Tag Archives: DragonForce

Friday Morning Metal – DragonForce – Power of the Triforce

DragonForce has been drip releasing tracks from their upcoming “Warp Speed Warriors” album, and this week’s is an opus to Nintendo’s favorite elf-based series. And while it has a real solid DragonForce vibe, something about them doing a song about vidya games is a little odd to me.

The video is cheesy and fun, with the guitarists apparently able to shoot lasers or something from their gear, which is great to see. In general, this is a standard-bearing DragonForce song, with Herman Li’s by now trademarked squeadlies and meadlies. Also apparently the singer is worthy of wielding the master sword.

I feel like, with different lyrics, this song could’ve been pulled from any of their older albums, like they had this framed out for Sonic Firestorm but couldn’t figure out what vocals to put on top, so they shelved it. And I appreciate that after hearing the departure that is Doomsday Party, I was worried they were drifting into that kind of party metal sound you hear from later Alestorm, for instance. Leaning on Zelda references for a song is interesting, but also it feels, to me, like pandering to the overlap in the Venn diagram of metalheads and video gamers (it might be concentric circles.)

Again, this song slaps, and I’m sure it’ll be a big hit when they’re on tour. Maybe I’m just being a grumpy old by bristling at the lyrics and thinking of Valley of the Damned or Operation Ground & Pound.

Friday Morning Metal – DragonForce – Curse of Darkness

You got DragonForce in my Castlevania! You got Castlevania in my DragonForce! Either way, there’s a new DragonForce song and it leads in with a ton of organs, crazy noodly guitars, and everything fast and great.

The first solo/interlude has some similar 8-Bit cover vibe, drops into more organs, then kicks you straight in the teeth with a standard DragonForce solo. There’s a reason they’re the self-described “fastest band in the universe.”

I look forward to seeing this live, especially if they still have the podium for solos. The one with the big fan and spotlight to make the soloist look even more magnificent.

Anyway, enjoy Curse of Darkness! Look out for Alucard! Or Doctor Acula.

Music of 2014 – In No Particular Order

Hah so every jagweed and dilsnoofus is making top ten albums lists of 2014 so I’m going to try to do the same. I imagine it’ll be more like a top 7. Maybe 8.

alestorm-sunset-on-the-golden-age Alestorm – Sunset On the Golden Age: I’ve been a huge fan of Alestorm since Captain Morgan’s revenge. Their brand of pirate metal is tighter than ever on Sunset on the Golden Age, jumping from frenetic pit screamers like Wooden Leg to mellow party classics like Hangover. Chris Bowes’ vocals continue to give off a great pirate bent while still stretching his skills, and I think the addition of a second keyboardist not only fills out the sound, but allows him to focus more on the singing than the keyboarding from time to time.
D'Angelo_-_Black_Messiah_Album_Cover D’Angelo & The Vanguard – Black Messiah: Hah I write about metal here all the time, and here’s a crazy great funk album. I think I listened to it five times in a row when I first got it. Life needs more funk in it. And not just funk, good damn funk. This is it. I know plenty of butts are already moving to “Ain’t that Easy” and I can only imagine how many kids are going to be born in September because of this album.
Black_Moon_Rising_(Falconer_album)_coverart Falconer – Black Moon Rising: Man Mathias Blad has a phenomenal set of pipes. This album starts off with a blast with Locust Swarm, bringing you into all the might and majesty that you expect from a Falconer album. A healthy dose of double kick bass drums, proper balance between noodly and chunky guitars, and Blad’s vocals lilting over it all. Now if only they’d tour the US…
murder-city-devils-white-ghost-blood-on-its-hands-again-cover-art Murder City Devils – The White Ghost Has Blood on Its Hands Again: I grew up across the lake from the city and cut my teeth on plenty of Murder City Devils back in the late 90s. I even saw their first last show, Halloween 2001. These guys have put together their fare share of rock albums, and The White Ghost Has Blood on Its Hands Again takes it to a new direction. A few of the songs, like Pale Disguise, have a kind of unnerving, foreboding feel to them, gives me Nick Cave vibes.
Primus_&_The_Chocolate_Factory Primus – Primus & The Chocolate Factory: Speaking of unnerving and foreboding. Take one of the most terrifying movies of many childhoods, add in Les Claypool, and you have something that probably keeps a few adults up at night. Based on the music from the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Primus manages to take the songs that were already creepy and add a slow crescendo of dissonance and terror, turning this into a go-to album for many halloween mixes.
DragonForce-Maximum-Overload Dragonforce – Maximum Overload: Much like Falconer, I got a little bored with Dragonforce for a bit. I think it was the singer they had or something after the original left. Anyway, they got a new singer and they have reclaimed a place in my heart! Especially with a power metal cover of Ring of Fire. That’s just great. The album has the same great key changes and codas you expect from classic Dragonforce, and the new singer does a grand job keeping up.
JudasPriestRedeemerSouls Judas Priest – Redeemer of Souls: I’m not sure how a bunch of guys in their mid 60s can rock as balls out as Judas Priest do, but they manage to pull it off on Redeemer of Souls. The vocals aren’t as brutal as, say, Screaming for Vengeance or Painkiller, but you get such a solid performance from Halford no matter what octave he’s hitting. Scope out Dragonaut, and wonder if that’s a space dragon or a guy who flies around and battles on a dragon. And then get your face melted with the Halls of Valhalla!

