Welcome to a brand new feature! Every week, I will be compiling a playlist containing picks from the past week’s coverage that you may have missed, as well as tracks that are well worth checking out. Make sure you give all five a listen – get reading and listening below! In addition, we will also be catching up with some of our favourite artists to get an insight into their music tastes too.
The playlist can also be checked out on our last.fm page here – check back on our last.fm next Sunday and you might just get a sneak peak of our playlist before it goes live the day after.
Solefald – World Music With Black Edges
World Music With Black Edges is taken from Solefald’s brand new album World Metal. Kosmopolis Sud, which is out today (February 2) and is a powerful song that plays to the band’s strengths, bringing in many different styles and ideas into the mix, yet not overpowering you with too much. It’s perhaps best to let our track-by-track review of the album do the speaking here, but if you’re into your avant-garde music or simply just want to try something a little different, you can’t go wrong with this song.
Glittertind – Høyr Min Song (Til Fridomen)
Glittertind are back – and there’s nobody more excited about this than me! Although they only released their last album, Djevelsvart, at the tail end of 2013, their new album BlÃ¥ne for blÃ¥ne is set to be released on April 27 and this song serves as a teaser for it. Whilst Djevelsvart was quite a dark and anxious piece, BlÃ¥ne for blÃ¥ne is billed as being lighter and a more positive offering. Høyr Min Song (Til Fridomen) is our first taste of new material and it definitely has a folky/indie vibe to it, which is a big contrast to the all-round darkness of their previous release – but if they’d made a Djevelsvart 2 that would have been the easy way out. Now sit back, get comfortable and fall in love with Glittertind all over again!
Sólstafir – Ótta
Atmospheric, beautiful and breathtaking – these are but three words that can be used to describe this Sólstafir song. On CD it’s a great track, yet it really does need to be seen live to be fully appreciated – the track just envelopes you with this magical feeling that simply can’t be replicated on CD and sounds so massive that it just takes your breath away. We saw Sólstafir perform this at the Deaf Institute in Manchester just over a week ago (our full opinion of the night can be seen here) and it was a definite highlight of the performance. So rather than share the ‘normal’ version of the song in this playlist, I thought it would be more apt to showcase a live performance of the song.
Moriaty – Bones
Moriaty’s new single Bones came out earlier this week and it’s a catchy little melodic track. It’s fairly simplistic if you just take it at face value, but this works in the band’s favour because it makes for quite a raw listen and you can really feel the sheer emotion that’s been put into the song and performance. It’s also a bit of a grower – the more you listen to the song, the more it gets stuck in your head! And you never know; this could be the song to make Moriaty into a household name!
Ensiferum – Stone Cold Metal
A few days ago, the new Ensiferum album One Man Army came in for review and I swiftly fell in love with the track Two Of Spades. Now, for obvious reasons, I can’t link that song here since it’s almost a whole month until the album is officially released, so what I’m going to do is share another of this band’s epics, Stone Cold Metal. An adventure from start to finish, it embodies all that’s wonderful about this band. From the banjo solos, to the whistling (seriously, I dare you to listen to this song without wanting to whistle along to those sections!) to the epic instrumental sections and just the sheer energy behind the track, it’s just a wildly enjoyable song that you’ll keep wanting to come back to again and again. And well, if you like this song, then just wait until you hear Two Of Spades!
