Random Track of the Day

[Trollheart]

Title: "Etude for Piano No. 9 in F Minor, Op. 10"
Artist: Frederic Chopin
Format: Composer
Year 1829
Genre: Classical
Nationality: Polish
Taken from: N/A
Familiarity with artist: Duh
Familiarity with album: N/A
Familiarity with track: Yes very
Comments: I know my Chopin, but not all of his compositions. This one is quite famous and so I of course recognise it; kind of the quintessential chamber music you'll hear in movies set in the 19th century. Not much else I can tell you about it, but definitely worth a listen, as is just about anything he wrote.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Wildfire"
Artist: The Coral
Format: Band
Year 2002
Genre: Neo-psychedelia/Folk Rock
Nationality: English
Taken from: Debut self-titled album
Familiarity with artist: I've heard one album
Familiarity with album: This is it
Familiarity with track: But I only heard it once so I don't remember any of the tracks.
Comments: I do remember being very impressed with what I heard though, almost on a par, if I recall, to how I felt after hearing The Maccabees for the first time. This is a short little track with an edge of seventies rock, maybe even psych or space rock; sharp guitars, deep lush organ, but it doesn't impress me the way I think other tracks on the album did.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Hang on to Yourself"
Artist: David Bowie
Format: Solo artist (RIP)
Year 1972
Genre: Glam rock/Proto-punk
Nationality: English
Taken from: 5th album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Familiarity with artist: I may have heard the odd tune (!)
Familiarity with album: Love it
Familiarity with track: Not my favourite, but is there a bad track on that album?
Comments: Comment? You want comment? Just listen to it, son. It's Bowie at his whacked-out best, when songs like "Starman", "Rock'n'Roll Suicide", "Suffragette City" and the title track made us all look up and say, uh, wha? The world would never be the same again.

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[Trollheart]

Title: "Voyage of the Damned"
Artist: Iron Fire
Format: Band
Year 2012
Genre: Symphonic Metal/Power Metal
Nationality: Danish
Taken from: 7th album Voyage of the Damned
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album:
Familiarity with track:
Comments: I must say, the album cover looks cool, and if I hadn't already checked I would have said maybe Viking Metal? Well apparently the album is a concept based around science fiction, so maybe not. Certainly gave me that impression though. I definitely hear a lot of progressive metal in here too, and in fact I think I'd dump the Power Metal tag and label this Symphonic/Prog Metal if it were me. There are none of the galloping drums, squealing keyboards or dark intonations that are so endemic to PM, and this fits much more into the prog metal frame for me. The dark, almost-but-not-quite-unclean vocals sprinkled over the track do nod back to symphonic metal, though it's odd to hear what sounds like Robbie Williams singing!  Yeah it's a long track - over ten minutes - but does make me want to hear more.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "De todos modos"
Artist: Ednita Nazarios with Russell Hitchcock
Format: Solo artist
Year 1995
Genre: Latin Pop
Nationality: Puerto Rican
Taken from: 2nd compilation album Super Exitos
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album:
Familiarity with track:
Comments: When I was listening to yesterday's track I accidentally hit next instead of play. Imagine my surprise when Danish metal band Iron Fire began singing in a sweet female voice in Spanish! I have no idea who this lady is, or why I have her album(s), but I do recognise Hitchcock - he's one half of Air bloody Supply, whose discography refuses to be deleted from my ipod Classic (mostly as it's too much hassle, thank you itunes!) so I'm kind of predisposed to hate it. But let's see what it's like, and how much input Russ has on it. It's not too bad actually, reminds me of a Latin Jennifer Rush. Waiting for Hitchcock to supply (geddit?) the other vocal, not hearing him though. Surprised they bothered crediting him. Unless that was him on the guitar? Does he play guitar? No, it doesn't seem so. Well fuck him then: I can't see he adds anything to this.

