[Shadow of Shadowthrone]

Hello all, back in the day I used to drive my pimpmobile around telling everyone just how bloody great A Song of Ice and Fire was. These days I am hooked on Erikson and his completed (!) ten-book saga of awesomeness +3. Since both these works do not need a serious pimping here, I thought let's pimp the British band BAL-SAGOTH.
Why?
Because it is the soundtrack to the Malazan Book of the Fallen!
Well, almost.

First, it helps to appreciate music with distorted guitars and somewhat brutal vocals, i.e. metal. The base of the band's music is symphonic soundtrack/score-like music, however - the two radically different styles merge to perfection.

Bombastic, militaristic war metal merges with epic, sweeping and symphonic passages while vocalist Byron tells his epic stories of a fantasy world of his own making (like Malazan, Bal-Sagoth's lyrical universe is based on homebrew RPGs). The vocals change between spat out, guttural vocals and softly spoken words...and whenever I now listen to them I can't help but see the vast and vivid setpieces of Erikson's novels. I mean...look at this excerpt below, I listened to this song on my way to work this morning and Malazan just crept into my brain listening to this:

By all the gods of war! Stand fast, hounds of the Imperium!
Glory to the Emperor! Show them the Tiger's claws!


Bal-Sagoth's music is progressive and somewhat complex and takes a few spins to get it all sorted out. Got me hooked, though. Swords, sorcery, triumphant melodies, oh how it all soars and becomes a most original band. Highly recommended by the shadow of Shadowthrone!

A few soundbites (try listening to them with headphones or a proper stereo system though):

"A Tale from the Deep Woods":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=5r9PoGewraI

"Starmaps of the Ancient Cosmographers":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=miVmc3bdyik

"The Hammer of the Emperor":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=9Gf6ItGAg-M

This post has been edited by Shadow of Shadowthrone: 29 March 2011 - 06:52 AM

[Aptorian]

Well, I am sure Tiste is going to love this.

The problem I have with this genre is that, all though thank god he's not actually growling the words, the words are still being drowned out by the music making them unintelligible . I would enjoy this more if they just removed the lyrics all together.

[Shadow of Shadowthrone]

[Tires screeching]Well, when you've listened to a song a few times usually the vocals come more to the fore as you get used to it. I have no problem hearing anything, and I love how they use this narrator's voice to tell these mighty tales that land squarely between high fantasy roleplaying, Malazan, and Conan the Barbarian. I also love how they abandon traditional structures giving them an edge of progressiveness (if that's a word), and some of the melody lines and the sheer epicness of some of the material is just amazing (in my opinion of course).
Some of their tracks have a more militaristic (as in fantasy armies clash on the battlefield) attitude and those are great and perhaps remind me the most of the massive convergences of the Malazan world.
So here a few more examples of the greatness that is Bal-Sagoth. Poor speakers cannot do justice to the soundscape of course..

"To Dethrone the Witch-Queen of Mytos K'unn (The Legend of the Battle of Blackhelm)":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=J9hXyT3nRa8

"The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire Part III: Cry Havoc for Glory and the Annihilation of the Titans of Chaos":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=8t_y7g4Pvfo

"Of Carnage and a Gathering of Wolves":
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=3X0KUB5Qa58

"The Obsidian Crown Unbound"
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=cYUHF9d97cs

Great song titles, no?

[Illuyankas]

Clockwork Apt, on 29 March 2011 - 07:28 AM, said:

Well, I am sure Tiste is going to love this.

The problem I have with this genre is that, all though thank god he's not actually growling the words, the words are still being drowned out by the music making them unintelligible . I would enjoy this more if they just removed the lyrics all together.

I have the opposite problem - I can almost never make out song lyrics, so not being able to understand them isn't a problem. In fact, with certain bands it's a bonus. Blind Guardian did a song called Wheel of Time, which musically is pretty nice and I like it, but when I focus and actually listen to the words I'm struck by just how cheesy they are and it detracts from the song for me.

[Tiste Simeon]

I have always maintained that the album "Ghost Reveries" is all about the Malazan books. I mean come on "Baying of the Hounds"?

As for this band, I find most power metal incredibly cheesy... I get where you're coming from with the epic angle but to me it's not that epic it's just synth over the rest of the music. Also lyrically most power metal bands could apply to fantasy books. Blind Guardian did an album about the LOTR books (Nightfall in Middle Earth) and Most Symphony X stuff has the fantastical ring to it. I guess the vocals in this one are heavier than most power metal though...

[SpectreofEschaton]

Bal-Sagoth is one of my favorite bands, though I don't really get a Malazan feel from them. The stories are too different in tone, though they're pretty damn awesome. Byron does purple prose well (if that isn't an oxymoron). As far as power metal goes (don't think they're actually classified as that) they have far and away the most well-written and in-depth lyrics. The stories could easily stand alone without the music, but the way the music matches the emotional tones of the tales is simply breathtaking.

Oh, and excellent choice with The Obsidian Crown Unbound. That song is pure transcendent awesome.

That said, Byron's vocals take a little getting used to, and you won't really get anything out of the band until you've read all the tales (he only sings part of the full lyrics to each song, they're all short-story length) and memorized the words. Bal-Sagoth is more of an experience than a band. It's the confluence of all their disparate elements that makes them gods of the genre.

[Shadow of Shadowthrone]

Funny that you bring up Ghost Reveries Opeth was my favorite band from My Arms Your Hearse, their third observation, up to Watershed. I kind of lost them at that point as they have, in my opinion, strayed too far off the metal path. But honestly with the exception of that one song title I feel no connection between Malaz and Opeth ^^

Now Bal-Sagoth certainly isn't a power metal band, they are a progressive extreme metal band with touches of black metal draped in symphonic-sounding ..keyboards indeed. I'm not that big on symphonic metal myself but with Bal-Sagoth I feel it all plays out differently as their very sound evokes as much headbanging as it does the atmosphere of high fantasy epicness.


And yes, "The Obsidian Crown Unbound" is a great example, and it was while listening to that track in the car on my way back home from work that I suddenly connected it to the Malazan world (I've been listening to Bal-Sagoth since Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-veiled Throne of Ultima Thule while I've only really discovered Steven Erikson january last year).

This post has been edited by Shadow of Shadowthrone: 05 April 2011 - 05:06 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Read the lyrics from the Ghost Reveries album. That song I put up is all about Paran.