Out now via Rockshots Records, Signum Draconis’ unleashes the heavy metal opera of Inferno, from The Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri.

Featuring 17 songs by the band all sung in English, the double CD album is the first in a triptych of the complete work of Dante’s magnum opus with Purgatory and Paradise to follow, and also feature duets with selected special guest vocalists, narrations of selected chants, and an orchestral accompaniment by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra and Choir.

Signum Draconis is sharing the music video for the first CD’s closing track “Firestorm” and explains the song in further details:
“It is the theme that closes the first cd and includes three chants of the Inferno (XIV – XV – XVI), it is also the last theme with the guitar in the tuning of Eb and one of my favorites of the entire album since its composition was fast, funny and direct, practically every part of the song seemed to be running in the composition works as by inertia.

It’s a song with a very classic Power Metal style and sound, where another of our guest stars Mr. Andrea Ranfa appears playing the role of ‘Brunetto Latini’.”

Signum Draconis takes their name from the medieval knights’ Order of the Dragon, and has opted for a classic 80s-influenced metal sound in homage to the rock and metal icons that inspired them to be musicians, and aim to produce a truly musical, timeless and epic recording that will absorb and reward from repeated and dedicated listening.

Guitarist and composer Oscar Grace reflects on the history of the project:

“The story of Signum Draconis can be said to begin in 2010, after two years crossing what felt like a personal hell, I was sitting in my car gazing at the sky when a message came to me as it were, a vision clear as day: ‘Put The Divine Comedy to music!’ At that moment Signum Draconis was born. I returned home immediately and hunted out an old copy of Dante’s masterpiece I had owned for years and began furiously reading. Two full years of study and research followed, reading and re-reading all three books many times and even traveling to Florence to visit the 13th Century poet’s own house, trying to envisage what it would have been like to be him and the world in which he lived his story.”

It took two years to extract the parts that would form the material for the songs, and a further year working with my good friend Frederick Pollock to compose the lyrics, bringing to each song its own meaning whilst maintaining the thread that binds all the songs together, at all times remaining faithful to the source and paying the utmost respect to the poet Dante with regards to the correct register with perfect meter and rhyme in English.
I believe Dante’s Inferno perfectly suits the musical style of Heavy Metal, but given the epic scale and cultural importance of Dante’s books, I wanted to bring something else to the music, something that lent grandeur and elegance, and to that end, I began to write parts for a symphony orchestra, in an old-fashioned way, with a fountain pen and sheet music and no new technology to guide my hand.”

Overall, this project took four years to compose the music for the band as well as the orchestra and along the way Oscar Grace searched for the companions who would join him on this voyage of grand musical ambitions. The first was Francesco Micieli, the drummer with whom he had already worked on other projects, then Max Morelli to be the voice of the band, and later on, after an arduous search, Oscar Grace found Filippo Martignano for keyboards and Stefano Antonelli on bass.

Once all the compositions were finished the band set about recording in the Domination Studio of San Marino, taking advantage of the experience and professionalism of Simone Mularoni as a sound technician. For the recording of the orchestral parts, Signum Draconis chose to work with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, having spoken with the director, David Hernando Rico, who helped them enormously and who showed such enthusiasm for the music and the project overall.

Special guests include:
RENATO CARROZZO as Storyteller
CHIARA MANESE as Beatrice
MARK BOALS as Virgil
BEN JACKSON as Charon
KSENIA GLONTY as Francesca
LUCA PAOLINI as Pluto
ANDREA RANFA as Brunetto Latini
FREDERICK POLLOCK as Ulysses
SIMONE MULARONI as Nimrod ‘The Titan’
OLEG SMIRNOFF as Count Ugolino

Band line up:
Max Morelli (Vocals)
Oscar Grace (Guitars)
Filippo Martignano (Keyboards)
Stefano Antonelli (Bass)
Francesco Micieli (Drums)

#dante #inferno #symphonicmetal

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Their next anticipated record “War of The Jewels” is due out March 19th, 2021 (CD+Digital) (Vinyl – June 12th) via Rockshots Records, which sees the band take an interesting evolution in sound from previous releases. Ainur will completely immerse fans in J.R.R.Tolkien’s war atmospheres. They have imagined every story and every battle and recreate them through unique and deep music.

The compositional process of “War of The Jewels” has been very long. It started in 2009 (or maybe before) and it ended more or less last year. Ainur sees it as their “rebirth” album. They have been working hard composing and arranging their music to create the best tribute to Tolkien’s histories that they can.

Album pre-order:
CD – http://bit.ly/Ainur_Digipak
VINYL – http://bit.ly/Ainur_Vinyl (available​ on June 12, 2021 – Record Store Day)

“Spirit Of Fire” ft. Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth) & Ted Nasmith at the following links:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7i3XlsPVJsI ​
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2KJBioZ ​
Apple Music: https://apple.co/3a3EtjQ ​

#ainur​ #tolkien​ #progrock

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The band comments:
“‘War of the Jewels’ is the eleventh volume of “The History of Middle-Earth”. In Tolkien’s mythology is the tale of the big wars that came out after the creation of the Silmarils by Fëanor. The main theme is the big battles of Beleriand, except for Nirnaeth Arnoediad that will have big space in our next album. The main implied character is Fëanor, the mightiest of the Elves. Musically, it’s a thematic album as all our previous and future ones and you will recognize musical themes that we already used in “From Ancient Times”, “Children of Hùrin” and “Lay of Leithian”; however, the atmospheres are more aggressive and mighty than in the past because the topics we have put in Music this time needed a more powerful musical support.” 

