In Which I Discover European Rock

Seem like music has been the topic of the week lately. So I thought I'd do a post on how I entered the current chapter of my musical life and broadened my musical repertoire considerably.

So, ya'll know I like books. I mean, I write them. But I like them reading them too, of course. And given the opportunity, I will talk about those I have read to no end. So, it should come as no surprise that I am part of Literary Discussion Group, which, of course, discuses literature.

Anyways, sometime in January of last year, the book we chose to discuss next was J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. Led by the incomparable Mrs. B, we debated and dissected everything from Finwe to the Fall of Numenor, and everything in between. Favorite characters were voted on (Turin Turambar got my vote), favorite tales discussed, and favorite moments revisited. But towards the end music was brought up, and Mrs. B. mentioned that she had found a band that wrote Silmarillion-inspired music. The only problem was, they were rather hard-core rock.

Naturally, I looked them up as soon as I got home. Thus I discovered Blind Guardian, a speed-metal/rock band whose epic themes and soaring lyrics caught my attention just as much as the crazy guitar soloing. And when they focused on just the former two... perfect:

So what did I do? What any sensible music-lover does. I created a Pandora station. And was immediately introduced to the wonderful world of European epic rock. Blind Guardian has a male singer, but I soon found Within Temptation, a band with a female singer who took my appreciation of epic to an entirely new level.

And then I discoverd the pièce de résistance.... a Swedish band known as Sabaton. The first song I heard by them was about D-day. The next about U-boats. The next about the bombing of Hiroshima. The next about the battle of Midway. And I was hooked. Not only were their lyrics about honor, and glory, and sacrifice, and courage, but there were these wonderful references to mythology and a unique contrast of heaven and hell. And top it all, they have an entire album inspired by Sun Tzu's Art of War.

In a world where most of today's pop music is hardly worthy of the name 'music' and full of less-than-savory references and questionable subject matter, it's refreshing to hear music that has depth and meaning.