Northern Kings

Now here's an interesting album!

Quote :

Northern Kings - The All-Stars of Finnish Metal

Northern Kings - whose first single "We Don't Need Another Hero" (originally by Tina Turner) hits the stores on September 24 - can without a doubt be called an all-star line-up of Finnish metal.

The group is not an ordinary band, but a league of four vocalists, who are all frontmen of successful heavy metal bands. They wanted to create something special together and came up with an idea of arranging 80's classics to metal versions - to which all the four vocalists could contribute.

The tracks from the forthcoming album include legendary pieces such as "I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight" by Cutting Crew, "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits and "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.

Those four singers are:

Marco Heitala from Nightwish, Tarot
Tony Kakko from Sonata Arctica
JP Leppäluoto from Charon
Jarkko Ahola from some band I've never heard of, Teräsbetoni

Cool line-up! A little frightening, though, the idea of them covering Tina frickin' Turner, but the cover is wicked! The music is doomy, mid-paced, similar to To/Die/For and Charon, and it works well. The other clips sound cool, but I need to hear the full songs first.

Anyway, seems like a CD worth picking up. I guess it comes out on the 31st.

I'd love to hear the Tina Turner cover. Always thought that make a nice metal tune.

kmorg wrote:

I'd love to hear the Tina Turner cover. Always thought that make a nice metal tune.

Do you have dial-up? The full version is on their MySpace page.

EDIT: Guess I should have added that link, huh?

http://www.myspace.com/northernkings

yuck that sounds almost as bad as Tarja Turunen's cover of Alice Cooper's Poison. the Phil Collins & Billy Idol songs weren't much better.

mc666 wrote:

yuck that sounds almost as bad as Tarja Turunen's cover of Alice Cooper's Poison. the Phil Collins & Billy Idol songs weren't much better.

No real man says "yuck."

Eyesore wrote:

mc666 wrote:

yuck that sounds almost as bad as Tarja Turunen's cover of Alice Cooper's Poison. the Phil Collins & Billy Idol songs weren't much better.

No real man says "yuck."

like you'd know about a real man.

Interesting concept, but the end result is a little too bloated and "epic" for my tastes. I prefer my music a little more raw.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Interesting concept, but the end result is a little too bloated and "epic" for my tastes. I prefer my music a little more raw.

I downloaded this. It's not so mid-paced as those samples suggest. I'd be willing to bet that Tuomas from Nightwish played a part in creating this music, as there's a lot of orchestration and it just has a Nightwish vibe to it. I wouldn't call it bloated, but epic is a good term.

Like I said, it's not as mid-paced and gothic as the samples make it seem. "Don't Stop Believin'" (Journey) is a symphonic power metal tune, as is "Hello" (Lionel Richie, I swear!) and "Fallen On Hard Times" (no idea who does this) and "Don't Bring Me Down" (again, no idea). "Broken Wings" (Mr. Mister, right?) is killer, mid-paced but really cool. Most of these covers are unrecognizable outside of the lyrics and some melodies. Take the vocals away and you'd never place the music.

Not every song here is killer, but it's a pretty cool collection of covers. The Lionel Richie cover is so good. Haha. They're all very different from the originals. A nice little concept.

The music was ok, but the vocals sucked

kmorg wrote:

The music was ok, but the vocals sucked

Do you not like Tarot, Charon, and Sonata Arctica?

This band is so damn cool. This is what a covers album should be like. Each song a totally new verion, nothing like the originals! I love it.

Check this out:

BADASS TUNE

Is this available at a decent price? When I first heard of it several months ago, it was only available as a very pricey import.

I just looked on amazon still kind of a bit pricey

tohostudios wrote:

Is this available at a decent price? When I first heard of it several months ago, it was only available as a very pricey import.

Definitely not available to us at a decent price. I downloaded it. I hate saying that, but my days of spending $35 for a CD are over, at least for the time being.

Same here. I downloaded it as well.

This is a band I keep meaning to check out but never have.

7thSaviour wrote:

This is a band I keep meaning to check out but never have.

you're better off this way.