Whattaya know, it’s seven!

Friday Morning Metal – Dragonforce – Ring of Fire

Oh man two in a row of Dragonforce, but this seems like a good one to toss up. So on their upcoming album, Maximum Overload, Dragonforce does a cover of Ring of Fire. It’s like the fastest ring of fire ever. They do a good job translating the horn work to the noodly crazy guitars you expect, with a great break to guitar solo thrown in for good measure. It’s so technical and a little goofy, but these guys do a great job covering one of Johnny Cash’s greatest songs. I also enjoy that the vocal component is about the same pace, and yet there’s probably two orders of magnitude more drumming than in the original.

Friday Morning Metal – Dragonforce – Defenders

Dragonforce has a new album coming out, with an appropriately Dragonforce-ly name of Maximum Overdrive. This album features a new vocalist, Marc Hudson, and he manages to carry the banner of kickass Dragonforce vocals. Crazy noodly guitars, dueling guitarmonies on solos, and wild ass drums, this is some fantastic Dragonforce right here.

 

Here is the demo track released a few days ago, Defenders:

 

Friday Morning Metal – 8-Bit Style

Powerglove, CarboHydroM, and the Minibosses are great bands that do metal/hard rock covers of 8-bit and 16-bit video game songs. Excite Bike, for instance. Or Contra. Well yesterday I stumbled into a terrific rabbit hole of 8-bit covers of metal songs. And now I want to play the video games that would have these songs, because I bet they’d be next to impossible (Hi Contra without the Konami code) and totally kickass.

Dethklok – Thunderhorse. Great boss fight music, like if the boss was in a helicopter or something and you were commandos shooting rockets and lasers at it.

Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark. This one starts off slow, like an intro to a Castlevania almost.

Judas Priest – Painkiller. Double kick totally sounds like helicopter noises. They don’t even attempt to recreate Halford’s vocals, I don’t think 8-bit has a “Metal God” tone I guess.

Dragonforce – Through the Fire and Flames. All these songs would be kickass final battle songs.

Friday Morning Metal – DragonForce – Heroes of Our Time

DragonForce, the fastest metal band in the universe, has a new album and a new singer. The guy sounds pretty close to the old guy, and really I come for the double kick and the crazy guitar riffs. Anyway, I couldn’t find a kickass “official” video of their new tracks, so here’s one off Ultra Beatdown, Heroes of our Time.


btw, Herman Li is a guitar monster.