Nice collaboration...

The Magic of the Wizard's Dream

In those silent shades of grey
I will find a place
to escape the endless night
to find a new sun


I know which is my fate
bond to Erian's old tale
I'll be always there
fighting the ancient sin
Moon shine in this eternal night


ANGELS ARE CALLING
FROM DIVINE LOST CRYSTAL REALMS
RIDING FROM HEAVEN
FOR THE MAGIC OF THE WIZARD'S DREAM


In the misty lights of dawn
between heart and soul
Elgard's calling for new hope
to avoid our fall


I know which is my fate
bond to Erian's old tale
I'll be always there
fighting the ancient sin
Moon shine in this eternal night


ANGELS ARE CALLING
FROM DIVINE LOST CRYSTAL REALMS
RIDING FROM HEAVEN
FOR THE MAGIC OF THE WIZARD'S DREAM

Bad day...

Rhapsody of Fire - Dawn Of Victory

Fire is raging on the battlefieldwhile arwald is fighting the war of the kingsthe army of dargor, the thunder, the storm...so people are calling the brave and his swordno time left to save the wise throne!Shades of a past not so far to forget...the rise of the demons from their bloody hell!so come mighty warrior to light the lost hopefor tharos the dragon and your cosmic soul...now handle your emerald sword!For ancelotthe ancient cross of warfor the holy town of godsgloria, gloria perpetuain this dawn of victoryThe ride of the dead and their practice of painis pounding in him as a terrific quakeyou're closer and closer now follow their smellwith your holy armour the steel in your handfly angel of bloody revenge!For ancelotthe ancient cross of warfor the holy town of godsgloria, gloria perpetuain this dawn of victoryTragic and furious the clash of the steel of the godsand so magic the power, the sword in his valorous handsoceans of fire are blasting the throne of the demonsand from distant red skies the thunders are calling his namethe name of the master of pain!For ancelotthe ancient cross of warfor the holy town of godsgloria, gloria perpetuain this dawn of victory

Emerald Sword...

Crossed the valleys the dust of midlands to search for the third key to open the gates Now I'm near the altar the secret inside as legend told my beloved sun light the dragons eyes On the way to the glory I'll honour my sword to serve right ideals and justice for all Finally happened the sun lit their eyes the spell was creating strange games of light Thanks to hidden mirrors I found my lost way over the stones I reached the place it was a secret cave In a long bloody battle that prophecies told the light will prevail hence wisdom is gold For the king for the land for the mountains For the green valleys where dragons fly For the glory the power to win the black lord I will search for the emerald sword Only a warrior with a clear heart could have the honour to be kissed by the sun Yes, I'm that warrior I followed my way led by the force of cosmic soul I can reach the sword On the way th the glory I'll honour my sword to serve right ideals and justice for all For the king for the land for the mountains For the green valleys where dragons fly For the glory the power to win the black lord I will search for the emerald sword " Very Memorable Spirit of Song "

Amorphis - You I Need

DIO

For a brief spell during the mid-'80s, the heavy metal quintet Dio were one of the top U.S. concert attractions, boasting one of the most over the top stage acts of its time loaded with props and special effects (lasers, explosions, a giant dragon, etc.). The group's leader was singer Ronnie James Dio, who had previously become acquainted with the metal masses as the frontman of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow from 1975-1978 and Black Sabbath from 1979-1982. Come the early '80s, Ronnie James was ready to finally head out on his own, forming Dio and recruiting a stellar backing band, consisting of a few former bandmembers, ex-Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain and ex-Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice (Carmine Appice's brother), in addition to ex-Sweet Savage guitar shredder Vivian Campbell. Lyrically, the group would retain the same subject matter that Ronnie James specialized in with his previous outfits (dungeons and dragons, swords and sorcery, damsels in distress, etc.), but musically, Dio were more melodically based than Rainbow or Sabbath. The group scored a hit right off the bat with its 1983 debut release, Holy Diver, which spawned such popular MTV videos as "Rainbow in the Dark," as well as its title track. 


