Funnily enough I’d just been watching a You Tube video about how Nightwish popularised symphonic metal before listening to this new single from Lights of Skadi, a band we featured on several occasions in 2024, marveling at their use of orchestral cinematic pieces in rock music.
Their EP and subsequent full length album last year, ‘A cinematic experience’, was just that. Power and majesty are their watchword.
I even went so far as to say that they are out-writing Hans Zimmer and his peers at times.
But even I was taken aback by the authority woven into this latest single, ‘Valkyria’.
Heavy rock and metal are full of valkyries of course, they even literally front some bands, and if Lights of Skadi ever found themselves in need of a permanent female singer I’m sure they’d find one, somewhere.
Indeed the human embodiment of Skadi herself, the Goddess of hunting and of winter. An icy slayer.
To return to my opening remark I thought I’d left that Nightwish vid on and that I was listening to an unreleased song of theirs, with its rampant guitar, bass and drums opening in a traditional metal fashion – the charge of the light brigade if you will – which then transitions briefly into a keyboards dominated section before the guitar main riff enters, followed again by a lighter guitar moment before a full on orchestral synthesised section takes over prior to a return to the opening frenetic guitar conclusion with a grandiose parting chord thrown in for good measure, a promulgation of the one that started the song off.
(I’m sure that’s the longest sentence in any music review this year but I couldn’t chop it because it’s in sync with the flow of the song).
And it’s a casual way of describing a very well composed piece of music in six acts, performed in just three and a quarter minutes. These Norse characters don’t hang about and neither do the bands that play their praises.
The question is, as I believe I’ve asked before, can they reproduce this live? Because if they can it looks like Nightwish may tour again next year after a hiatus and I’d love to see Lights of Skadi opening for them. From what I’ve heard they most definitely have what it takes.
Lights of Skadi are the multi-instrumentalists Jorgen André, Jesper Jansson and Martin Ragnarsson and on this song they were joined by Alexander Borger & Stefan Löfstedt.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightsOfSkadi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsofskadi/
