This Is Awkward

This fantastic DVD captures one of the most auspicious operatic debuts of 2009, Jonas Kaufmann’s Lohengrin. We have here a record of that rarest of things: a night at the opera when everything worked. The singing is outstanding across the board, the excellent orchestral playing is guided by a conductor of vision and excitement and the production is insightful, stimulating and intelligent…

– Simon Thompson, MusicWeb International

Leslie Howard’s recordings of Liszt’s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard’s Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt.

An appropriate album for this time of year particularly as we edge closer to Halloween, THEM’s sophomore release, “Manor of the Seven Gables,” attempts to capture that atmosphere. It must first be said that this is my first experience hearing the band so the review will surely reflect that. Skip this paragraph if you are already familiar with THEM. Vocalist Troy Norr originally formed the band in 2008 as a tribute band to KING DIAMOND. The band achieved quite a bit of success including performing shows with Mike Wead and Hal Patino from KING DIAMOND’s band. Now the band is centered around a concept idea of Norr’s with a six-person band assembled including keyboards to really add to the effect of the music particularly when performing their unique live show…