Music Monday | Joost van der Beork

Hello!

Even though 2009 is the year that started my journey into the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, I would have to mention that the next year was just as important to me. In 2010, as I was failing to comprehended to understand my online class of Music Theory, I was busy dipping my feet into new waters. Once I made the decision of quitting my classes altogether, I dove down deep into the world of symphonic metal.

Now what you need to understand is that I was both heavily depressed and contemplating suicide so the fact that I still remember the origin story of how I got into the starting five bands from mid-2010 to early 2012 is a miracle in itself because everything else is a complete blur to me. I strongly believe music not only kept me alive but also distracted my negative mind. I chose to select a fairly large group of people to be apart of my story.

I didn’t find out about Joost until probably late 2011, which makes sense because by then I had decided to give Disturbed and Slipknot a try after years and years of being absolutely afraid to listen to anything that could activate my inner anxiety. In the same cycle, I had found the band Epica as they were just about to release their concert “Retrospect” concert DVD/CD. Once I started going through the band’s previous albums, I quickly realized that there was a common theme, Joost van der Beork was producing a good chunk of their albums!

After that, I decided to go through his music and found out that he use to be apart of another symphonic metal band called After Forever with Mark Jenson of Epica and Floor Jenson (no, they are not related!) of Nightwish. Once the band broke up, Joost went on to go behind the scenes and produce music instead. He has worked with Epica, ReVamp (Floor’s band), Delain, Leah, MaYaN (Mark’s solo project) and many others. He has a fairly large resume of a lot of bands you might not have heard before, so I think if you have a free minute in the time to look on Spotify or YouTube and check out some of the music he helped put together. Oh, and after going through with this post, I ended up finding out that Joost is actually a current member of a band called Ex Libris, which are very good too!

Have you heard pf any Joost’s work in the past? If you have, what was the first album you listened to and possibly enjoyed the most?

Album Review: “New Blood” by Yellow Claw

Well, back in March, I reviewed Yellow Claw’s new little EP for “Amsterdam Trap House” and I thought that was pretty good, but I wasn’t expecting a whole new album afterwards but I accepted it with open arms though!

Their third album “New Blood” came out on the 22nd of June, and it consists of fifteen songs with various featured singers and other DJs lending samples of beats to collaborate. Now I will admit, there are a lot of people on this, and some that I’ve never heard of before so you’ll have to forgive me there for not having all of my normal pieces of information about them.

So let’s get started on this, because I’m ready to dance on my bed!

We begin this little adventure with “Lost On You” with Phlake. I thought was so pretty! It starts off so slow and what’s interesting is that it never really breaks out of that chill sound, but the tempo does improve a bit towards the choruses. It’s a very romantic song, and for once I actually like it. What’s wrong with me? Second is “Summertime” and San Holo collaborates with the guys for this. I like the mysterious introduction, but I’m always so iffy with a person speaking into a static-y format. I have a hard time figuring out what they’re saying, but I love the beat. That ominous feeling never really goes away, which I enjoyed and I liked the mild build up to the drop, very subtle but keeps it kind of unique for a summertime song really!

Next we have “Both Of Us” with STORi and again, we have this light beginning but since the featured singer has a very mellow voice too, it actually works well. I really like this, because for anyone that likes to listen to EDM on the radio, this is very radio-friendly with kids, the drop isn’t that intense, but the song in general isn’t so heavy that you’re used to hearing in dance music, it’s really good! Fourth is “Villain” with Valentina and I think I’ve heard this before, maybe I’ve played it before the album came out and I’ve forgotten about it, that sounds like something I’d do really! Anywho, it has a mild beat, and I’ve always had an uneasy time with both chill and house music, because at times they can just be so boring, but I don’t want to say this is that by any means, but I just don’t like it as much.

“Crash This Party” with Tabitha Nauser is next and after having a somewhat dull song beforehand, this pretty much makes up for it! It’s so upbeat and dare I say, positive? I really like the drop, and they insert their “Yellow Motherfucking Claw” towards the end of the track, which instantly made me smile, because it’s not a YC song without at least one of their songs having that somewhere in the track! My only complaint is that it’s too short! The other one, as soon as it started it made me jump! I wasn’t expecting that pop in the beginning to “Public Enemy” at all. I actually laughed at myself! Anyways, this has DJ Snake, and you all should know that I love DJ Snake a lot! This doesn’t feature anybody but him, so it’s instrumental and you definitely know I love those the most! This is just the greatest, I can’t describe it any better than that. I have to find the live version of this, because I can imagine crowds going absolutely crazy for this!

