Nerd Metal Fridays: Do It Yourself Edition

Since I am off on the further adventures of Galaxy Jane for at least another week, I thought I’d offer you this once (so far) in a lifetime opportunity to write my post for me. Here’s what you do, scroll down to the comments section and share your favorite nerd metal bands with everyone, along […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Alestorm

True Scottish Pirate Metal! What else is there to say? Apparently they like Wenches and Mead, who’d have thought? Their cover of Lazy Town’s pirate song. Except I don’t think Stephanie ever called anyone a “gobshite”. And more music about drinking from their most recent album. They’re pirates, duh. Official site here. Bonus Village people […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Iron Maiden

OK, OK, hold the outrage! Yeah, I know. You’re all going, “But Jane, Maiden is too cool to be nerd metal. They’ve been around forever, they’ve influenced practically everybody in rock, and they’re as metal as fuck!” Look, I’m not arguing that Bruce Dickinson et al aren’t cool, and they are definitely influential, one of […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Lordi

I’d planned to hold off on these guys for a while, but 1) it’s been a totally crap week and I need to write about something that really makes me happy and 2) the Eurovision finals are this weekend, so it only seems appropriate to go ahead and feature these guys, as that was the […]

Nerd Metal Fridays – DragonForce

I like these guys way more than they probably deserve. It’s the combination of old-school speed metal virtuosity, soaring melody, clean vocals, and really, really beautiful men (I’m looking at you, Herman Li) that just plain makes me happy whenever I listen to these London-based fantasy rockers (OK, mostly it’s the beautiful men, I’m married, […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Kamelot

So, I promised you Americans this week and with Florida’s Kamelot, I deliver (well, mostly, lead singer Tommy Karevik is a Swede). They combine extremely melodic tunes with super clean vocals (both from current lead Tommy and previous singer Roy Khan) and full orchestration for a symphonic style that’s distinctively their own. And they did […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Sir Christopher Lee

Yes, you heard me right, Sir Christopher effin’ Lee. Sure, you just thought he was the best (OK, tallest) Dracula ever (or a kick-ass Saruman for the younger set, or a kick-ass Count Dooku for the younger set with no taste), but the man can rock out too. An operatic bass, he made several appearances […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Hammerfall

So after a crazy week here, I’ll leave you with some crazy music. While HammerFall isn’t necessarily one of my favorites, they can certainly be bombastic fun if you’re in the right mood (they can’t swing a beat to save their lives though, making their cover of Detroit Rock City the most wrong-footed I’ve ever […]

Nerd Metal Fridays: Sabaton

Like all native Virginians I’m a bit of a history wonk. Add to that my military background and love of loud music and it was inevitable that these guys would eventually pop up on my radar. Because history metal is awesome! Interestingly, I nearly rejected Sabaton entirely on first listen. I was out running the […]

Stuff I Like: Van Canto

Boy, does this ever fall firmly into the “why the hell didn’t I think of that?” file. Many, many moons ago I was a young voice major with two obsessions, early polyphonic a capella and theatrical metal. It never once occurred to me to combine the two into something epic. Van Canto is a German […]

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