Virtual Metal Band Pentakill release League of Legends Album and Tommy Lee is there with Jorn Lande

WHEN gaming and metal collide the result is the virtual band, Pentakill, featuring lead vocalist Karthus, blazing axe-man Mordekaiser, enchanting keyboardist Sona, bassist Yorick, berserker drummer Olaf, and new member Kayle, a winged warrior goddess who sings songs presaging the end of the world, all based around the 100-million player League of Legends gaming universe.

Pentakill - Valoran's favourite rock band – are breaking further out of the 100 million-player League of Legends gaming universe and onto the playlists of metalheads worldwide. Their second release, II: Grasp Of The Undying, hits international all major digital streaming platforms today, including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and more.

In conjunction with the album’s release, League of Legends and Pentakill are streaming II: Grasp Of The Undying in full via YouTube and the Pentakill music landing page here: http://pentakill.leagueoflegends.com. At the same locations, you can also witness the brand new state-of-the-art, cinematic animated music video for the punishing track, “Mortal Reminder”.

Within 24 hours of posting, the “Mortal Reminder” video racked up over 7.3 million views across platforms. Witness Pentakill's live musical carnage in Bandle City, recorded in the catacombs of the Shadow Isles!

II: Grasp Of The Undying features not only the skills of League of Legends developer Riot Games’ most passionate in-house composers, songwriters, and producers (who also happen to be diehard metalheads), but an elite list of metal, rock and electronic music heavyweights.

The album showcases the musical talents of rock/metal vocalist Jorn Lande, songstress Noora Louhimo of Battle Beast, producer Scott Kirkland of The Crystal Method, producer and vocalist Danny Lohner formerly of Nine Inch Nails, world-renowned drummer Tommy Lee of Motley Crüe fame, drummer Mike Pitman and vocalist Rich Thomson of Xerath, vocalist Per Johansson of Ureas, and many more.

 Jorn Lande, the voice of Karthus, states: “It's great for a classic heavy rocker like myself to be a part of this modern gaming music world, and I'm excited and grateful for the opportunity to work with such a great team of talented people. This exciting development is not just about creating an original twist to the online gaming industry, but also about pioneering some groundbreaking new metal! My job is to make Karthus the singer he is, and add the classic heavy rock element to his performance. I'm proud that Karthus and his band are back to bring new Pentakill metal your way!”

Noora Louhimo, the voice of Kayle, adds: “It's been so exciting and an honor to be part of the second Pentakill record. This has been my dream come true to work in the gaming world. This is just the beginning and I can't wait to see what the future brings. I hope people love the result as much as I do!”
 It features genre-influences ranging from power metal, NWOBHM, thrash, modern progressive death metal and everything in between – even electronic/industrial!
 
Pentakill was spawned from massive League of Legends fan/player engagement, theories and buzz. Wanting first and foremost to give back to a global community of players, Riot Games and their team of in-house composers, songwriters, and producers came up with the idea to write, record and release a real heavy metal album based on a virtual heavy metal band comprised of members embodied by the original skin line they originated from. In their virtual reality, Pentakill is billed as the fictional land of Valoran's most famous rock band.

In 2014, the Riot Games music label issued the band's first foray out of the video game realm, Smite and Ignite – an eight-track collection of appropriately punishing songs that was written completely in-house at Riot, and supported by the talents of studio musicians, including ZP Theart of Dragonforce, Derek Sherinian of Dream Theater, Danny Lohner of Nine Inch Nails, and Jorn Lande. Upon its release in 2014 and with absolutely no traditional promotion, Smite and Ignite went on to debut Top 40 on Billboard and #1 on the iTunes Metal and Rock charts, plus charted top 30 on the overall iTunes charts, in addition to millions of YouTube and Spotify streams.
 
Stay tuned for more exclusives and news coming soon, and follow all things PENTAKILL at http://pentakill.leagueoflegends.com

ALBUM REVIEW: Jorn excels again on new platter Life on Death Road

HARD on the heals of his 2016 release “Heavy Rock Radio”, an album of cover songs that influenced or made an impression on a young Jorn Lande he has released a brand new album ‘Life on Death Road’.

Mostly written and co-produced with the Frontiers labels’ in-house producer Alessandro Del Vecchio, who is a fine musician in his own right (Hardline, Voodoo Circle) it has taken a pain staking 2 years to write.

This time Jorn has put together a band not of session musicians but consisting of Primal Fear members Alex Beyrodt (guitars), Mat Sinner (bass), Francesco Jovino (drums) and Del Vecchio himself on keyboards.

With this line up you would expect a mixture of heavy hitting guitar work along with great melodies and hooks and a powerhouse rhythm section combined with Jorn’s outstanding vocal capabilities and some Whitesnake and Dio influences. You might think you’ll know what you’re going to get if you are a Jorn fan but this album lifts him to a whole new level. There are also a couple of surprise guests!

Album opener and title track ‘Life on Death Road’ is a searing, blistering attack on your eardrums and senses. Fast, heavy with some great riffs and powerful drumming from Jovino it’s a seven odd minutes belter with the guests appearing on the guitar solos featuring Craig Goldy (Dio and now Dio Disciples) and Gus G (Firewind, Ozzy Osbourne, Arch Enemy and Kamelot to name a few) as well as Beyrodt himself.

Several other songs on the album follow in the same vein including ‘Love is The Remedy’ (with another shredding solo from Gus G), The Slippery Slope (Hangman’s Rope) and ‘Insoluble Maze (Dreams in The Blindness)’, the later being very reminiscent of a Dio-era song with a mixture of his own material and his time with Black Sabbath but it’s definitely Jorn’s song in terms of the vocal delivery.