We move on to, “Fake Chanel” with A$AP Ferg and Creek Boyz. I actually remember listening to this when it came out as a single and I loved it instantly! It’s so interesting how I will listen to rappers that appear on EDM music a lot better than rap music in general. I don’t know how that works either! I really love the beat to this, it’s so sharp and different. The drop is insane! After that banger, we go into “Attention” with Chase and Kalibwoy, which as soon as it started, I thought, “oh yay, this will be softer”. Well, I was half right with that expectation! It is mysterious but I was really intrigued with the second voice, he completely changed the vibe that I originally had going, so that was cool! This, as a whole, is a very different track and I love it!

We have “Bittersweet” featuring Sofia Reyes, who has this sweet little voice and I like the fact that the beat itself doesn’t overpower her. It’s a good song! “To The Max” is next and this has a number of people on it, but the only one that I know is Bok Nero. The others are MC Kekel, Lil Debbie, and MC Gustta. This is good, with a nice simple beat and you have like mixture of voices, but it’s not the best. I also think this was the longest one on the album too. I don’t know I really feel about that so we’re going to move onto “Down On Love” with Moski and Yade Lauren, which I know Yade was featured on another of YC’s songs, “Love & War”. This is pretty mellow, but I like it, at least this has an interesting beat and the singer has gorgeous voice.

We’re almost done. I know, even I’m a little sad about that! There’s “I’ll Be Fine” with Kelsey Gill and she sounds like Zara Larsson! I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it was the first that I thought of when the song started playing. This is pretty good, nothing about it is too much, it could get good radio play on pop oriented stations, so that’s a plus! And we have “Waiting” that has Rochelle in it, and she’s also been a guest on their songs before. I really like the dreamy vibe I got while listening to it. It does have the standard build up and the bass drop is really good, but I liked the original beat better. Surprisingly, I don’t think it needed all of that other stuff, even if they had turned it down. I know I’m starting to scare myself now! Lastly, we have “Another Life” with STORi again. I really like the usage of the piano, it gave it a sense of elegance. The beat is really simple, and we finish in the same way we started, so it’s kind of perfect.

I was kind of impressed with this. I figured since they released an album in the summer, it would sound pretty summer-y in the process, but I never got that vibe as I continued to listen to the songs. You have a good mesh of the heavy bangers that every EDM loves, but if you are in the mood for something softer, then you definitely a few to choose from, so it’s a good batch of music.

Have you listened to Yellow Claw’s new album, “New Blood” yet? What did you think? Do you have any favorite(s)?

EP Review: “Amsterdam Trap Music Vol. 3” by Yellow Claw

I wasn’t even going to do this review. It wasn’t on my radar, but I saw it on “New Music Friday” on Spotify and decided to just go for it!

Yellow Claw are a duo of DJs coming out of The Netherlands, which is why their EP is titled “Amsterdam” Trap Music. I love YC’s music a lot! I basically spent majority of 2015 under the spell of Yellow Claw and other Dutch musicians.

I think I should admit this. I really love trap music! I’d rather listen trap instrumentals though, rather than having a female vocalist or rapper in the background, but I really like the first track of the EP! It’s called “Loudest MF” and it features Bok Nero on it. Unfortunately I don’t know if Bok is another DJ or the rapper, so I’m sorry that I’m lacking on that piece of information! One of the things I really like about it is that it doesn’t seem to stay in the melody all the way through, they change it up so it almost sounds like you’re getting two songs in one track. It’s the perfect starter! Second is “Don’t Stop” and it has Valentino Kahn, and I know trap music is usually somewhat dirty in its lyrics and most girls like to twerk to it, but I just like the genre and quite frankly this song because it’s very bass heavy and the sounds are so weird but cool at the same time. It’s unlike anything that I’m used to listening to it when it comes to dance music.

Next we have “Beastmode” and let’s be honest, that’s just the best title ever! It has Stoltenhoff on it. What’s even better is that it does sound like a beast! When the bass drops though, you kind of hear this “what’s up fuckers” and then you hear female vocals get somewhat static-y and the sound itself chills out a bit, it’s not as obnoxious and the entire track is pretty mellow! Lastly, you have “Dog Off” and as far as I know, this is just Yellow Claw on the track. One thing that I’ve loved about all four songs is that they all have a slow build and keep a steady pace throughout unless you have ones that just explode, and this is definitely in that category! Towards the end you get this subtle surprise of high-pitched sounds in your ears. I thought it was a nice touch, it was a great ending to the EP itself.

