Tolkien inspired prog

GoldenSpiral wrote: anyway, here's a non-prog LOTR band: Battlelore.  not to mention the entire genre of Fantasy Metal.

True. A couple of their albums have been reviewed by the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society - one of these reviews was featured on the last issue. The album's title is "Third Age of the Sun". In the review the band's musical style is compared to that of Nightwish, as they have a female vocalist and they are Finnish as well.

This thread on Tolkien-inspired band names might be of interest

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?FID=44& ;TID=7661&PN=0&TPN=1

Cheers!

eugene wrote: Bern wrote: It seems that a lot of bands were inspired by JRR Tolkien for their lyrics. Do you know about some? I'm thinking about  : The trees - Rush (reminds me of the talking trees in the Lord of the rings) I am not very good at Tolkien, but did talking trees in Lord of the Rings become all equaled by hatchet, axe and saw???

Ehm... pretty sure this song has nothing-whatsoever-to-do-with-Tolkien - it's about Neil Peart's political views at that time, when he was very much into libertarianism and Ayn Rand's writings.

The best Tolkien inspired album I've listened to must be Barroquejon "Concerning The Quest, The Bearer and The Ring". Simply gorgeous!!!

David Hanus is the Chilean musician and creator of this venture, on which he plays every single instrument and performs all vocal duties. What we have here is a concept piece inspired on The Lord of the Rings, boasting a Symphonic style and Medieval touches not unlike the Glass Hammer and Ayreon sound.

Recommend you to listen some samples at their website.
http://www.geocities.com/barroquejon/

Ghost Rider wrote: As far as I know (having been a Tolkien fan for over 20 years), there are lots of bands - mostly heavy metal, but a few prog bands too - whose name comes from Tolkien's work. The most notorious one are Burzum (a word in the Black Speech meaning 'darkness'), whose founder Count Grishnakh ended up in prison after having killed his rival Euronymous. Anyway, Marillion are surely the best-known of the bunch. Their first EP, "Grendel", took its title and subject matter from one of Tolkien's main sources of inspiration, the Anglo-Saxon epic "Beowulf".

Indeed! Being into Black Metal as well as into Prog, I can tell you 'the list is endless'. Latest additions on my 'Tolkien Bands List' even include an Orodruin, a Sauron and an Ungoliant! (don't even think of checking them out if you can't stand Black/Death metal  ). Furthermore, there's a Swedish (?) Death Metal band called Ephel Duáth that's been active for a while now. And don't forget Dimmu Borgir's "singer", who calls himself Shagrath. He sounds like an Orc, too .

Funny thing to notice: the 'Goodies' names are usually used by Prog Bands, the Baddies by Black/Death metal bands. At least they all seem to have read the Book... which is a good thing.

Blind Guardian did a song on LOTR called 'Lord of the Rings' and then done 'Nightfall in Midle Earth' which is based on the Simarillion. Co & Ca's IKSOSE:II syncs up with LOTR the movie.

But generally Tolkien inspired either concouissley or sub-concouisley Prog rock, power metal, heavy rock and metal in some shape or form.   

Contortions Of The Balrog by St. Elmo's Fire / Artifacts Of Passion CD

Darkhorse And March Of The Elves by Brain Forest / Wood Of Thought CD

The Ring And The River by Paul Kollar / Subtle Matter CD

check out www.tolkien-music.com

The rick Wakeman one is interesting. Here's Zitro's review:

RICK WAKEMAN Songs Of Middle Earth
Review (Permanent link) by Zitro @ 3:00:40 PM EST, 8/4/2005
PROG REVIEWER

 —  A complete rip-off!!!

Music inspired by Lord of The Rings? Don't make me laugh! All the piano songs are from 'heritage suite' and the new age tracks from 'seven wonders'. He just changed the names of the songs, and somehow, they really fit with the new titles.

Well, the music is good. As long as you don't have any of those two albums, and are interested in Wakeman's elegant playing, you might like this a lot.

My Grade : C+