Monday: Between the Buried and Me - The Coma Machine

     I know it hasn't been that long since the last time I posted about a song from Between the Buried and Me's forthcoming Coma Ecliptic, but this is another one of those times when I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't draw your attention to the following.

     Of course, if you're into Between the Buried and Me, you've likely already heard the latest single "The Coma Machine" and seen the accompanying video. But if you've yet to check it out, allow me to recommend that you do, because it seems like the most "rock opera-y" glimpse we've gotten to date into the rock opera that supposedly is Coma Ecliptic.

     There's shades of Queen for sure, and maybe some Dream Theater, and plenty more besides. Coma Ecliptic sounds like it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's also shaping up to be something pretty epic. Bring on July.

Song of the Day: Haken - Cockroach King

     Most of the time, when I pick the daily song, the choice is based on the music first. It's either a song I know to be awesome, or one I've been told is awesome by someone else that I have subsequently confirmed is awesome.

Songs of the Weekend/Classic Rock Week Kick-Off

OK, I missed doing a song yesterday, but unlike usual I have a valid excuse: we were at a friend's wedding yesterday. But on the plus side (for you, anyways) is that it kind of gave me the idea for today's Song, and possibly some direction for the rest of the week. Allow me to explain.

For a while now I've been contemplating doing a week (or more than one, if things go well) of themed songs. The idea I've been kicking around is a classic rock week, but not in a traditional sense so much as with the spirit of metal in mind. Some classic rock is considered to be directly presaging early metal, while other stuff may only have elements that have found their way into some form of metal or other, but the bottom line is there's a lot of good stuff from back in the day that's not The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or some other band you here on classic rock radio all the time (not that any of those bands isn't good). Now, I know classic rock isn't the most cutting edge music and that most of you will have heard most of it before. But maybe you're a young metalhead who hasn't heard it all and is curious about what came before. Or maybe you have heard everything before but just need to be reminded that metal isn't the only thing under the sun. Either way, I've been thinking for a while now that a week of classic rock might be a fun idea.

Then last night we're at this wedding, my girlfriend and I, and "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen comes on, and it seems like everybody in the room is belting out every word. That led me to the thought today that maybe I should take that as a sign that now's the time (the time is now*) for a classic rock theme week. So starting today, this week here at Loud Noises is Classic Rock Week, and today's a double feature because I missed yesterday. And your first song, as you might have guessed, is "Bohemian Rhapsody" from 1975's A Night at the Opera.  At first glance, not very metal at all, but take another look. Operatic vocals (quite literally), multi-instrumentation, an unorthodox arrangement and some heavy riffing are all qualities of this song that you might also expect to find today in proggier stuff like Opeth, making "Bohemian Rhapsody" a song that still rocks and sounds fresh today.

So that's yesterday. Now today. Your second song is one more traditionally connected with metal, namely "War Pigs" from Black Sabbath's 1970 classic Paranoid. If I have to tell you why this one's metal, you should probably just leave now.

* a million bonus points to anyone who can correctly guess the classic rock reference there.