I actually really enjoyed this! I had a really tough time keeping myself from dancing, which I guess in a way, is a good thing! I also had to use my dad’s headphones and I will say they are definitely not used to that amount of bass! I think you should look into this and the other artists, if you’ve never heard of their music you really need to make sure you check them out!

Have you heard of Yellow Claw before? Or are you into trap music? Do you listen to a lot of electric dance music?

Shuffle The Music Tag – Extended

Howdy!

So today, I originally had another post coming, but I couldn’t find the words to do it, so I scraped it and remembered that my friend Tasha had put this tag on her blog back in late November. I kept thinking about it, and the more that I tried to force myself to discuss the events in the other post, the more I just wanted to do this instead!

I am adding to it though. It says to talk about “the first fifteen songs” in your music library, but I technically have two (iPod and Spotify) and I thought if it wasn’t too much trouble I’d talk about the variety of both libraries of music I tend to listen to everyday! I have decided to start with my iPod songs first and they were taken from my “Recently Played” list  that had over 57 songs where the ones from Spotify were on my “Starred” which consists of 1,441 songs!

Rules for this tag are below:

Mention the creator of the tag and link to their blog.
Thank the person that nominated you for this tag and link to their blog as well!
Shuffle your entire music library (no matter how old songs are) and talk about the first 15 songs that come up (anything like why they are there, if they signify something, any story, why you like them, etc)
Mention the songs as well as the artists
Tag 7 people or more to do this tag and please let them know!

Save Me From Myself by Vertical Horizon

I have always had the problem of falling in love with songs after hearing it on the radio, but the DJ never says what exactly the title of the song or who it’s by; I’ve had this happen way too many times in my life and weirdly enough it happened quite a bit in the years 2006-2011 and yes, this was one of those songs! Unfortunately, I don’t know how I ended up finding it.

Brothers Under The Sun by Bryan Adams

I love soundtracks! In the recent years, I’ve noticed I’m getting more into the orchestral tracks than the actual songs by the artists or bands. If you read my recent non-Disney movie post, you will know about my love about the film Spirit. I discussed about what I thought about Bryan Adams working on the entire soundtrack and a little bit about Hans Zimmer’s work to it too!

A Prophecy Of The Worlds To Fall by Xandria

Ahh, if anybody wants to know what symphonic metal music is, you just need to listen to this song. It’s dramatic and epic! It’s not your average heavy metal music, that’s for sure!

Murder by Within Temptation

People say WT has become more mainstream because they’re finally being played on American rock radio stations. I’m an American and I absolutely love their music! It makes me sad when I see that, because I don’t see the change in the sound of their music. They’re not as heavy as Epica or Xandria, but obviously I don’t care!

Blood by In This Moment

Roughly six months after getting into Linkin Park. I started getting more into Skillet, Hollywood Undead, In This Moment, and Lacuna Coil. So in the beginning of my rock ‘n’ roll phase, these were five bands that really made me open my eyes and I’m happy to say ITM were the first female fronted bands I got into at that time.

Dark Horse by Katy Perry featuring 2Chainz

I only like this song for the bass. That’s all!

Under Control by Ellie Goulding

I love Ellie Goulding’s music. However, I’ve always had a hard time listening to a full album. I didn’t dive into Halcyon until she was about to release the deluxe edition and that’s when I actually listening to her music hardcore!

Here’s To Us by Halestorm

What’s so weird about this song is that it’s the perfect song to play at the end of the night with your friends. That’s the vibe I always get everytime I listen to it!

Dangerous by Within Temptation featuring Howard Jones

I know, I know! I listen to a lot of Within Temptation music. What else is new?!

Going Under by Evanescense

I talk about the year 2009 being my awakening to rock music, when really it was 2002! Evanescene’s first album “Fallen” came out in April and their music was being played while I was in the hospital, so I was hearing “Bring Me To Life” a lot on the radio, but the memory is of that Christmas. I asked for the album from Santa and we were in the living room at my grandparent’s house and I didn’t feel good, but I unwrapped the gift and immediately tossed it back because the cover scared the crap out of me and then I threw up all over my cousin’s brand new shoes!

I Want My Tears Back by Nightwish

Recently my dad was playing around my speaker and this was the last song to play on my iPod, so he got to hear it for the first time. He likes Irish/Celtic sounds just as much as I do, and he noticed the pipes right away and he seemed to like the big jam-like session in the middle of the song. It’s seriously my favorite section of the song, the going back and forth sounds of both the pipes and Eppu on guitars. It’s so awesome!

