's machine guns blink on the screen as the unseen pilot chases his enemy through the air. The guitar solo starts in, and the pursuit becomes more intense. I probably shouldn't give away the ending, but let's just say a fiery conclusion is involved.

I should also note the little Easter egg: the plane—the hero of the video—is named “Amelia”, which is the name of Steve's wife, his real-life hero! Because behind every kick-ass metal dude is an equally tough metal chick, and Steve makes no secret that Amelia is his inspiration.

For more information on Grim Reaper, visit their official website.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Seventh Wonder “The Promise”

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If you are a regular reader here, you might recall a couple of years ago I wrote a blog entry naming some bands and artists I hadn't heard from in a long time, that I would like to hear some new music from again. One of those bands was the Swedish progressive-metal band Seventh Wonder; who have been around for well over a decade, but who have gained a lot of recognition over the past several years ever since their vocalist Tommy Karevik took over frontman duties for the band Kamelot in 2012. Admittedly, this is also how I became aware of Seventh Wonder as well, but I also must confess that as much as I love Kamelot, I really enjoy Seventh Wonder's music too, and have wanted to hear more music from them. (Would it be wrong for me to admit that I actually would prefer a new Seventh Wonder album to a new Kamelot album right now?)

Because of Tommy's divided commitment between two bands, new music from Seventh Wonder has been slow to come, but the band has hardly been resting on their laurels! For the past couple of years, their main focus was their one-time performance in 2014 of their concept album Mercy Falls, at Atlanta's yearly festival for progressive and power-metal music, ProgPower (rehearsing for more than a year prior to the concert, and then putting the DVD footage together afterwards). This special concert would be filmed for a future DVD release, and a new song, “Inner Enemy”, was released shortly before the show to give fans something to look forward to. The wait was long, but 2 years after the concert in Atlanta, the DVD saw the light of day, and fans would finally get a proper release of “Inner Enemy” as a bonus track on the live CD for the live album, Welcome to Atlanta.

Not only that, but an entirely new song would be included on the live album: a 10-minute track called “The Promise”, which sounded like a perfect blend of the band's 3 albums with Karevik. It did not disappoint, and for many fans it was not only well worth the wait, but it was a great indication of what they could come to expect musically from Seventh Wonder once their long-awaited follow-up to 2010's The Great Escape was released (at the time of this writing, a new album is tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2017).

The positive feedback for the song prompted the band to create a lyric video, which you will see here. The design is fairly simplistic; not too much distraction to take away from the intensity of the music. The band's recognizable “SW” logo is shown in flames, and still photographs from the Welcome to Atlanta DVD are shown during the instrumental breaks. It's all the intricate progressive perfection you have come to expect from Seventh Wonder, and quite a good tide-over until a proper full-length album sees the light of day.

For more information, visit the band's official website. To purchase the Welcome to Atlanta DVD, visit MerchBooth.net.

Special thanks to Jon Freeman at Frontiers Records.