If you’ve been keeping up with the new music I’ve been listening to, you know that I’ve got an ear for foreign rock music. (Rammstein, In Extremo, Heimataerde, Eisbrecher, Megahertz, etc.)  And now I’ve happened across something completely different – for me at least.  It’s a mix of operatic vocals to metal music, seemingly done mostly by Nordic/Scandinavian bands.  It’s pretty interesting, and I think I like it.  So far I’ve bought albums from several different artists in this genre:  Nightwish, Within Temptation, After Forever, and Coronatus.

I probably like Within Temptation the best – with Nightwish a very close second.  The problem with Nightwish is the male singer – if he would just shut up, Nightwish would probably be in my number one spot. Coronatus is brand new to the scene and they’re also very good, but a couple songs on their CD are noticeably not quite “there” yet (namely “My Rose Desire” and “Hot & Cold). Along the same lines is another SymphRock band called Wintersun, but I just can’t bring myself to buy their work because the male singer is so awful [ a kind of yelly/screamy grovel-dy-guck ] the instrumentation is phenomenal though! If Wintersun got a real singer they’d be a sound to contend with!

Anyways, I think I’ve found some great music to use for my Fraps gaming movies that I’m hoping to make over the summer.  So that covers what I’m listening to. What I’m reading lately has been a lot of fantasy – namely Eragon, which I just finished last week, and I’m a few chapters into Crossroads of Twilight, book ten of The Wheel of Time series. I’ll probably finish this over the weekend and then start on Eldest, the sequel to Eragon.  That is if I don’t game away my weekend, LOL.

Guess that about wraps things up for this week – Enjoy!