Tom Waits - "Road to Peace"

Rating: 5/10 But Israel says they did not know that his wife and child were in the car... A true classic, this anti-war part-song, part-prose piece features Tom Waits' ragged voice stunningly. An electric guitar strikes a smooth lead over the slow one-two drum beat, and carries the listener back in time.

A-ONE - "Leave Me In the Dark"

Rating: 6/10 One of the genres I have become interested in is a unique genre called Eurobeat. It originated from Italian disco but has since died down in Europe and has instead become popular in Japan. This song is from a Japanese group who work with a variety of vocalist to make Touhou eurobeat remixes in both English and Japanese. This one is by a guy who goes by Odyssey and it is fairly solid. Not my favorite song by him, but a quite solid one.

Coldplay - "Clocks" (Rogue Remix) + "Clocks" (Rhythms Del Mundo)

Rating: 7/10 Shoot an apple off my head... Taking this strong original rock song to the realm of dubstep, Rogue layers bleeping synths and speeds the up the beat for danceability. Crunchy synth sweeps take the true sound and merge it into a grooving drop.

Rating: 6/10 Confusion never stops... Closing walls and ticking clocks... This latin-inspired track is so smooth, and stays very close to the Coldplay original. Wooden knocks and Cabasa rolls make a funky backing to the horn jabs that punctuate this tune. Warning: may inspire salsa dancing.

Iron Attack - "Heaven's Sword"

Rating: 8/10 This Japanese power metal artist recently came under my radar and this song is one of their best, there aren't very many Touhou power metal remixers out there and I am really glad I found this. It reminds me a lot of earlier Rhapsody music along with the classical intro make this quite the great song.

What So Not - "Touched"

Rating: 6/10 This EDM track featured tribal sounds and rolling drums in a smooth drop that'll have you rocking the dance floor. Its only drawback is the tempo shift, which slows this song as the rise builds back to a peak. Enjoy.

Memphis May Fire - "Grenade (Bruno Mars cover)"

Easy come, easy go That's just how you live, oh Take, take, take it all, But you never give

Rating: 8/10

You have most likely heard the song "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, but you probably have never heard it quite like this. Every once in a while, Fearless Records puts together albums of "Punk Goes..." and this track was featured on Punk Goes Pop 5. This is one of the best covers I have ever heard. It keeps the core of the song and the emotion while also bringing in elements of the band. The lead vocalist of this metalcore band from Dallas, Texas, Matty Mullins, has such a great voice that can handle the various screams featured in such a genre as well as the clean vocals that make this cover so great. The mastermind and lead guitarist of Memphis May Fire, Kellen McGregor, put together the beautiful electric guitar parts that change this from a pop song to a metalcore one, of course, along with the help of Jake Garland's fast-paced drums. Amazing pop-to-rock cover, enjoy.

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "On My Own"

hopefully this is just a dream 'cause I can't live without the one who makes me feel anything

Rating: 6/10

In 2010, The rock band The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus released and EP called Hell or High Water. I actually found this song when I was looking for something else, but I liked it so much I had to get it. The vocals done by Ronnie Winters on this track really pretty great, something I always love about RJA. The drums create such a nice beat for the song and it is pushed even further into awesome with the electric guitar.

Seether - "Eyes of the Devil"

it kills me to watch this fade and I realize it's all charade and every mistake I made is the same

Rating: 7/10

The album, Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces was released by the rock band Seether in 2007. The band is originally from South Africa, but has found a following in the United States. Shaun Morgan has fantastic rough vocals on this song; something that drew me in to this artist in the beginning. The verses are softer and when the chorus comes in it hits you with an electric guitar and fast drums. The bridge sports a pretty awesome guitar riff. All in all, the song is pretty wonderful.

All Time Low - "A Love Like War (feat. Vic Fuentes)"

Hearts on fire tonight Feel my bones ignite Love feels like war, war

Rating: 6/10

Here's a fairly well-known band with one of their most popular songs. If you don't know them,they are a pop-punk band from Baltimore, Maryland who make extremely catchy songs with more of a rock sound than some mainstream music. This particular song is from the September re-release of their most recent album, Don't Panic: It's Longer Now! and features Vic Fuentes, vocalist of the post-hardcore band Pierce the Veil. I'll admit, I am not a huge fan of All Time Low; I don't find main singer Alex Gaskarth's vocals all that gripping as they are not, in my opinion, so very unique. I do, however, enjoy Pierce the Veil to an extent and so I listened to this song mostly for Vic. Then I listened again. And again, and again. It is a song that gets stuck in your head and refuses to leave. From Jack Barakat's first guitar riff, to the fast, gunshot-like drums by Rian Dawson this song hooked me and I now I quite like it, not to mention how nicely Gaskarth and Fuentes' vocals go together. If you're a hardcore original punk and rock fan, there is nothing I can say to make you like this, but whether you are or not, check it out.

