Don’t worry, I’m not doing a track-by-track this time.

Two of the albums I’ve been most eagerly anticipating are Lumsk’s Det Vilde Kor, and Vintersorg’s Solens Rötter. Believe it or not, these two bands used to sound somewhat similar within the folk metal genre. Unfortunately now, neither one plays “folk metal”. Though they’d each probably still tell you they do, each has gone off in a completely tangential direction, ending up pretty far away stylistically and thematically.

Lumsk’s Det Vilde Kor comes on the heels of 2005’s Troll, easily one of my favorite albums of all time. When I heard that the new album would be based on the poetry of Knut Hamsun, a wacky Norwegian poet/writer with Nazi sympathies and a really cool monocle, I started to get worried, but still had faith in Lumsk’s ability to turn out another amazing album.

So here it is, and as I feared, it continues on their trend of de-metalization. To be sure there are the grinding electric guitars in places, but hardly enough to qualify it as “metal”. The violin and vocals are still by far Lumsk’s best assets, and the horn making its appearance in a few tracks is a nice addition too, but none of the tracks in particular stand out in my mind, at least as amazing songs. There are some interesting parts - I’m not sure I like the funk that rears itself at a certain point, and I’d definitely keep it in my library - but it’s a rather mediocre album in absolute terms.

I’d written an anticipatory blurb a while back about the evolution of Vintersorg’s sound, hoping that the “ethnic feel” he promised for the new album would mean more folk metal and the ditching of the “progressive” metal paradigm.

So much for that!

Though the cover, a medieval-looking woodcut using the old logo, was promising in that regard, there was pretty much no discernible folk influence in the whole album. It had its good moments - the acoustic guitar section at the beginning was nice, for example - but unlike Lumsk’s, this one sounds much too similar to his previous, The Focusing Blur in its meandering melodies and unstructuredness, for me to want to keep it around.

Seems like I’ll have to get my Scandinavian folk metal fix elsewhere now. If you can recommend any good bands, I’m all ears.

Following up The Silent Force was going to be a monumental task, as amazing as that album was. But Within Temptation’s latest album, The Heart Of Everything, though with fewer standout songs, does a great job overall.

The Howling had me worried at first: It’s an alright song, but her vocals are going the way of Amy Lee’s in the new Evanescence album: rougher and more masculine. I didn’t like The Open Door at all, but WT quickly redeemed themselves with their first single from the album, What Have You Done, featuring Keith Caputo. His voice is perhaps a bit poppish for what I would expect from Within Temptation - I was hoping for something deeper, maybe even growling a la Jane Doe, but the song is nevertheless catchy, and their voices combine very nicely.

Frozen comes in more sadly and slowly, but no quieter. Vocally, it’s the most emotionally charged so far, but it’s not too amazing. Our Solemn Hour, though, is by far the best track on the album. Latin chanting, sound bytes from old-sounding documentary recordings, and of course the grinding melodicism make for an archetype of everything amazing about goth rock.

The title track, The Heart of Everything, brings back Sharon’s rougher and more masculine vocals from the first track in double force from before. It stands out to me as probably the weakest track to this point. But next comes the infectious beat and grandiose synths of The Hand of Sorrow, a song you just can’t sit still to. Though different rhythmically from any of their previous work, it’s a strong track and one of the best on the album.

The Cross is another of the strongest tracks on the album. It took a few listens for me to get used to it, but the punctuated voice effect really isn’t irritating at all anymore. It’s thematically similar to Destroyed and is filled with Christian imagery, though the Judas reference seems forced. The melody is powerful, and the vocals, though different from anything yet, fit the mood well throughout. Final Destination then is a pretty good song, but it doesn’t stand out a lot. The chorus seems to linger too long in the high note jumps, diminishing the effect of its climax

All I Need starts out with a nice sounding acoustic section, and turns later into a poignant ballad, something that might appear closer to the mainstream. Not that that’s a bad thing; the melody is emotional and the softer instrumentation rising at the end brings the song to a tear-jerking climax. The Truth Beneath the Rose is the obligatory song-making-a-point, this time about injustices done in the name of religion. Whether that is, as it states, Holy wars, or more personal wrongs as in Destroyed, it’s definitely an interesting listen. It’s by far the longest song on the album clocking in over 7 minutes, but surprisingly for something that long, it at no point gets boring or old.

The album ends on a soft note with Forgiven, a piano-driven song lyrically ambiguous as to whether she’s asking for forgiveness or forgiving someone else (actually, it seems pretty unambiguous in both directions, so I dunno). It’s an appropriate closing for such an energetic album.