There are a few more heavy rock style songs on the album like ‘Hammered to The Cross (The Business)’ with its slower riff and classic steady bass and drum lines, ’Devil You Can Drive’, with a nice keyboard part from Del Vecchio and ‘Man From The 80’s’ which lyrically will resonate with those of a certain age!!

Of course there are a couple of ballads. ‘Dreamwalker’ with a piano intro that suggests a standard ballad but which explodes into something a lot more along the lines of a power metal ballad, melodic with strong vocals, great guitar solo and a nice three part harmony vocal to finish.

The real full on ballad on the album is the wonderful ‘The Optimist’. Co-written by Gus G it has a mixture of subtle guitar, bass, drums and keyboard lines and Jorn can’t help himself  dipping back into his last album with some lyrical nods to the likes of Kate Bush with the term cloud busting being used as one example (see if you can spot a few others…).

Finally we come to the David Coverdale/Whitesnake influenced songs. Again they are all Jorns and not a copy cat like say on The Snakes’ album. ‘Fire to The Sun’, however, could’ve been on Whitesnake’s 1987 album and not been out of place, with the whole band in full flow with hard kicking drums and a great melodic solo from Beyrodt. ‘I Walked Away’ is a more bluesy song in the style of the early Snake or Coverdale solo era with a solid rhythm section and Jorn showing off his vocal range from low end blues to higher end screams, again making it his own. A short but fantastic solo just makes the song work beautifully.

Album closer ‘Blackbirds’ is the last example of how early Whitesnake influenced Jorn with its opening vocal delivery and lyrics before morphing into something more from the late 80’s era with yet another great solo from Beyrodt.

In no way are any of these songs ‘tribute’ songs, they clearly show their influence but are delivered with passion and a more modern sound thanks to the great production from Lande and del Vecchio.

It’s hard to summarise an album roughly 70 minutes in length in a few words but for the King of Norwegian Heavy / Power metal vocals this may well be his crowning glory. Buy it, you won’t regret a minute of it.

Review by Andy Gillen

Life on Death Road is out now on Frontiers Music srl

ALBUM REVIEW: Jorn lands with classic covers album

NORWAY's own heavy metal Thor, Jorn Lande, returns with a new album of cover versions ranging from Kate Bush to Iron Maiden entitled 'Heavy Rock Radio'. But does the album deliver as much hammer as Thor’s hammer Mjölnir

Starting with Frida's (the dark haired one from Abba) 'I know There's Something Going On' didn't initially inspire much confidence but Christ does it rock! The structure of the song totally lends itself to the heavy metal treatment and witg heavy, filled in riffs and an excellent solo from Trond Holter - it's an encouraging start.

Messing with teenage wet dream Kate Bush's song 'Running Up That Hill' in principle shouldn't have worked but he bloody nails it. Loaded up with guitar, bass, drums and Jorn’s raspy vocals it's like a totally new song.

Foreigners 'Rev on The Red Line' still has that Foreigner feel to it but with a much heavier sound and the synths pushed firmly into the background.

So far, so good, but John Farnham's 'You’re The Voice' throws up the first issue. The arrangement is excellent and it really works with a heavy guitar influence but those guitars are used  to replace part of the vocals on the chorus and this lessens its impact. Thankfully this is put right in the second part of the song but it could've been so much better the whole way through as Jorn’s vocals are excellent. Didn't really need to turn the pages over....

The pop rock offering of Paul Stanleys 'Live to Win' is in much need of a boot up the arse and gets it here. Much heavier with a Scandanavian/ European vibe to it, this version is much better than the MTV-era influenced original

Okay, 'Don't Stop Believing' has been done to death.....but not like this! Leaving out the piano and focusing on guitar with the bass playing the lower tones the piano normally would play, Lande sticks rigidly to the songs structure but his raspy vocal delivery breathes new life into it.

'Killer Queen' is up next. There are some Queen songs that would be better suited to getting the heavy treatment (Don't stop Me Now springs to mind) but this one should probably have been left alone. It's not that its bad but as Jorn himself says on the liner notes:"I'll let the listener decide if the outcome was auccessful" This version could cause more social media chatter than the Brexit vote!

Covering the iconic Eagles tune 'Hotel California' may well be sacrosanct in some quarters but thankfully they did as its an absolute belter of a version. Staying close to the original and keeping it fairly simple there is a whole new dimension to this song. A much more menacing vocal delivery gives it depth and the guitar outro is just killer. Album highlight so far.

Anyone familiar with Lande’s back catelogue will know he's at his best when he takes on Ronnie James Dio and David Coverdale. His Dio cover album and the ‘Snakes' Once Bitten album are perfect examples. So, the fact that this version of 'Rainbow in the Dark' is superb is no surprise. It maintains all the elements of the Dio original but with a much heavier sound. The trick with singing an RJD song is to try and get his unique phrasing and pinched off vocals correct and Jorn manages to do this really well without sounding like a copycat. Great version of the song.

Surprisingly Iron Maiden get the full Jorn treatment with his offering of 'The Final Frontier'. Sans the snoozefest that is Satelitte 15 as an intro the song is tighter. Jorn does an excellent job on the vocal without ever trying to sound like Bruce. It probably misses the trademark Maiden three guitar sound but it's still an excellent version.

'Stormbringer' is song that sees Coverdale get, err, covered. It’s another outstanding version as Jorn is right in his comfort zone singing this stuff.

Album closer 'Die Young' is a great effort at a Dio-era Sabs song. There are no dramatic changes to the original just cleaner vocals and new, original and energetic guitar parts. A great way to finish the album off.

Overall this is good fun and a damn good listen. Personal choice will always dictate favourites but it's worth getting to discuss Killer Queen alone.

Review by Andy Gillen