Week 16: Christopher Lee - Act III: The Bloody Verdict of Verden

The artist: Christopher Lee shouldn't need an introduction, especially when he's a top notch actor. However, what does need to be stated is his contribution to heavy metal in the recent years. As his two favourite bands are Rhapsody and Manowar, he was more than willing to work with Rhapsody for their albums involving The Dark Saga. Following the first two albums he contributed to Rhapsody, Christopher Lee decided to work on a symphonic metal album of his own. He later had a voice role for Manowar's Battle Hymns MMXI where he spoke the narration in Dark Avenger which was originally done by Orson Welles.

The album: Charlemagne: By The Sword and the Cross is Christopher Lee's symphonic metal album project. The album is based on King Charlemagne who Christopher Lee claims is one his ancestors. The album is divided in acts and while it goes through the history of Charlemagne, it's hard to not think that there are probably too many intro tracks in the album. Counting the overture, Charlemagne contains SIX intro tracks. That is rather overkill but one song that sticks out very well is the third act The Bloody Verdict of Verden. Although this album is more neoclassical than metal, it's hard to overlook a big actor like Christopher Lee making his own heavy metal album. You can never be too old to be metal!

The song: The Bloody Verdict of Verden is strongly symphonic just like the rest of the album but it's also the strongest metal sounding. This part of the concept album is based on the massacre of Saxons in 782 A.D. which is easily stated with the awesome chorus. Christopher Lee manages to makes this song very dramatic throughout the song which is what you need when you're singing about many men killed. As stated before, this song has an awesome chorus with Lee shouting out "I SHED THE BLOOD OF THE SAXON MEN!" many times. It may be repetitive but it needs to address the amount of men who were murdered in the massacre of Verden. Fortunately the song provides a majestic riff and solo at the end giving the heavy metal feeling it requires. Overall, this is a great song sung by Christopher Lee. Credit has to be given to both him and the instrumental contributors for this fine work and hopefully he still has plenty of time to make more contributions to the heavy metal universe.

Week 14: Rhapsody (of Fire) - On the Way to Ainor

The artist: Heavy metal with strong orchestral elements with a multi-album concept using fantasy settings? Oh hell yes! Rhapsody (of Fire) are well recognised for their powerful orchestral elements, Luca Turilli's over the top guitar performance and of course making a strong focus on fantasy tales. If you're a sucker for anything medieval-related like me, you'll feel right at home with Rhapsody. For anyone else, your mileage may vary. Some really love the band for who they are, others hate them for who they are. Rhapsody aren't for everyone but they're awesome for those who can appreciate their music. Even if you're not particular fond of these guys, you have to give them credit for getting Christopher Lee to narrate on the albums in The Dark Saga. You'd think each band member would have had to break an arm and a leg just to get him to contribute to their albums.

The album: The Frozen Tears of Angels is Rhapsody's comeback album after being on suspension due to a dispute with Joey DeMaio of Manowar. Not sure what went wrong with him but we should be glad Rhapsody are no longer with DeMaio's record label Magic Circle Music and are now being catered by Nuclear Blast. With the release of The Frozen Tears of Angels, it was clear Rhapsody were back with a vengeance. This album takes a much heavier approach of the band's music by being faster, heavier and harsher than before. It's like the band took all their aggression out on this album after the fall out with Joey DeMaio. You hear Fabio Lione screaming in Reign of Terror? That's how infuriated they were.

The song: On the Way to Ainor starts off right away with some fast riffage rocking alongside with the keyboards. Half a minute later Turilli calms down to make way for the first passage for the vocals with the flute in the background. Fabio Lione knows how to make these songs emotional and executes it very well before kicking it up a bit ready to rock with the whole band. The chorus easily shows the angrier side of Rhapsody's music (again, must have been because of the band suspension) but not on the same magnitude as Reign of Terror.

After the second chorus ends, the song falls into a solomania for two minutes by Luca Turilli and each of his solos during this section have to be some of the finest he's ever played on his guitar. The Frozen Tears of Angels has a lot of killer solos but there's something about the consecutive solos in this song that make them shine even brighter. The song then revisits the chrous one more time before it ends. For the somewhat different structure of song for Rhapsody, this is easily a highlight for not only the album but also the band's music in general.