For their sophomore effort, 1984's The Last in Line, the band expanded its lineup to include keyboardist Claude Schnell, as the album would become the biggest hit of Dio's career (on the strength of another MTV-approved video, for the album's anthemic title track) and the group became an arena headliner. Although Dio's next release, 1985's Sacred Heart, was commercially successful, Campbell had become disillusioned by the group's direction and split from the group a year later. Just prior to Campbell's exit, the entire Dio band helped organize Hear n' Aid, an all-star assembly of heavy metal artists that recorded a track called "Stars," which helped fight world hunger (a subsequent album was issued as well, collecting previously unreleased live tracks from a few of the day's top hard rock acts). Former Giuffria guitarist Craig Goldy took Campbell's place, resulting in such releases as 1986's live EP Intermission and 1987's Dream Evil, which retained the group's headbanging audience, but failed to expand upon it as its previous releases had. 


By 1990's Lock Up the Wolves, Ronnie James Dio was the only original member of Dio left in attendance as the band's lineup continued to fluctuate throughout the '90s on such releases as 1994's Strange Highways, 1996's Angry Machines, and 1998's Inferno: Last in Live (Ronnie James took a brief break from Dio in 1992 to rejoin Black Sabbath for a lone release, Dehumanizer). In 2000, a pair of Dio releases emerged; first was Dio's first new studio album in four years, the concept album Magica (which saw past members Bain and Goldy return to the group), as well as a 16-track compilation titled The Very Beast of Dio. His medieval-themed metal returned two years later, when the Killing the Dragon album arrived in the spring of 2002. The album was a serious endeavor, but Dio also learned to make fun of his image after years of defending it, inviting comedy duo Tenacious D to star in the video for "Push" and even including the clip on the fall re-release of Killing the Dragon. 


In the mid-2000s Dio the man and the band returned with the studio album Master of the Moon and the live Evil or Divine, but by 2006 the band had been sidelined upon the announcement that Ronnie James would be joining Heaven & Hell, a group reuniting the singer with his late-era Sabbath brethren Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice and named after the first Sabbath recording (released in 1980) that featured him as frontman. Heaven & Hell toured in the late 2000s and released a live (Live from Radio City Music Hall) and a studio (Devil You Know) recording, but by November of 2009 it was announced that the singer was suffering from stomach cancer, and Heaven & Hell subsequently canceled their summer 2010 touring plans. Ronnie James Dio succumbed to the disease on May 16, 2010, in Houston, TX.

Vain Glory Opera

Rhapsody..

Rhapsody..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye6YHQ8AZzU

Speed Metal and Thrash

Like hardcore, the next generation of metal was confrontational with its alienation and took a political and socially-critical angle; because of the Cold War going on at the time, most of these artists believed themselves to be the victims of centralized government and its political wars detached from the daily lives of the people, and thus the ethics of the music were highly populist and individualistic. The latter tendency would save later generations from being absorbed by the former, as hardcore was almost entirely by 1985, at which point the musical quality declined rapidly (to embrace populist politics means, in a liberal democratic era, to abandon dissidence for an extremism of the dominant rhetoric of the age). As hardcore died, it passed on its genetic material to metal, and the best examples of this were Discharge and the Exploited and GBH, whose stylistic attitudes appeared through succeeding generations of metal.

Arguably the first genre to emerge was speed metal, which followed expanded heavy metal structures but used muffled strumming to turn ringing chords into short explosive bursts of bass-intensive sound. This made the music more aesthetically menacing, and for a long time, guaranteed it zero airplay. On the other end of the spectrum, thrash music made less frequent use of muffled chords but took on two forms: metal riffs in punk song structures (COC, DRI) and punk riffs in metal song structures (Cryptic Slaughter, dead horse). Speed metal tended to use metal riffs in metal song structures but show the influence of hardcore music in riff texturing, which evoked the sounds of one-chord rhythm riffing, and in general uptempo songwriting and abrupt changes in melodic line within each song. Perhaps the best examples of speed metal were Metallica, Exodus and Slayer; the first two were based around muffled-chord player, while the latter focused on playing quick fluid phrases known for their complexity, and using introductory sequences of riffs like a progressive band in simple, aggressive form.

