Music Update July ‘08
Jul 31st 2008
Emma Shapplin
Emma Shapplin is a soprano vocalist, and she sings mainly blends of classical and contemporary music, crossovers in tradition of Sarah Brightman. I listened to Emma’s song for the first time sometime around ‘00, the song was “Spente le Stelle” of album “Carmine Meo”. It was featured on the “inspirational Moments” album, a VA contains mainly New Age music.
Official Site | Wikipedia | last.fm
Rating: 8
Hayley Westenra
Another soprano vocalist, and again, in the style of Sarah Brightman. This time, celtic, folk, and rock elements are incorporated. The atmosphere of the albums are a bit mixed, but sounds good overall. It seems like a mashup of some of Sarah Brightman, some of Enya, some of Adiemus, and some of something else. The result, however, is surprisingly good.
Official Site | Wikipedia | last.fm
Rating: 9
Krypteria
A German power metal band, with lead female vocalist from Korea. “Wait, a German metal band with oriental babe vocalist?” Um, yeah, you read that right. Don’t let the look fools you, though, the music is surprisingly good. The music sounds more like symphonic power metal with intensive uses of choir, instrumental percussions, and orchestra.
Official Site | Wikipedia | last.fm
Rating: 9
Lacuna Coil
A gothic metal band from Italy. The death grunt is softened, toned down from brutally incomprehensible “grunts” or “shrieks” of some conventional black/doom/gothic/whatever metal style, to just heavy vocal, Metallica style. I dig the female vocal, especially in song “Heaven’s A Lie”, it’s very cool.
Official Site | Wikipedia | last.fm
Rating: 7
Leaves’ Eyes
This band claims to be folk-rock band, although it sounds much like gothic metal and symphonic power metal. It’s hard to define the style of this band, since all elements all are there. There’s traditional folk instruments, death grunts of gothic metal style, and majestic opera atmosphere of symphonic power metal. These combinations sound a bit weird at times, and the entire albums sound like disorganized songs that have no specific style. It’s challenging, really, but after a while you get to grip the “feel” of the albums and enjoy them.
Official Site | Wikipedia | last.fm
Rating: 7