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And so, we return to where we started -- January -- for another year of music. I'm going to keep the general format unchanged, although I am going to lift my soft restriction on only writing about one metal song a month. If you like that genre, good news for you! If you don't, never fear: I will still be writing about other genres, too…just perhaps a little less than I did last year.
Shimmer -- Fuel
Speaking of which, here's some alternative rock from 2005, by Harrisburg band Fuel.
The cold temperatures have me listening to a lot of summertime vibes, remembering warmer times. For me, summertime music is almost always radio hits from my youth or young adulthood, so, late 90s and early 00s. After that period, my musical tastes shifted away from pop and towards darker and heavier sounds.
That doesn't change that the summers of my youth were spent with the radio on, though, and those songs still command a nostalgic power. One thing that I find interesting about these types of songs, though, is what resonates with me at different points of my life. Obviously, songs are written with meaning -- but that meaning isn't necessarily what listeners identify with. For me, the repeated lyric "all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade" really resonates at the moment: both because of the turning of the seasons, as last year's gardening glory has certainly faded away, and also because as I age, I find myself regarding my experiences in life as being sort of the same type of "shimmer." Myself in my teens or twenties was a shimmer, and has faded into something different. I'm sure that years from now, I will view my thirties similarly.
So, yeah, I've been spinning the heck out of this song lately.
Mambo No. 5 -- Lou Bega
You want to talk about a summer pop hit? How about this 1999 banger? If you're a younger reader, do yourself a favor and check this one out -- or, if you're a Millennial with teens, consider engaging in the time-honored tradition of making your kids cringe while you dance like an idiot.
A really fascinating blend of genres, Mambo No. 5 was a summer hit that was absolutely inescapable for a few months. It leverages riffs from a 1949 Latin mambo and reinvents them for a modern audience.
And, if you're of a certain age, allow me to unlock a core memory for you: do you remember that Lou Bega made a kid-friendly version of this song that played on the Disney channel, utilizing names of Disney characters and spliced animation footage alongside clips from his music video? If you don't remember it, track it down on Youtube -- it's hilarious.
Gloomy Heart of the
Coldest Land -- GRIMA
Let's take a sharp turn and head from summer dance music to atmospheric black metal from Siberia.
If you've been outside in the last week, you can guess why this made my list, even without listening to it.
You might not be in the mood to feel cold at the moment, but for me, the music just matches the stark, barren landscape, especially when you're driving through the snow and ice. The endless chill of the black metal pairs well with the snow -- but the atmospheric pacing and brief glimmers of beauty offer a parallel to gorgeous icicles and wintry crystals.
1696 -- Insomnium
Amidst all of the alternating pop and gloom, I've been filling a lot of my listening time by hitting play on my top albums of the years playlist. This playlist has every album that I've put on my yearly end of the year top 10 (and some honorable mentions), strung end to end to end. The result is a 77-hour-and-growing behemoth, currently sitting at 837 tracks.
It's always neat to listen through the whole list, because something will come on that I had forgotten about and I'll pause what I'm doing and go, "what's this, it sounds awesome," usually followed by an ironic thought of, "wow, I have good taste!"
One such recent rediscovery was Insomnium's amazing album Anno 1696, released in 2023. Melodic death metal from Finland, Insomnium specializes in intricate electric guitar lines that weave over and through tempestuous melodies. This contrast is very well-executed and at the heart of a lot of my favorites from their body of work.
Shadow and Stone
-- Gatekeeper
Another rediscovery off of that playlist, I want to mention Gatekeeper -- and specifically this song. I actually didn't really enjoy the overall album that much. It's very classic heavy metal -- if you like Manowar or Visigoth, you'll probably be in for this.
Here's the thing, though: I'm a sucker for good lyrics, especially when they are specifically calibrated around the melody of the song, and I am also, separately, a sucker for J.R.R. Tolkien.
This song brilliantly combines both. Furthermore, it does so by pulling from a deep and not-commonly-revisited part of the legendarium. The song reviews the events surrounding Isildur cursing the Mountain Men -- a small kingdom who had sworn fealty to Isildur, but failed to heed the call to arms during the historic war against Sauron (before the books are set).
The whole song is amazing, but it really kicks into high gear a little before five minutes and thirty seconds as the vocalist builds up to speaking Isildur's curse, which happens around six minutes (of a seven minute song, it's not that long). He does an incredible job of nailing the tone and inflection while pairing it with the chugging riffs in the background.
So yeah, if you enjoyed the section of Lord of the Rings dealing with Aragon and the oathbreakers, I very highly recommend this song to you. And if you didn't…well, I still recommend it, but you might miss some of the context.
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Arianna McKee is the Design Editor and Editorial Page Editor at The Express.