Newly Acquired Music - Recommended

My Lastest Roundup of tunes:

"Evanescence" ~Evanescence
"Ceremonials" ~Florence + The Machine
"The Unforgiving" ~Within Temptation
"The Wild Divine" ~Alela Diane
"Neptune" ~Eliza Carthy
"Whitelake" ~Enter the Haggis
"The Waking Sleep" ~Katie Herzig
"A Creature I Don't Know" ~Laura Marling
"Passenger" ~Lisa Hannigan
"Overlook" ~Maria Taylor
"This Beautiful War" ~Olivia Broadfield
"When You Grow Up" ~Priscilla Ahn
"Near Infinite Possibility" ~Sarah Fimm
"In Your Dreams" ~Stevie Nicks
"Night of Hunters" ~Tori Amos
"GhostBird" ~Zee Avi
"All Things Will Unwind" ~My Brightest Diamond
"Follow Me Down" ~Sarah Jarosz
"Speed of Darkness" ~Flogging Molly

Steampunkt

I shouldn't have looked...but I did...at Amazon.com, the beckoning header that reads "If you like Abney Park, we recommend these..."

And there they were:  a lovely selection of more steampunk bands that I, indeed, did sample and enjoy immensely.

So far, I've been a good and frugal girl and haven't actually bought any of them.  I placed them on my wish list instead of in my shopping cart and felt very proud for having resisted kneejerk temptation.   However, it's been only a couple days...and they are still there...whispering...singing...and flying their airships in the back of my mind.

In any case, here's what I found:

The Cog Is Dead

The Clockwork Dolls

Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society

Unextraordinary Gentlemen

Sunday Driver

Clockwork Quartet

Ghostfire

Must. Stop. The. Music.

Okay.  I've always been one to prioritize the purchasing of cds and books before luxury items like food and clothing...but lately, I've been really out of control with the buying of the tunes.  I don't know what has caused this need to hoard songs like a squirrel with nuts, but it's doing my finances severe damage.  I used to be more a hoarder of books, but it's been music music music nonstop for a while now.  Whyfor this desperate thirst, I do not know.  I guess it's so easy to just clicky away on iTunes, but I'm still a big fan of CD presentation and packaging, so if I can get my mitts on it in the store, I will.   Unfortunately, they are usually way more pricey in stores than off iTunes or amazon.com, and the stores don't carry my more obscure wants.

*sigh....

I must completely resist the "recommends" links on amazon too.  I love treasure hunting for new singers and bands; I just need to put the blinders on for a while and keep my clicky fingers to themselves. 

Please No Demondogs...

...in my rock/metal/symphonic metal music.

I spent quite a bit of time on Saturday at Amazon.com sampling music recommended for an Evanescence & Within Temptation lover such as myself.

Lots of stuff out there that I *would* like if not for the overdose of what they call "death growls" or the "Beauty and the Beast" element of many of these bands.   I get it, I do, what they are going for...the dynamic of the beautiful operatic female voice against the representation of the darkside with the evil growlies, but...

enuff is enuff is enuff, IMHO. 

I think the music can play the darkside role very well without the need for jarring growls, which can ruin (for me) otherwise powerful songs.   Besides, the use of the deathgrowl is getting old.  I'd rather hear a lower male voice actually singing to offset the female soprano, rather then the default to growliness.

Tons of awesome bands out there that I just had to pass on for growl overuse violations.  Which is good for my wallet, I guess, but... I may need to cherrypick songs that I know are growl-less to add to my collection.

But for now, I have only a short list of growl-less or nearly growless bands that I've snatched up in their entirety.

Evanescence is awesome, of course, but too long a wait between albums. :(

Within Temptation...my FAV...powerful and haunting.  They have growlies on some of the songs on their very first album, but luckily abandoned using that gimmick altogether since.

Delain - a force to watch...slight use of growlies on a couple songs, but great singing "overpowers" them instead of the other way 'round.  \o/

We Are The Fallen - new band, their first CD recently released.  Will be keeping my eye on them, definitely!  First CD was great, I imagine followups to just grow in awesomeness.  GROWL-FREE.

Elysion - new band, first CD...growl-free, impressive vocals and heart pumping music.  I'm glad I found this hidden gem.

Here! Play wif DIS!

http://theweepies.com/


ps The Weepies make AWESOME music...check 'em out after you're done shaking up their world!

The Return of the Goddess

Loreena McKennit is truly The Goddess of Celtic Music.  Her new album returns us to her roots.  Her voice is as haunting as always and the title track especially brings shivers to the skin... 

BTW, If you don't have her Christmas album, To Drive the Cold Winter Away , I highly recommend it; It never fails, that when I listen to it, I have tears in my eyes by the time the whispers of the final track fade away...it's just that beautiful:

The Soundtrack to This...My New Blog...

would definitely be Sarah Fimm's gorgeous Nexus album.  It's one of my favorite music journeys of all time and always reminds me of the possibility of Faerie in Outer Space.