The Essence Of Silence by Epica

More symphonic metal! I have a big selection of the genre on my iPod by the way, it’s not as big as it is on my Spotify of course but there’s still enough to get weird looks from family members and neighbors who don’t know the genre very well, but I’m always eager to help cure that.

The Haunting by Kamelot featuring Simone Simons

Most of the musicians to come out of this genre are internationally based, most are from The Netherlands, like Epica and Within Temptation, but Germany (Xandria), Finland (Nightwish), Norway and Sweden have a growing numbers of bands to dabble in the symphonic rock/metal. Crazy enough though, the band Kamelot is based out of Florida! Fun fact: The band Epica actually got their name from an album titled “Epica” by Kamelot, it came out in 2003!

Intoxicated by Lacuna Coil

Lacuna Coil was one of the last bands to enter, but I think they were the first international bands I ever got into, as they’re from Italy! When you think of Italy, or when I think of the country as a whole, I’m thinking of opera–not heavy metal! Over the years, I’ve been finding more and more of a variety of music there.

[taken from Spotify now]

By The Grace of God by Katy Perry

I really loved Katy Perry’s “Prism” album a lot! There were a lot of really great songs on it; this one being a favorite of mine for sure! I think it’s raw and very personal to Katy as you can tell she wrote it in the aftermath of her divorce with Russell Brand in 2014. I remember watching her concert DVD “Part Of Me” when it came out on DVD and they didn’t hide that whole section of her life from the cameras and I definitely felt for her when she was going through all of that pain.

One of the things that I like to do also, is think of different perspectives of popular songs. Everybody thinks songs have one meaning and it’s usually whatever the singer or writer’s going through at a certain time in their lives. I don’t believe in that outlook, so whenever I hear or sing it, I tend to look into the rougher times in my life and know that by the grace of God, I’ve somehow gotten through them very well!

The Obsessive Devotion by Epica

Epica is like a season. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. Everybody has a favorite and they usually hate one or two other seasons. For example, I like spring and fall, but can’t stand summer and winter, mostly because I’m usually stuck inside for both seasons for the extreme weather conditions.

The band itself has many, many great albums, but I’ve only liked three of them.  Unfortunately, I can’t explain my reasons for this, I’ve just never been wired to like or listen an entire album before, it’s only in the last five years that I’m learning to do try out different albums and then write out what I like or not liked about it in a form of a review for you guys.

I will admit, this is one of my favorite songs by Epica. It has that perfect balance of soft tones by Simone’s gorgeous voice and orchestra, but it has also turns into this beast and it’s raw and bitter at the same time. It’s just perfect.

Silence by Starkillers featuring Alicia Madison

I will admit, I only like the song because I liked the beat. It’s a dance track, this has always been a problem for me over the years!

Seven Nation Army by Zella Day

Apparently this a cover, originally by Jack White. I didn’t know that until much later, but I really love Zella’s peppy but smooth voice. I actually like this version better!

The Right Song by Tiesto & Oliver Heldens featuring Natalie La Rose

Everybody on this track is Dutch. So in other words, it’s the perfect song! And I mean, it’s got Tiesto in it for crying out loud!

WTF (Where They From) by Missy Elliott featuring Pharrell Williams

Don’t ask me why I have this song on my “Starred” list. You have both Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams on a track together, I mean, you know it’s going to sound good!

Words by Daya

I’m still wondering why I like this song so much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Daya has a great voice and the sound itself is nice too. It’s just a little dull, but yet I choose to keep it on this playlist. I told you all I was weird!

Kiss Me Goodbye by Alexandra Stan

The whole reason why I did Tune Tuesday Worldwide for 2016, was because of both Alexandra Stan and fellow Romanian singer Inna. I just love international music so much!

White Noise (R3hab Remix) by Ella Vos

Okay, I really like this song! I’ve always loved remixes but I actually got into this by another song by Ella. It was played on an episode of The Originals last year and I became a bit obsessed with it and I ended liking her voice a lot so I went through her music profile on Spotify and this happened!

Pass At Me by Timbaland featuring Pitball

Remember what I was saying about Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams? Well, you have both Timbaland and Pitbull in this sucker. I mean, it’s a no brainer that this is going to be great too!

Click Click Boom by Saliva

Out of all the rock and heavy metal songs I have on this playlist, this one was selected. It’s fine though, I actually like the song.

Hey Baby by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Diplo featuring Deb’s Daughter

Truth is, I only like this song because Diplo’s on it. Enough said!

Circus For A Psycho by Skillet

Finally! I love the craziness of this song! It has that circus vibe but it’s a really great rock song too! The “Rise” album was one of my favorites albums by Skillet by the way!