The Silent Force from the beginning was going to be a hard album to top - it is, actually, one of my favorites. But The Heart Of Everything is a masterful followup with several amazing songs that more than make up for the filler.

Looks like Explosions in the Sky has a new album out, All of a sudden I miss everyone. Like their other albums, it has about half the tracks of a standard album made up for by songs more than twice the length of standard tracks.

From the cover art of a man in a canoe going facing a sunken city, it looks like the album is conceptually based on the New Orleans disaster. The song titles also reflect this to some degree: “The Birth and Death of the Day” could be before and leading into the disaster, “Welcome Ghosts” once the disaster has passed, “It’s Natural to Be Afraid” the shock of everything destroyed, “What Do You Go Home To?” the disillusionment of having nothing left, “Catastrophe and the Cure” rebuilding, and “So Long, Lonesome” the final emotional healing. At least that’s the way it seems from the titles. I’m sure the music itself is symbolic of the different events, but as is the case with instrumental music, these connections have to be explained by the artists.

The album is certainly less boring/monotonous/pretentious than its predecessors. By tying it conceptually to a theme, their esoteric song titles actually make some degree of sense. There are fewer extended sections of a single repeating melody or rhythm, making it more of an interesting listen without the monotony.

Musically, I’m glad to see them using other sorts of instruments than their standard guitars/bass/drums. I heard a piano and bongos in “What Do You Go Home To?”, and a few different percussion styles throughout, some even venturing into the realm of more traditional rock and metal.

On a whole, the percussion is a lot less chaotic than their previous work. Though most of their drumming is in the same style as previous work, it blends with and complements the other instruments much better in this album than their others.

Explosions In The Sky for the most part isn’t music to put on shuffle with the rest of the music library - their song lengths alone can make them get old fast. More than anything, it sets an atmosphere: it’s something to listen to in order to create or satisfy a mood. With this album more than any of their others, I have to say that would be a pretty good mood.

I generally yawn at compilation albums, but when I heard that In Extremo’s new album Kein Blick Zurück (No Looking Back - an appropriately sappy title for a compilation album) was going to feature rerecordings of some of their own songs and a second full disc of covers, I was pretty excited. I finally got a listen yesterday, and it’s somewhat of a mixed bag.

The album starts out with Wind - Nothing to see here, move along. It’s disappointingly the same version they used on Sünder ohne Zügel. The first actual cover comes in with Ai Vis Lo Lop, from the era when In Extremo’s vocals were still sketchier than on their more recent albums (though it was one of the better of that particular album). The new version is a nice, though not entirely dissimilar, reprise. The subdued chanting back and forth near the end is a nice touch.

Vollmond in its original form is one of my favorite In Extremo songs, so I was looking forward to hearing what they would do with it. But my hopes were crushed: what a terrible cover! The tempo is faster so the whole thing sounds rushed, the instruments for some reason don’t blend nearly as well, and he tries (unsuccessfully) to add a melody to the verses. Bleh.

I also liked the original Herr Mannelig a lot, and after the last song, I was a bit worried - but they did pleasantly surprise me. The stereo drum effect is a nice addition to the song, and as a whole, it seems more cohesively structured than the original. He does pronounce some of the words differently - I’m not sure if the new pronunciation is better Swedish or not, but it’s just as well. I’m not familiar with the original Kein Sturm Hält Uns Auf, but it’s certainly not a bad song. It’s a decent bagpipe/harp juxtaposition like many IE songs.

Pavane was also one of my favorite originals. The vocals on the cover were a bit rough - he seemed to struggle pitchwise in a few of the lower points in the song - but the bagpipe was more prominent, and it was overall a worthy cover. Rotes Haar wasn’t exactly a great song to begin with, but they were able to refine it enough to make it an enjoyable song. Heavier guitars and deeper drums are (almost) always a plus in cases like this. Still not amazing, but you can only improve a song so much.

Omnia Sol Temperat and Küss Mich are more straight cuts from their respective original albums, and aside from a bit cleaner guitar work and the chorus sung in a lower octave, Spielmannsfluch was not much different from the original (not to say that it’s a bad song). I’m again not familiar with the original Alte Liebe or Hiemali Tempore, but I like both of them a lot. The former has a calm atmosphere to it without being boring [like Rotes Haar was], while the second is upbeat in more classical In Extremo fashion. It may not even be a cover at all.