The song itself is decent enough, nothing special, nice little ballad and she has a good voice. I imagine the title translates to something like "always" or "in every way" or something like that. Hey, it wouldn't make me want to go listening to her other albums, but I also wouldn't mind hearing more.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Feels Like Home"
Artist: Newton Faulkner
Format: Solo artist
Year 2007
Genre: Folk Rock/Pop Rock
Nationality: English
Taken from: Debut album Hand Built by Robots
Familiarity with artist: A little; I've reviewed one album
Familiarity with album: This was it
Familiarity with track: But I wasn't sufficiently impressed to remember any track
Comments: Apart from the interesting name (anyone else called Newton you know?) I find this pretty generic and actually almost this side of boring. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, but there's nothing special about it either. It's just kind of meh.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "In and Out of Love"
Artist: Bon Jovi
Format: Band
Year 1985
Genre: Pop-Rock/Hard Rock
Nationality: American
Taken from: 2nd album 7800 Fahrenheit
Familiarity with artist: Total; love these guys
Familiarity with album: Very familiar; but probably my least favourite in their discography
Familiarity with track: I'm familiar with it
Comments: Oh cruel fate how you mock me! Of all the albums to choose! There's no doubt that 7800 Fahrenheit is their worst album - even the band admit it - with about maybe four good songs on it. Honestly, if this was to have been your introduction to Bon Jovi, you'd never listen to them again. Considering how superior their - still flawed - debut is, I find it hard to understand how they could have turned out what is basically the turd in their catalogue, but there it is. The opening track, this is about as generic, heads-down, titter-titter-sing-about-girl as you can get. It's pretty poor, and to be fair, about half the album could have been jettisoned without losing anything. Oh well. Hopefully next time they come up it'll be a better track.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Know..."
Artist: Anderson/Stolt
Format: Duo
Year 2016
Genre: Symphonic Prog
Nationality: English/Swedish
Taken from: Debut album Invention of Knowledge
Familiarity with artist: Very familiar with Anderson, not so much with Stolt
Familiarity with album: Zero
Familiarity with track:
Comments: An interesting idea, to team up two giants of the prog world. Jon Anderson will need no introduction of course, as the leading light behind prog supergiants Yes, while Roine Stolt is known mostly as the main driver of Swedish prog band The Flower Kings. Anderson has collaborated with other artists of course, most notably Vangelis, and fellow Yes alumnus Rick Wakeman. It's hard though to hear him sing on anything and not feel it's primarily his music, and as I'm not familiar enough with the music of the Flower Kings, it does sound like an Anderson solo project to me. Which is no bad thing. Quite a long track, but then, in typical Anderson/Yes fashion, this album consists of four epic suites, of which this is the last.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Dream Sequencer (Reprise)"
Artist: Ayreon
Format: Band
Year 2000
Genre: Progressive Metal
Nationality: Dutch
Taken from: 4th album Universal Migrator Part I: The Dream Sequencer
Familiarity with artist: I've heard their work
Familiarity with album: Not very
Familiarity with track: Not at all
Comments: Ayreon give me, how can I put this? A pain in my hole. They always seem very overblown, and while the music is good, it's very forgettable. I've listened to a few of their albums and never yet come away with anything I remember or thought, wow that was good. This is, at least, an instrumental, which is something. Maybe. Yeah it's decent enough. What a ringing endorsement, eh? Well, someone show me why I should care about Ayreon.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Nightfall"
Artist: Borealis
Format: Band
Year 2012
Genre: Ambient/IDM
Nationality: Canadian
Taken from: Debut album Voidness
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album:
Familiarity with track:
Comments: Strangely enough, there are three artists I came across with this name, and all are Canadian! What are the chances? This is a fairly nice low-key synthy ambient piece which builds rather well, giving the idea it might break out at any moment into a trancy dance thing, but it doesn't. I think I heard basic vocals there somewhere in the mix, but don't quote me. Evocative, certainly, but not really that much in it for me to judge.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Broken Arrow"
Artist: Tori Amos
Format: Solo artist
Year 2017
Genre: Alt-Rock/Pop-rock
Nationality: American
Taken from: 15th album Native Invader
Familiarity with artist: I've heard one or two tracks
Familiarity with album: Zero
Familiarity with track:
Comments: I don't even think I like Tori Amos, so what am I doing with her discography on my computer? Who knows: there are things there that have no business being there, and maybe this is another. Sounds like some sort of talk-box beginning, a feeling of soul maybe, then it resolves into an organ-driven ballad. People say she sounds a lot like Kate Bush, and I can hear it. I guess it's okay but I wouldn't be mad about it. Certainly won't be rushing to listen to the rest of her music, that's for sure.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "November"
Artist: Astronid
Format: Band
Year 2012
Genre: Post-metal/Experimental metal/Post-black metal
Nationality: American
Taken from: 1st EP November
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album:
Familiarity with track:
Comments: I've grown to like post-metal and even more so post-black metal, so this might be fun. An EP with only two tracks on it, this is one of them. It's got the black metal heaviness and punch in it for sure, and surprisingly to me has vocals, and even more surprisingly they're intelligible ones, if a little far down in the mix, sort of drowned in the wall of guitars. Yeah. I like it. Unfortunately, even though I spelled it right, YouTube keeps giving me videos of asteroids. Sigh.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "Age of Shadows"
Artist: Ayreon
Format: Band
Year 2008
Genre: Progressive Metal
Nationality: Dutch
Taken from: 7th album 01001001
Familiarity with artist: See last time
Familiarity with album: Not much
Familiarity with track: Zero
Comments: Ah for fuck's sake! Do the random gods of music hate me that much? Guess they do, as here we are, only four days later, with another fucking Ayreon track! Talk about having it rammed down your throat! Another 10-minute epic, this time from a different album. Do I care? You know, I try. I do. But Ayreon persist in being byzantine, overblown and pretentious, resisting all efforts to enjoy their music and making each time more a case of endurance for me. As someone once said, if only I cared.

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[Trollheart]

Title: "Lionheart"
Artist: Blind Guardian
Format: Band
Year 2007
Genre: Power Metal
Nationality: German
Taken from: 3rd EP Another Stranger Me
Familiarity with artist: I'm aware of their work
Familiarity with album: It's not an album, and I had to search a few sites before I could find it.
Familiarity with track:
Comments: From Progressive Metal to Power Metal, some might say unkindly from progressive to regressive. I've gone on before about how formulaic power metal is, but Blind Guardian do at least break the mould slightly. With their take on sword and sorcery and fantasy mostly referring to The Lord of the Rings, they're kind of a blend of Power and Symphonic Metal. I hear a kind of Magnum idea here too. It's decent, but you know, nothing all that different to a lot of Power Metal, though the chants kind of almost push it an inch or two in the direction of Viking Metal too. Good stuff, if not great stuff.

Rating:

[Trollheart]

Title: "I Sit Away"
Artist: Boys II Men
Format: Band
Year 1994
Genre: R&B/Soul/Pop
Nationality: American
Taken from: 3rd album II
Familiarity with artist: Very little
Familiarity with album: Zero
Familiarity with track:
Comments: Another album whose presence is a mystery on my disk. Maybe it was for my boyband thing? I don't think I covered them in that though. Well, for whatever reason, it's there and the random-o-meter has spun around to it, so here we go. Seems a fairly jazzy, upbeat song with a half-ballad idea in it. A bit boring, a bit sulky. Not really my kind of thing at all. Tempted to rename it, but I won't.

Rating: