The Butcher's Ballroom - Diablo Swing Orchestra

Certainly among the more adventurous metal albums I've heard, 'The Butcher's Ballroom' is self-consciously experimental heavy metal, incorporating substantial elements of, as the band's name would suggest, swing music and opera. While opera has had its place in metal for a number of years, Ann-Louice Lögdlund's female vocals here are performed in full-blown operatic style, rather than the diluted imitations of bands such as Nightwish and Epica. The style occasionally fails to impress, or ends up sounding like an inferior version of something Finntroll might do, or failing that a Devin Townsend polka experiment, but for the most part it's rewarding and ...