The compositional process of “War of The Jewels” has been very long. It started in 2009 (or maybe before) and it ended more or less last year. Ainur sees it as their “rebirth” album. They have been working hard composing and arranging their music to create the best tribute to Tolkien’s histories that they can. 

Today, the collective shares their music video for the next single “Kinslaying (The First)” ft. Ted Nasmith in support of the upcoming full length. 

Music Video – https://youtu.be/LdWz7xWtMIY
Spotify – http://spoti.fi/3u9jFkf
Apple Music – https://apple.co/3a3EtjQ

The band adds:

“This song came almost by chance. Everything began with the initial chord, then we put the classical instruments on it and everything else came in the blink of an eye. We wanted to describe one of the darkest moments in Tolkien’s mythology: the Alqualondë fratricide, also called ‘First Kinslaying’, when Elves killed other Elves for the first time. When we asked Wilma (our poetess that writes almost all our original lyrics) to write something about this dark moment, she came back with one of the best lyrics ever written for us and a verse of this song became the ‘main topic’ of the album: ‘No longer Brothers, while vessels burn, beyond the riot of waves that churn’. From minute 5 you will be amazed by the powerful sadness of these words.”
Fans of Tolkien’s work along with fans of Ayreon, Queen, and John Williams will be surprised by the majesty and the energy of this work.

Album pre-order:  
CD Digipak – http://bit.ly/Ainur_Digipak
Vinyl – http://bit.ly/Ainur_Vinyl(available on June 12, 2021 – Record Store Day)
Previous Single:
“Spirit Of Fire” ft. Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth) & Ted Nasmith at the following links: 
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7i3XlsPVJsI
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2KJBioZ
Apple Music: https://apple.co/3a3EtjQ

FOLLOW ROCKSHOTS RECORDS:
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http://www.facebook.com/rockshotsrecords
https://www.instagram.com/rockshotsrecords/
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https://shop.rockshots.eu/

#ainur #tolkien #progrock

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It’s been 17 years since Ainur thought to transform Tolkien’s masterpiece “The Silmarillion” into music. Each member of the band was lost in his own musical themes inspired by Tolkienian mythology. As if hypnotized, they outrageously composed themes for the main characters and started to imagine this huge concept work to which they still work on today.

Their next anticipated record “War of The Jewels” is due out March 19, 2021 via Rockshots Records, which sees the band take an interesting evolution in sound from previous releases. Ainur will completely immerse fans in J.R.R.Tolkien’s war atmospheres. They have imagined every story and every battle and recreate them through unique and deep music.

Today, the collective shares the first single off the upcoming full length. Entitled “Spirit of Fire”, the song features Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth) with narration excerpts by Ted Nasmith. 

Listen to “Spirit Of Fire” ft. Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth) & Ted Nasmith at the following links:
 
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7i3XlsPVJsI
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2KJBioZ
Apple Music: https://apple.co/3a3EtjQ

FOLLOW ROCKSHOTS RECORDS:
http://www.rockshots.eu
http://www.facebook.com/rockshotsrecords
https://www.instagram.com/rockshotsrecords/
https://www.twitter.com/rockshotsrec
https://shop.rockshots.eu/

FOLLOW AINUR:
http://www.Ainur.it
http://www.Facebook.com/ainurprogrockorchestra
http://www.Instagram.com/ainurprogrockorchestra

#ainur #tolkien #lotr

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Statement from Ayreon: Welcome to the vivid globe of.. Transitus! Finally the moment has actually come to present you the extremely first complete songs and also lyric video clips of the brand-new Ayreon album Yes… singleS, plural! This cd is exceptionally varied so I actually could not pick simply one track due to the fact that I would not desire individuals to obtain the incorrect perception of the total state of mind of the cd. So we made a decision to make a video clip for both an atmospheric track “Hopelessly Slipping Away” and also a rough track “Get out! Now!”

“Hopelessly Slipping Away” features Tommy Karevik (Kamelot) and Cammie Gilbert (Oceans Of Slumber) on vocals. It’s a haunting track with analog synthesizers and violin, and also it gradually develops to a legendary orgasm with marching snares. In this video clip we see the ghost of Daniel (Tommy) hopelessly attempting to connect to his precious other half Abby (Cammie) that plainly feels his existence yet can not see or hear him.”

“The track “Get Out! Now!” is a straightforward and energetic rock track with powerful drums, bass, guitars and Hammond organ. It features the illustrious Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) and Tommy Karevik on vocals, and none other than the legendary Joe Satriani plays a blistering guitar solo. In this story Daniel’s intolerant father (Dee) banishes Daniel (Tommy) from his estate for having a forbidden affair with their servant Abby.”

MyRockNews.com

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