Thrash died out early, because there is only so much one can do with short, fast songs (frequently under thirty seconds). Speed metal proved to be too close to the heavy metal song format, and since there was more money and future for the musicians in radio-friendly heavy metal than battering-ram speed metal, most speed metal bands by the turn of the decade mutated into heavy metal acts with "speed metal influences," in the case of Metallica eventually going on to incorporate country music into their sound. This "selling out" of speed metal reflected a fundamental division in metal at the time, namely the perception that one could not speak the truth in public, and thus anything popular had compromised reality for a public reality which sold records. This belief was also echoed in the indie, grunge, rap, techno and punk music of the time.

Thrash bands tended to write a mixture of "political" songs and more direct, existential critiques of modern society; for example, in DRI's "Give my taxes back." Speed metal bands incorporated a fair amount of such existential critique as well, for example Metallica's "Escape."

Feel no pain, but my life ain't easy
I know I'm my best friend
No one cares, but I'm so much stronger
I'll fight until the end
To escape from the true false world
Undamaged destiny
Can't get caught in the endless circle
Ring of stupidity
Out of my own, out to be free
One with my mind, they just can't see
No need to hear things that they say
Life is for my own to live my own way
Rape my mind and destroy my feelings
Don't tell my what to do
I don't care now, 'cause I'm on my side
And I can see through you
Feed my brain with your so-called standards
Who says that I ain't right
Break away from your common fashion
See through your blurry sight
Out of my own, out to be free
One with my mind, they just can't see
No need to hear things that they say
Life is for my own to live my own way
See they try to bring the hammer down
No damn chains can hold me to the ground
Life is for my own to live my own way
- Escape, Metallica

However, the majority of songs in speed metal rotated around fear of government, nuclear war, apocalypse, social issues and occult topics. What was common to both movements was a belief that the path of progress as a general item was missing the point, and that somehow there was something inarticulable in polite society that needed to be done. As time went on, however, even these genres fell short because of their popularity, in the view of many metal artists, and thus the next step was taken.

Heavy Metal...

With heavy metal, the style of Black Sabbath was solidified, but deeply hybridized with the progressive rock, Celtic folk and electric blues fusion of Led Zeppelin, having influences also from aggro-prog bands like King Crimson and Jade Warrior. The late 1960s culminated in rock being bored with itself, and after the Beatles went progressive and British and American blues-rock guitarists aimed for more lengthy, complex works, rock essentially turning progressive in nature. "Progressive" is perhaps a misnomer, as there's no "progress" in re-incorporating influences from classical music, but for rock it was progress from the simplistic pop of the 1950s to incorporate new styles and vastly adulterate the blues framework of rock (the blues is a syncopated version of Celtic and German folk-pop, formed in America of the mixture of cultures; like most popular music on all continents, it features easily transposed chord progressions and a basic song structure which allows easy melodic improvisation).

This music, tame as it sounds today, was a turd in the punchbowl among the progressive and folksy, mostly pacifistic and hedonistic rock of the time. Unlike the good times and party hearty vibe of most music, metal, like dissident apocalyptic rockers the Doors before it, was "heavy" in that it took on weighty existential topics and its partying was self-destructive, an expression of impending doom. It was not happy fun include everyone music; it was for darker souls, those more likely to strike out in anger at the world, and those who felt a need to reject more than embrace recent social changes. Consequently, it embraced dark imagery, with Iron Maiden taking on occult topics, Motorhead wearing Iron Crosses (a symbol of the defeated National Socialist regime in Germany), and Judas Priest not only writing songs about WWII but openly accepting a demonic, warlike persona.

