Aki's Blog

Yesterday I got my new Devil Doll t-shirt through mail. An incredible band, an incredible album, a wonderful shirt.

So being born in 1992 means I just lived my first full decade. It is now 2010, which means I should write a review or something on the last decade.

I will not.

So, what’s about this new year? Lots of amazing stuff to look forward to, so I decided to become a tr00 blogger and release a nice list for 2010.

• Music
  • Progressive power metal band Kamelot release their ninth (!) album on March 22 and visits Sweden in April.
  • Tobias Sammets metal project Avantasia release two new albums on April 3 – Angel of Babylon and The Wicked Symphony – the sequel to the tale of the Scarecrow.
  • Also symphonic metal act Within Temptation release an album, totally different from their earlier work – more band, less orchestra, heavier, dirtier. Or something along those lines.
  • And Tarja (ex-Nightwish) release her third studio album What Lies Beneath.
  • Speaking of Nightwish, it is rumoured that they finally got permission to release their cover of Michael Nyman’s The Heart Asks Pleasure First. A single/EP, perhaps?
  • And their current singer Anette Olzon is soon finished with her solo debut album. I’m really, really curious and scared.
• TV
  • Number one: THE RETURN OF FUTURAMA! The fifth season begins on June 10. I AM REALLY EXCITED! Will it be a success or will it blow like Paris Hilton on scary videos?
  • Lost is coming to an end. And I am really wondering how they are supposed to end this. I also wonder how the season premiere will start – the season finale SPOILER ended with the Island being blown up by an H-bomb. SPOILER STOP.
  • Heroes goes on. One of the best shows, still going strong in the fourth season.
  • And The Simpsons begins the 22nd season. Still going strong, but I still find difficulty ranking it as high as everything pre-season eleven.
• Film
  • Lots of great stuff here as well, but the one I’m looking the most forward to must be Tim Burton’s adaption of Alice in Wonderland. Seems like awesomeness.
  • Harry Potter 7.1. The first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released for cinema this summer. Being the best of the novels, I really hope for it being the best of the movies as well. Honestly, the latest one wasn’t good at all.
• Literature
  • Stephen King is working on two new novels:
    • The Wind Through the Keyhole – the new Dark Tower novel. The Dark Tower is one of my favorite book series ever, no matter the genre. This new book will be telling stories of the lesser characters, and will be set between the fourth and fifth novel (Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla).
    • Doctor Sleep, the sequel of The Shining after a 33 year old gap. According to King: “Danny is now 40 years old and living in upstate New York, where he works as the equivalent of an orderly at a hospice for the terminally ill. Danny’s real job is to visit with patients who are just about to pass on to the other side, and to help them make that journey with the aid of his mysterious powers.”

ONE HELL OF A YEAR!

PS. That was just my longest post title ever. DS.

WE’RE GONNA HAVE A GOTHIC CHRISTMAS!

Happy Yuletide, all.

Looks like my music’s going to be in the 2010 Swedish film De Fördömda Den Mörka Hemligheten. :)

I was just watching the Swedish mini-series Mäklarna (The Brokers), and in the end along the ending credits it read

Subtitles: Mick Jagger

I stopped the film, and repeated the section. Then watch it again. What…?

Ready... set... fire!

As I reported earlier, the next release by symphonic metal band Nightwish will be their live EP/DVD with the odd name “Made in Hong Kong (And Various Other Places)” to be released in March of 2009 (some sources claim the 6th, some the 16th, but officially it’s just “March”.

The official press letter was rather cryptic, but after seeing actually confirmed sources as well as the Finnish version of the official website (some seemed to get lost in translation), I have come to understand this:

The release is a CD/EP as well as a “bonus” DVD.

The CD/EP is filled with live contents from different shows from the 2008 part of the band’s Dark Passion Play tour in Europe, Asia, South and North America. The actual shows are not confirmed, nor is the setlist, but obviously Hong Kong is expected. Many fans discusses the track listing, and hopefully they’ll decide to include the more “unusual songs”, such as Creek Mary’s Blood which is only played on some shows in USA when guest vocalist-instrumentalist John Two-Hawks plays his part, Higher Than Hope which is only played when the Bruelands visit the show and While Your Lips Are Still Red, which has only been played a couple of times. Hit songs such as Amaranth, Nemo, Bye Bye Beautiful and Wish I Had an Angel are almost certain to be included.

