It’s a Bank (Public) Holiday Monday, its 7:20 pm and it’s still about 30 degrees. The last thing I really needed was another single from Lights of Skadi because they usually blow my head off and it already feels like its being boiled in a pan.
But I simply can’t resist the pulsating rock and metal combination created by Jörgen André, Jesper Jansson and Martin Ragnarsson.
He (André )/they just released a new single, ‘Species X (Evolve or fade)’, which is a continuation of the Species-theme from the album ‘A Cinematic Experience’ and involves previous collaborators, the singer Carl Sjursvens and Alexander Borger (who plays the guitar riffs and solos).
I’m never quite sure how to pigeonhole Mr André. On one hand he’s comparable to movie composers like Hans Zimmer for his cinematic expansiveness, on others to prog masters like Wakeman or Emerson, but also to latter day symphonic metal creators like Holopainen.
What is ‘Species X’ you might ask? Something to do with genetic tinkering? A Frankenstein’s monster, part man, part woman, part something else? An amalgam of animal parts like the classic ‘monster’, the ‘Beast of Royston Vasey’, made out of bits of a goat, a chimpanzee and a pig and deposited in the centre of the main roundabout in town as part of efforts by the locals to scare off construction workers and halt the building of the ‘New Road’ in the bizarre 1990s British black TV comedy drama The League of Gentlemen?
Or perhaps it’s what they unearthed in New York in Cloverfield.
‘Species X (Evolve or Fade)’ could be the soundtrack to either. It’s super urgent from the opening bars, fast and furious, and has more beats and notes per minute than anything I’ve ever heard before.
And it turns out that the new species is an attractive female in silhouette with branches for hair. The Tree of Life comes to life.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
Find him/them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightsOfSkadi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsofskadi/
