Storm Back and Tell the Phantom is on Heroin – Music of January 2022

Welcome to the first monthly music edition of 2022! Some of these songs I already had lined up to feature even before January even arrived. What can I say? I like to plan ahead!

Battle Beast – Eye Of The Storm

I’ve asked myself this question before but why don’t I listen to this band more often? Hello……. Finnish, power metal, female vocalist?! Count me in! Plus I saw them co-headline with Sabaton in 2017 and they were really good, I should have paid more attention during the show but I was saving all my energy for Sabaton.

This is not the first Battle Beast song that I have listened to post-gig, I’ll save that one for another month. I found this one under YouTube’s recommendations and then I listened to it while I was on night shift. It’s really catchy and anthem-ish as I expected from my favourite subgenre of metal, so I should definitely listen to more of this band. Not a massive fan of the music video but Noora is badass.

Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

So everyone knows who this is, and I’ll confess I don’t think I ever heard a single one of her songs so here we go now. That’s the point of me doing these monthly posts, not just to show what I’ve been listening to the most, but also how I share my new discoveries.

Amy has a lovely voice, it’s a pity she died so young and it shows how dangerous alcohol addiction can be. But I can tell she was extremely influential and this is a pretty song, there’s not much else I can say but it’s good.

Tove Lo – don’t ask, don’t tell

Yeah yeah I know, a pretty explicit album cover eh? It’s Tove Lo, she’s what I see as a very unapologetic artist with what she does. She’s not afraid to get dirty if you know what I mean. Even if I’m not like that, I just find her songs catchy. I listened to this album on one of my days off after being under a rock for a while and this is the first song I liked.

I’m thinking of using it in my latest fanfiction project for what I call a mentality chapter for my character. That’s all I can say in that regard because I still have to brainstorm how that’s going to occur, but in the meantime, this is quite a nice song, a little bit softer compared to the rest of the album.

Epica – The Phantom Agony

For a moment I thought Epica released a single but this is actually one of their older songs with the music video remastered. Damn, they look so young! This song has such a Medieval appeal to it, it’s always nice to hear a flashback don’t you agree?

It makes me want to check out some of Epica’s older work, what a beautiful song.

Lana Del Rey – Heroin

Another lovely song from this artist, I thought it was at a different key than this when I saw a video edit on Instagram with it. But the creator certainly changed the pitch to avoid being accused of plagiarism.

Regardless of what key the song is, it is a very beautiful song and Lana seems like a criminally underappreciated artist. It makes me realize that the pop industry in Europe also has something to offer just as much as heavy metal does. This song and the other one I shared last month are both very soothing, and it’s nice to hear something that isn’t repetitive or just meant to serve as a dance tune.

I mean, that’s all people seem to care about these days is can you dance to it? I do like stuff to dance to, but I like this kind of pop music, dream pop they call it. It’s much deeper and makes me imagine something more vivid, whatever that is.

That’s it for this month, I finished Shadow of Mordor’s main quest and I didn’t do all of the dagger quests but I don’t think I wanted to grind too much in this game. I knew how much to do in something with endless gameplay!

Stayed tuned for the review and whatever else I have planned.

👽Emily