I think the first time I listened to Sweden’s Avatar was after Andy Synn reviewed a show they played in Oslo as support for Dark Tranquillity (here). I only listened to a couple of songs, but based on what I heard, I thought Andy summed up the music pretty well in his show review:  ”a strange mix between Judas Priest-esque trad metal, Sentenced-style melancholy, and the upbeat folkery (?) of latter day Amorphis.”

Today’s press releases in the NCS in-box brought the news that Avatar has been signed by eOne Music for the North American distribution of their next album, Black Waltz, which will be released on February 14 in the U.S. There’s also a brand new music video for the album’s title track. And yes indeed, it’s interesting to watch.

It was professionally filmed at night in what’s billed as Sweden’s largest amusement park, and although it’s sort of fun watching Avatar’s face-painted front man spinning gleefully in a brilliantly lit carnival ride, it’s Hellzapoppin who steal the show. They’re a long-running group of performers who model themselves as a circus side-show act, and they contribute a variety of eye-catching stunts to the video.

As for the song itself, the title is a big clue. It is indeed a kind of metal waltz, a blending of melodic death metal and the cadences of the classical dance and a bunch of other shit thrown in the mix, too. My first reaction was that it was a bit too weird, a bit too schizophrenic, a bit too cheesy for my tastes. But then I noticed that the damned melody had gotten stuck in my head and I found myself listening to the song again. I may have to give this album a chance when it arrives. Check out the video after the jump.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our UK contributor Andy Synn made his way to Oslo, Norway, to catch Dark Tranquillity's live show on November 6. DT was supported at that club show by fellow Swedish metallers Avatar and Marionette. Andy provides this review of the night's offering of metal in Oslo.]

John Dee’s in Oslo is a surprising venue in many ways. As the smaller of the rooms available in the building on Torgatta you immediately expect it to be of perhaps a lower quality than a larger venue, yet overall the entire place was presented with a higher degree of class and quality than most venues of a similar size which I have visited here in the UK. Wide-ranging and extremely clean, well-laid out with two separate bars and a raised area at the back of the room, the venue worked perfectly for a metal show this evening. Kudos to the owners and staff of John Dee.

Unfortunately, the supports were not exactly of the same level of quality.

MARIONETTE

First up was Marionette, a Swedish band of whom I’d heard good things with regard to their brand of modern melo-death, influenced performance-wise by Japanese visual Kei. Unfortunately, they were, and are, routinely terrible. Embodying much of what has gone wrong with the melo-death sound in recent years, the band appeared onstage garbed in black shirts and white ties, each with their own “interesting” hair-style and accompanied by a singer in a pseudo-Japanese mask that lasted all of 30 seconds on his face. They came across as a bad metalcore band using keyboards and “wacky” imagery to appear interesting in a desperate attempt to appeal visually to angsty teens who think that Green Day are punk as fuck and My Chemical Romance have something important to say about the youth of today. (more after the jump . . .)

I saw Avatar this weekend. Amazing movie that lives up to its hype. But that’s not what this post is about. Before the movie there was a trailer for a forthcoming movie called Clash of the Titans, which is a remake of a 1981 fantasy classic and happens to feature the same Sam Worthington who was the male lead in Avatar. The movie is based on the Greek myth of Perseus. Based on the trailer, the new movie looks like it will kick ass.

I’ve obviously got metal on the brain, because as I watched all the gods and weird creatures flashing across the screen in the trailer, I was thinking they’d fit right into different types of metal bands. I’m probably losing my mind, but see what you think. Here are some still photos from the trailer and what flew through my addled head when I saw them.

(more after the jump . . . .)