Under The Knife by Icon For Hire

This is a rough song. The lyrics alone are very strong and yet delicate too. I love Icon For Hire and really love the way that Ariel writes the songs and how she shows how passionate she is for the fans. She likes to tell stories in the songs and she makes sure that every theme is relatable in some way, and this should have a trigger warning in the beginning for both people who have and haven’t self-harmed at some point in their lives, but that’s only my opinion. Other than that, the song is really good!

One Night Town by Ingrid Michaelson featuring Mat Kearney

In 2014, I got on a Ingrid Michaelson kick! I really loved her “Lights Out” album a lot. This is one of five favorites! She seems very home-y and comforting but yet has a sassy attitude that reminds me of my own. This is very soft and sweet. I just love it.

Now I have to tag seven other bloggers! 

Kekoas Music Blog 

Louloumuisicblog 

Fierce & Fabulous Revolution

Chasing Destino

EMILYBECCA

The Flower That Blooms 

A Mundane Life

You don’t have to do it, but thought it would be interesting to see your responses if you did anyway! Oh, and I also tag anybody else who wishes to do this too! You don’t have to be an overachiever like myself, but it was very fun to do it! 🙂

EP Review: “The Solace System” by Epica

I love Epica. If you’ve never heard of them, they’re a symphonic metal band hailing from The Netherlands, one of my favorite places to find great music especially in this subgenre! There’s six members of the band: Coen on keys, Ariën on drums, Rob plays bass, Issac plays rhythm guitar while Mark plays lead and does the harsh vocals and Simone is the main vocalist of the band.

They are one of those bands that I have a really hard time getting interested into after so long. I loved their 2014 album The Quantum Enigma and I will even go onto saying that it’s one of my favorite albums of all time! However, this was the only album I’ve managed to like from start to finish. When their recent record The Holographic Principle came out in 2016, I wasn’t able to use my Spotify so there were a lot of albums that came out in that timeline that I never got to listen to.

So let’s start on this…

The first song is the title track “The Solace System” and they have a very interesting music video for this song on their YouTube channel. I was glad that I checked it out because I didn’t even know they were even releasing an EP! I was expecting the songs to be in the same themes as their previous album, they seem a bit outlandish but it’s really not bad. I love the shared parts between Mark and his growl-y voice to the choir in the background in the verses. Simone’s voice seems very tamed in this song but I kind of like it though. It’s very heavy though, you hear the guitars and metal aspect of it a lot stronger than the more symphonic sounds. For any skeptics out there, you could actually convert using this song! Next is “Fight Your Demons” and anytime you have this kind of title, I’m always hoping for a heavier type of track and thankfully you get that, the introduction was enough for me! You know that I don’t always follow the lyrics in the beginning but I really like the meaning in this song.

Third is “Architect Of Light” and I’ve seen a lot of praise for this track. The symphonic metal community is basically in love with it, which makes things more interesting! I really love the title so we’re getting there! I absolutely love the intro, those horns sound so cool! I am a bit speechless. The other songs were metal based whereas this one allows the orchestra to shine. It’s powerful but it still has those gritty moments brought by Mark’s voice. It’s glorious! It’s definitely a favorite but now we have to move on to “Wheel Of Destiny” and we have another very fast paced song, which in a way goes with the title well! I like Simone’s low voice in the verses. I really like it a lot. So there’s another favorite in the making!

The last two songs start with “Immortal Melancholy” and have I said how much I love these titles? They’re so mysterious and I really like not knowing how each song may sound until it actually plays.  It makes things interesting! I’m glad they put a slower song on this, I think their music is pretty brutal but I do love their softer ones just the same because it’s a nice balance to have, plus Simone always does a fantastic job of controlling her voice in the ballads. It’s very beautiful and not what you’d really except from a heavy metal band. Last one is “Decoded Poetry” and once again, brilliant title! We’re back to the normal sound of Epica, and it seems that it’s only Simone on vocals but thankfully towards the end Mark does make an appearance which made me really happy! There’s a small section that is just beautiful, The band stops playing and all you hear is a choir and the orchestra and it’s a beautiful piece and then all of a sudden, the guitars come in harder than ever and I really love these songs! They’re always so fun for the listener because it’s so many elements at once. It’s great!

I really liked this considering I’ve only heard about three songs of their previous album. Now the real question is, am I inspired enough to go back and listen to it? Not yet, but I’ll never really put off my radar forever because I know one day I’ll be in a big Epica mood and will want to discover new songs from their rooster.

What do you think of Epica’s new EP? Have you heard of any new symphonic metal bands lately? Let me know please!

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