Within Temptation Get Back to Basics on New Album

Within Temptation's new record Hydra takes them back to the sound that first got them attention. On the band's fifth album, 2011's The Unforgiving, the band had a more polished and poppy sound. The album was good, but far from as good as they once were.
On Hydra the band are more experimental, but in a good way. With guest apeparances from rapper Xzibit, Tarja Turunen of Nightwish fame, Howard Jones who used to sing in Killswitch Engage and David Pirner of Soul Asylum.
This album, like their previous other records mixes in symphonic metal with power metal and occasional gothic metal influences. Singer Shannon den Adel's voice never falters or gives in to the aggressive music.
While most of the collaborations add something to the song, some don't. "And We Run" featuring Xzibit starts out as a regular symphonic metal track before Xzibit rips it with some great rapping. "Dangerous" which is the second single off of the album features Jones is a great song and his vocals add to the song. The same is true with "Paradise (What About Us?" which is the first single and features Turunen. This is also one of album's best songs. "Whole World is Watching" features Pirner and this song could do without his vocals. It really doesn't add anything to the song.
Other highlights include "Let Us Burn" which opens the album in a catchy and aggressive way. "Edge of the World" which is a low key ballad that starts out with synths and is a great way to have fans catch their breath and relax after being assaulted by the aggressive first four songs.
The album has some guttural growls from guitarist Robert Westerholt. "Silver Moonlight" and "Tell Me Why" benefit from his growls and it gives fans of more metal sounds delight.
The album's bonus disc contains four covers and all of them are improvements on the original songs. The band's covers of "Summertime Sadness" by Lana Del Rey and "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons are the best coves on the disc. "Dirty Dancer" by Enrique Iglesias is covered as well and they improve on it. The band also cover "Let Her Go" by Passenger.
All in all the album is an improvement on their last record. If the band keep it up the way this album is going then they'll always keep their fans. Also the band should experiment more. Metal band are not known to try new things but Within Temptation have proven that they can do that.

Amaranthe shine on new single

I'm not familiar with Amaranthe at all, apparently they have had an album out. I heard their single "The Nexus" a few weeks ago. While I had never heard their stuff before. Amaranthe sound like a more metal version of Lacuna Coil or a more poppy version of System Divide or Deadlock.
"The Nexus" mixes in pop and metalcore with Nightwish influenced music. The band have a female clean vocalist Elize Ryd and two male vocalists. Jake E does clean vocals and Andreas Solveström  who does harsh vocals.
The song makes no sense lyrically, yet it is enjoyable to listen to. The band have been panned by metal music critics but I like them. I'm definitely going to check out their older music. This song is catchy, heavy and melodic. "The Nexus" is everything I like about metal combined. Amaranthe will release their sophomore album The Nexus in March. If this single is any indication I'm sure this will be a great will be a great record.

Nighwish part ways with vocalist

Nightwish's catchy brand of symphonic power metal has had listeners headbanging for fifteen years. The band started with Tarja Turunen performing her operatic vocals as co-vocalist with Tuomas Holopainen who also plays keyboards and writes most of the lyrics. In 2005 however Turunen was essentially kicked out of the band. Turunen claimed that she was not informed of her dismissal before learning about it with the rest of the world.
Then in 2007 the band released their first album with their new vocalist Anette Olzon. The album was called Dark Passion Play. Some fans were not happy since Olzon had a very different vocal style than Turunen. This blogger firmly believes that Olzon was an improvement and that her material with Nightwish was the best they've had.
This year Nightwish released their seventh album Imaginaerum, the album was set to go along with a film based on the songs on the record. The band kicked off their tour and everything was fine and then last week Olzon was not able to perform due to her being ill. The band played their scheduled show with opening act, Kamelot's backing vocalist Elize Ryd and Alissa White-Gluz from The Agonist filling in on vocals.
Then the band announced that Olzon and the band had parted ways in a press release on their website.

"Another chapter of the Nightwish story has ended today. Nightwish and Anette Olzon have decided to part company, in mutual understanding, for the good of all parties involved.

In recent times it has become increasingly obvious that the direction and the needs of the band were in conflict, and this has led to a division from which we cannot recover.

Nightwish has no intention of cancelling any upcoming shows, and as a result we have decided to bring in a substitute vocalist starting in Seattle 1.10.2012. Her name is Floor Jansen from The Netherlands (ex-After Forever, ReVamp), and she has graciously stepped in to help us complete the Imaginaerum world tour.

We are all strongly committed to this journey, this vehicle of spirit, and we are sure that this will lead to a brighter future for everyone.
We forever remain excited about the adventures to come, and we are extremely proud of the two beautiful albums and the wonderful shows we shared together.

- NIGHTWISH & Anette Olzon"

The band will complete the tour with singer Floor Jansen filling in on vocals. It's hard to respect Nightwish as it seems that they just toss their lead vocalists aside and replace them like it's nothing. One can't help but feel bad for Olzon. She gets stick and then her band just replace her, she can't be happy right now. Olzon has been working on a solo album since before she left Nightwish so it's clear that she can still achieve solo success like Turunen did.