Christopher Lee has released a symphonic metal album about Charlemagne

[davidn]

Christopher Lee has released a symphonic metal album about Charlemagne.

I'm not sure if I can really write anything else to comment on this sufficiently. Still, this didn't come completely out of nowhere, as Rhapsody had somehow managed to convince him to act as narrator and vocalist on a few of their albums before, and he was also in something related to greased nutcases Manowar as well. Now, he seems to have suddenly realized that having done those, along with having played both Saruman the White and Count Dooku and allegedly being descended from a Saxon-bashing Roman emperor, all make him the most power metal human being alive even though he's close to 90.

The album is titled "Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross", and from the samples available online, seems to concentrate more on the "symphonic" aspect than the "metal" one, but there are definitely shades of Rhapsody around - the songs are honestly called things like "Act III: The Bloody Verdict of Verden", and that particular one has a chorus that appears to go:

I shed blood of Saxon men
I shed the blood of the Saxon men
I shed the blood of the Saxon men
I shed the blood of the Saxon men
I shed it at Verden
I shed the blood of the Saxon men
I shed the blood of four thousand Saxon men
I shed blood of Saxon men
I shed the blood of the Saxon men
I shed the blood of the Saxon men

In a style similar to Steve Harris during the early stages of senility.

Of the samples available, I think that the self-described genre best comes out in the one called "Song Rehearsal 1", but while the orchestrations are nice it still all sounds like someone only introducing the "metal" aspect hesitantly (the album's songwriters previously composed for, er, Take That and Kylie Minogue). And the whole thing looks even more homemade than Rhapsody's own music videos.

Still... your granddad probably didn't do anything like this this week.

Comments

[ethelfleda.livejournal.com]

*looks innocent*

I might possibly have succumbed to temptation and bought this. It's awesome, in a sort of totally wrong way. There's Lee's awesome deep vocals, and the backing singers are all obviously Broadway singers - they sound like they're one step away from going 'oh myy gaaaawwwd!!' all the way through. This, combined with rivers of blood-type lyrics creates a mental image close to Eddie Izzard's "First Battalion Transvestite Brigade".

The introduction bits inbetween, the non-sung bits are spoken by someone who sounds like she has some difficulty with the English language, and you wonder who in the production she's shagging, because that's the only reason she can have got the job.

It's totally worth it for rocking out to "I shed the blood of the Saxon men" though :D

[davidn]

You knew about it before I did - there's something... not the right way round about that :) The whole thing sounds hilarious from your description. I noticed the narrator(ress?) as well, and was similarly struck by how against all odds she was just as bad as Rhapsody's older narrator, pre-Christopher Lee. I saw something that said it might have been his daughter.

Helloween similarly did of their classics Broadway-style recently as part of their attempt to wind up as many of their stupider fans as possible - I thought it was incredible :)