ArchonofFail's Song of the Month: November: Blind Guardian - "Mirror Mirror"

Mirror, mirror on the wall, true hope lies beyond the coast.

Rating: 9/10

Since I haven't has too much time to work on making posts for this blog, I decided to do two specific posts at the end of this November, if I like how it goes, I probably will do another two at the end of December in a similar vein. First, the song I have decided as my favorite song this November, here goes. Blind Guardian is an awesome band and this is one of their more awesome songs. From their album Nightfall in Middle Earth, a concept album based on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien's work, notably the Silmarillion. I absolutely loves this song, the guitar part is masterfully written and the chorus is just so good, the pacing is perfect and everything about this song is just so good. One interesting element of Blind Guardian's music is that they do not incorporate a bass guitar in their studio albums, but even without it, they manage to make some of the best Power Metal in existence. Unfortunately a lot of their music is not available in the U.S., but they recently released an album in 2011 where they remastered their best songs, and this song is on it.

Blackmore's Night - "Loreley"

Oh, the song of Loreley, charms the moon right from the sky, she will get inside your mind, lovely Loreley.

Rating: 7/10

Wow, I just discovered this band today and I am already in love. Blackmore's night is a duo consisting of Ritchie Blackmore, the former guitarist of Deep Purple and Rainbow, and his then girlfriend now wife Candice Night. Their music is primarily folk, a genre I generally don't think of as one of a genre I like, but wow, I love this music. This song is about a legend of a rock in Germany called Lorelei, and the legend of a siren like woman associated with it. I don't really know why I like it so much but it is really awesome and I have been listening to this band and song all day, I am really impressed.

Within Temptation - "Paradise (What About Us?) ft. Tarja"

What about us? Isn't it enough. No, we're not in paradise.

Rating: 9/10

When I heard one of my favorite symphonic metal bands was collaborating with Tarja, one of the greatest symphonic metal singers, to release a song, I was excited and boy did they deliver. This song is absolutely amazing, probably the best symphonic metal song released this year so far, and I absolutely cannot wait for the upcoming album. I listened to this song on repeat for a really long time when I first found it. Interestingly this is one of the very few symphonic metal duets I have heard and I am surprised it turned out so well, Sharon of Within Temptation and Tarja's voices compliment each other perfectly. Also the music video is extremely well done and obviously had a lot of work put into everything about it, unfortunately our small player doesn't do it justice, I would recommend watching this one in full size on youtube. Overall I am extremely impressed so far and can't wait for Within Temptation's new album.

Masterplan - "Crimson Rider"

Holy fire I'm not scared of you, I'll take you to burn, oh yeah, crimson rider I am the baron of the sky, come feel the wind turn.

Rating: 8/10

This song starts off a bit slow, but the chorus is amazing. Masterplan is a German power metal band formed by former guitarist and drummer of Halloween in 2001 and, although I haven't listened to much of their music, this is definitely one of my favorite songs of theirs and they are definitely becoming one of my power metal bands. I think is a song about either the Red Baron or someone going to fight him. It really feels like a song about being a pilot and is very well written.

Epica - "Chasing the Dragon"

What goes around will come around, don't deny your fears, so let them go and fade into light.

Rating: 7/10

Alright, I lied, it turns out there is another awesome song from this album I missed the first time. Epica recently released a "best of" album on spotify and this was on it, having listened to the album extensively found this song to be one of my favorites and apparently I missed it when I first listened to the divine conspiracy. Anyways, this song is very symphonic metal, and that is a lot of the reason I like it so much. It is a very relaxing song and it has been stuck in my head all week, which is totally fine with me. It is a bit on the long side and there are parts of it I like a bit less, but as a whole I love this song. Also for those use Spotify check out their best of here.

Alice Cooper - "Poison"

You're poison runnin through my veins.

Rating: 7/10

I don't know why, but I really like this song, it's a bit outside of the music I normally listen to. I originally discovered it because Tarja did a cover of it which I, like a bit more. I did not post the music video since it is somewhat NSFW, if you want to see it, you can find it on youtube or read about it on wikipedia. The song is very catchy and generally awesome so it is no supprise to me that it is Alice Cooper's number one hit. Interestingly I have actually already posted a song by Alice Cooper, he was the guest vocalist for Avantasia on The Toy Master. I feel the obvious meaning of this song is a forbidden relationship, or one you know you shouldn't be in, however I read a very interesting theory showing how the lyrics of the song could be an analogy for a heroin addict, which I find very interesting. Also, I would kill for Alice Cooper and Tarja to do a duet of this song, but that is unlikely to happen since they are very different artists unfortunately for me.