Alone this would be cause enough to say metal was divergent from rock of the time, but the musical factor of its development was important. Unlike the harmony-based, short-cycle riffs of rock, metal almost exclusively used moveable power chords, which can be played in any position along the neck of the guitar in quick sequence, thus lending to riffs written as phrases (like classical, or jazz) more than rhythmic variations built around open chords. This both simplified the music to the point where it was highly accessible, and gave it a dark sound which lent itself, as in classical composition, toward a narrative song structure in which riffs form motifs that resolve themselves over the course of a song. While clearly much of the heritage of this style comes from the lengthy classical-borrowing epics of progressive rock, between the raw nature of the inverted fifth and the thunderous effect of chordal phrases buffeting the listener, it produced a gnarled, feral sound.

Even more alarmingly, for those who wanted to immerse themselves in the hippie pop of the time, metal was openly embracing of the wilderness (similar to the concept of "the frontier" in the music of the Doors) and replaced a desire for moral certitude with a desire for the lawless. Its musicians wrote about ancient times, about battle and death, and seemed to be searching through the haze of the counterculture for something of eternal meaning, which explains to some degree the vast amount of ecclesiastical and occult symbolism in all metal bands of the period. Indeed, in Venom and Angel Witch and many other NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) acts, there was an almost exclusive focus on the dark side and on the spiritual figures society rejected for not being tamed, such as Lord Satan himself.

Using occult imagery to reflect political topics was also popular, and is best exemplified by what became the prototype of all "Satanic" metal lyrics to follow, Black Sabbath's "War Pigs"

Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.
Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
In this song, a humanity distracted by political and monetary concerns turns its back on reality, thus a travesty occurs and is unnoticed by all while, in the last verse, the demonic figure of hatred and death triumphs.

Heavy metal grew prodigiously from 1972 to just after the turn of the decade, and at that point was replaced by newer styles which represented a re-infusion of hardcore punk styles; unlike punk, hardcore punk did not follow pop song structures nor did it use conventional harmonics, often consisting of two or three power chords per song, rhythmic and droning riffing, and songs that like small operas were built around their own topics. If a song was about death, it might end abruptly; a song about war might diverge into a middle interlude with no immediate relation to the previous works. What drove hardcore punk was the insistent pace of its music, and the power chord phrases that resembled the topics of each song much as each song's structure resembled the topic being discussed. Lyrics and music were united. However, hardcore was quite simple and soon drowned in a sea of imitators.

Chord...

During an unusual time, in which a large number of bigger historical trends reached one of those periodistic points of brutal evidence, metal music punched through the pleasant facade of mainstream music and brought to bear upon a slumbering populace remnants of the ancient Indo-European spirit of vir. It did so through a Romanticist, Faustian form of music-culture which to this day remains controversial, despite the attempts of commercial bands to turn it into a predictable, fatalistic, impotent version of itself.

However, for now it has run its course, so it makes sense to look over the past and from that, divine what might exist of it in the future. The fundamental questions of any artistic movement are "What did it believe that others did not?" and "To what did it appeal?" In metal, there are two interpretations: first, what the musicians who contributed something sizable to the genre intended - I'm not talking about popular but artistically meaningless efforts like Cannibal Corpse or Cradle of Filth - and second, what those outside the genre would like it to mean; generally, since it threatens their worldview, they want it to mean nothing.

To see this, we have to trace thirty years of its progress. It emerged from the proto-metal of bands like King Crimson, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, and soon solidified into a 1970s style of heavy metal most notably represented by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Motorhead (we would include Venom here, but everything they did was done by Motorhead except the explicit and repetitive occult imagery). Heavy metal arose roughly concurrently with punk and hardcore, best represented by early work like Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the Ramones and proto-punk like Link Wray and the MC5. Both movements were dissident movements, meaning that they rejected everything present in popular culture at the time and took a path of ambiguous degree of opposition, but clearly a different and thus incompatible choice.