Nightwish live in 2008

The DVD was first thought to be further live clips, but as the Finnish version of Nightwish.com tells us, this is not the case. The DVD is actually a documentary “with material from Israel to South America”, directed by Ville Lipiäinen. The DVD might however include smaller clips, as most music documentaries do (including the one on End of an Era).

Rumours also say that the EP will include either a new Nightwish song or a re-recording of a song from the Tarja Turunen era, but these rumours are unconfirmed and according to me rather unbelievable since the band has been on tour for so long and I don’t really think they’ve had the time to record a new song. The only thing would be if they played a new song live, but they haven’t.

After I heard the name, I was first disappointed. “Made in Hong Kong (and Various Other Places)” didn’t sound Nightwish-y or “epic” at all, such as earlier albums; Century Child, Oceanborn, End of an Era, From Wishes to Eternity… After discussing it on the official forum, however, I realised the message that everything wasn’t always to be taken completely seriously. Sometimes you just want to rock out and that’s that. Also, as someone wrote, it’s the hidden message that in this world when everything’s mass produced in Hong Kong or China or Korea or whatever, Nightwish still sticks out in spite all the talk about them selling out.

Another BIG fan, Morrigan told us unknowing minions that the name actually derives from an interview Master Holopainen did in 2004, when he said that Nightwish isn’t to be taken completely serious all the time; and he mentioned the example that if they did a live DVD recorded in Hong Kong they’d maybe call it “Made in Hong Kong” just for the fun of it.

Please comment if you have any more information that I can add!

Sweden Rock Festival will start rocking and rolling on the 3rd of June, 2009, and I’ll be there in the front row cheering when I see Dream Theater, In Flames, Hammerfall, Europe, Motörhead… and the 50 bands that will be added to the list in time.

See you in Norje, Sölvesborg on the third.

Lots of bands have already announced albums to be released in 2009. Oh my god, I’m having a musical stroke…

Dream Theater's latest album - a special edition of Systematic Chaos.

Sometime in the spring (I’ll see them live on Sweden Rock Festival in the beginning of June as their first gig for the upcoming tour), progressive metal pioneers Dream Theater will release their so far untitled tenth studio album described by the band as:

[...] a DT album with A Change Of Seasons, Octavarium, Learning To Live, Pull Me Under and The Glass Prison….all on one album.

Today it was revealed that one of my all time favorite bands, Finnish symphonic power metal giants Nightwish will release a live DVD/CD entitled “Made in Hong Kong (and Various Other Places)“, as a result of their Dark Passion Play Tour.

On the doom metal front, British My Dying Bride will release their tenth studio album “For Lies I Sire” on an untold date in 2009. Track listing is already revealed! After still rolling as heavily on their 2006 release “A Line of Deathless Kings“, I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

Again some Nightwish news: They have reported they’ll soon draw back to record their seventh studio album, and they have also said both Tuomas and Marco have several finished songs. Probably to be released in either late 2009 or early 2010!

For later years: Dutch symphonic rock / metal band Within Temptation has announced their next album to be released in 2010, and American power metal Kamelot are planning their tenth album in 2011!

Finnish symphonic power metal band Nightwish has reported their forthcoming release of a photojournal by Ville Akseli Juurikkala (photographer of bands such as HIM, Apocalyptica and The 69 Eyes), with photos from their 2007 – 2008 Dark Passion Play Tour, entitled Dark Passion Gallery. Gah, a wasteless thing, sure, but I still NEED it. €25. Cannot… afford…

After barely listening to one of my top favorite bands ever, Finnish power metal Sonata Arctica, for almost half a year, I’ve fallen back again – ofcourse resulting in listening to them almost exclusively. Especially their latest album Unia (2007) has caught my attention, and it all started as I heard the bonus track “Out in the Fields” (Gary Moore cover) for the first time, a few days ago. Unia is also one of those albums you really don’t get the first time, but after a few listens… it’s great. Caleb is still my favorite song on the album, and one of their best songs together as well.And the fact that I’ve fallen back into Sonata Arctica is great for the fact that I’m seeing them live on November 1st as well!