Ska-P - planeta eskoria (Planeta Eskoria)
Jerry Goldsmith - the mummy (The Mummy - Original Soundtrack)
Boney M. - brown girl in the ring ['99 mix] (20th Century Hits)
Communic - watching it all disappear (Waves Of Visual Decay)
Manowar - black wind, fire and steel [live] (Hell On Wheels - Live)
Stereo Total - grand prix eurovision (Monokini)
Children Of Bodom - chokehold [cocked 'n' loaded] (Hatecrew Deathroll)
Blind Passengers - criminal (Bastard)
Killah Priest - the law (Priesthood)
Marvin Gaye - what's going on (Anthology)
Eva Cassidy - kathy's song (Mystera Vol. 8)
Orchestre Samy Cates - two drums (Le Boom Boom! Rock, Twist, Hully Gully, Jerk from France 1963-1968)
Melanie - lay down [candles in the rain] (Gold - Greatest Hits)
Primal Fear - dollars (Primal Fear)


Yeah, Ska from Spain! That's a great album, and although I wouldn't consider Ska to be one of my favourite genres, I enjoyed this track very much. Great that they sing in Spanish, which definitely makes it more interesting to me. Definitely worth having. Then we have the title score to a nice movie, The Mummy. Very Goldsmith in my ears, a standard (one might say conservative) Soundtrack tune where I had the feeling that not much goes if you just have the standalone score without moving pictures (unlike other Soundtracks that I worship). Nice finale with the choir though, and minute 5 is a bit reminiscent to Dimmu Borgir's 'fear and wonder', I think. Boney M. then present us a surprisingly good "remix" version of a hit - 1999's "20th Century Hits" featured all their miracle songs spiced up with a bit of modern beat. It worked very well for most of the songs, and this song makes you wanna retro-dance like most of their songs do. I again want to state that I saw them (well, only "the voice" Liz Mitchell remaining from the original line-up) live a couple of years ago - unforgettable and great fun.

The following half ballad is from critic's favourites Communic. They do sound similar to Nevermore (especially because of singer Oddleif Stensland who really almost could be Warrel Dane), but they are less crooked. Still, this album didn't really work for me when I heard it. This is a nice tune however, but it might take a couple of listens until it unfolds its beauty, as they sound very progressive and convulted, but also passionate and modern (in terms of traditional Metal). Yeah, 'black wind, fire and steel' is great and was one of the first Manowar songs I knew and liked. I do have to say though that I can't figure out why exactly, but I don't like this live version so much, something's wrong with it. Of course, the second half is only solos and noise - what the fuck? Wake me up when you're done.

Stereo Total are totally nuts. I don't have a complete album, but there are songs I love, songs I hate, songs that annoy me, songs that enlighten me, songs that embarass me - they have it all. This one is sung in French and is great and nonchalant. Crazy band, and after listening to this track I have to say I want to try to listen to a complete album again... They have lots of ideas and no sense of shame, if I recall correctly :-) Next up are old faves of good friends, I never had a Bodom phase and didn't even know this song (I am ashamed, don't worry). I really liked this one, sounds very typical for the band in my untrained ears. That's a silly song title though... The Blind Passengers were a German Industrial band. Something that always bothered me was the heavy accent of singer Nik Page, and it bothered me again in this case. The album always sounded quite aggressive to me, had a couple of good tunes, but all in all I wasn't too impressed.

I got the Killah Priest from a friend of a friend. He's part of the Wu-Tang family (which I guess sort of means that he's friends with them and stuff, he's not a band member). This track had quite a nice flow, and I just want to officially state that Rap and Hip Hop are great and inspirational genres that I'd love to know more about. In any way, this is "serious" rap as opposed to maybe 50 Cent, but I appreciate both. Oh, the legendary Marvin Gaye with a very fine tune. Very sensual as always and "traditional R&B", that was closer to soul back in the day than "today's R&B" that - despite having a soul influence - is closer to Pop and maybe a little funkier. Argh Today, what are you doing? Do you want the world to know that I have Mysteria compilations? Yes I do, but I got them from a friend... This however doesn't sound like it belongs on this album at all - it's a singer/songwriter acoustic piece that I would assume to hear in 1969, walking through a park in spring and looking over to a bunch of young people with flowers in their hair, sitting in the grass, dreaming of peace and a better world. In other words, this is a really nice track.

Then France in the 60ies waves us over to its table - that's an awful long title for a compilation, but it says it all. They don't write music like this anymore, and the 60ies appeal of the recording just makes me happy. Melanie sounds like a Schlager singer who would lip sync to lines like "Die Hoffnung läßt auch mich nicht mehr allein, oh nein" - but actually she's an American folk/pop singer, and this song again sounds like the decade of love and peace and is one of her most famous and a hippie classic - and yeah, she was at Woodstock as well. We end this fascinating journey with Primal Fear's first album. I don't like this track so much, very stomping and quite sagging. There are loads of tracks by this combo I would prefer over this one - well I'm sure Today will give them to me at some point ;-)


--MightySapnish--