Disc 1 ends rather anticlimactically with Rasend Herz, Liam, and Erdbeermund all being prior recordings. The new recordings overall were a strong piece of work, despite shaky vocals in some places and an abominable Vollmond - but there’s also a whole second disc to cover (don’t worry, it’s shorter)!

Seeing as disc 2 is full of In Extremo covers by different bands, I expected from the start a shocking departure from In Extremo’s style. bLiNd’s Ave Maria certainly didn’t let me down in that regard: It’s in English (!), but once you get past that fact and the punk rock-esque arrangement, In Extremo’s masterpiece becomes a catchy, upbeat, Anglicized piece that one almost feels guilty enjoying.

Singapur as a mellow jazz piece? Excuse me while I puke over Götz Alsmann.

The English returns in Grave Digger’s power metal cover of Der Rattenfänger. The vocals are very similar to In Extremo’s in that they’re rough and moist, but the bagpipe has been replaced with an electric guitar - which works surprisingly well. Though they can’t beat In Extremo’s chorus, I find the verses of this cover easier on the ears than the original.

Ougenweide’s choral arrangement of Merseburger Zaubersprüche is a break from the heavy guitars of the ablum (not counting Singapur, since I couldn’t bring myself to listen all the way through that one). The drums are a bit quaint and poppish, but the vocals more than make up for that.

Randalica’s Nur ihr Allein is almost a nice cover, but the singer has more trouble than In Extremo on their bad days hitting the right notes. Silbermond’s cover of Die Gier is less mellow than In Extremo’s version - the verses give off roughly the same vibe (though with female vocals), but the chorus rises energetically above the rest of the song. I almost like it better than In Extremo’s just for that. Almost.

Killing Joke’s remix of Rasend Herz is actually the first real remix - though unfortunately of a song which wasn’t great in the first place. The remix doesn’t do much to help it - the vocals are muffled, the bagpipes are gone, and the harp is replaced with something electronic. Meh.

Finally, the lead singer of In Extremo himself, Das Letzte Einhorn (The Last Unicorn - a tacky nickname if I ever heard one), ends the album with the poignant piano piece Spielmann. It’s a nice song, and an appropriate end for the second disc.

Kein Blick Zurück is overall a strong compilation. Though the second disc, while interesting, doesn’t add much to it, if you have the other albums, the rerecordings are worth it, and if you don’t, then it’s a good introduction to In Extremo.

It’s been said that album artwork is just as important as the music inside. That’s a rather terribly misguided statement, but album artwork is nevertheless still pretty important. After all, without it, the internet would be sorely lacking in blog posts like this discussing it. Which would be, of course, a Bad Thing™.

Now that you’re thoroughly convinced of the eminent importance of a good album cover, let’s eliminate from the running a good 70% of them.
Rule #1: If your picture is on the front of your album, you automatically lose. If you want to be taken seriously, that is, so Weird Al is therefore exempt. Off The Deep End is a great parody of perhaps the second most overrated album cover ever.

Now without further ado, onto the running. The David Crowder Band’s album Illuminate is the essence of good design: Minimalistic, smooth gradient, good font, and orange (ok, orange really isn’t a rule, but look at the header and you’ll see I’m rather partial to fiery varieties of orange myself). And for bonus points, the image is quite appropriate to the title.

Second, we have Subway To Sally’s Nord Nord Ost (North North East). It’s a rather ornate cover, but unlike others of its sort, the focus is clearly on the compass - the Aurora Borealis above and the waves beneath complement it without distracting from it, and the title font above fits the dark and surreal mood of the cover well.

Lastly, there’s Regicide’s Break The Silence. It’s a rather visually unimpressive album, but what’s so great here is the concept: one man otherwise indistinguishable from the identical and seemingly apathetic crowd screaming in frustration. It evokes the same atmosphere of Apple’s famous 1984 commercial with the mindless crowd apparently doing whatever they’re told, though the album has more of a connotation of helplessness in contrast to the commercial’s connotation of victory. And on top of that, they have a pretty cool logo.

Getting the list down to three was certainly a challenge - there are quite a few runners up that I couldn’t bear not to mention:
Rammstein - Rosenrot. Evocative photo.
Nickelback - Silver Side Up.
Breaking Benjamin - Phobia. Surprisingly poignant cover for a surprisingly good album.
Vintersorg - Ödemarkens Son. Fits well with the Swedish mythological themes.
Within Temptation - The Silent Force. Perhaps a better desktop picture than album cover (I actually had it as mine for a while), but a nice graphic nonetheless.

Any album covers you prefer?