Michael Ochs Archivesīowie was the king of all pop chameleons, morphing from the flame-haired Aladdin Sane - a spin on “A Lad Insane” - to the clean-cut Thin White Duke with the greatest of ease. David Bowie aka Ziggy Stardust David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust in 1973.

Here are five artists who took their transformations to the next level, and whose invented characters commanded nearly as much attention as the stars themselves. “It’s kind of like when I do a movie, becoming a character,” Beyoncé told Oprah. I can listen to a bonkers band like Zilf a million times, but sometimes, nothing beats music that means something.Secrets of The Weeknd’s face: From bloody horror to ‘surgery’ shockerįor some, that has meant creating an alter ego, whether it’s Eminem’s dark Slim Shady, Beyoncé’s ferocious Sasha Fierce or Mariah Carey‘s liberated Mimi. I ended up listening to this one quite a bit and kind of fell in love with how sincere it is.

I’ll admit that I picked this album because the band’s name made me chuckle for a hot minute (I was unaware of the Lovecraftian origin), I wasn’t expecting to feel so moved by a band that I can’t even understand lyrically. This is of course a nitpick, and not one that should take away from the otherwise stellar showing of songwriting. This is something that isn’t nearly offensive here than I’ve heard on other albums, but some of the parts like the intro of Eleven for example could have made a totally different impact, one more urgent and would have made it stand out a bit more than other spots, with some brevity. I never want to have my attention grabbed away from the music, but some parts dragged a bit. I could feel at least a couple songs parts that could have been shorter. My one criticism with Alter Ego is my problem with a lot of bands in a similar style, and that’s song length. The way the tone is set for the first minute, and then introducing an ethereal guitar over some down right spanky riffs hit me different. It’s definitely one of those instances where the end product is greater than the sum of its parts, and I really appreciate that as the album progresses, synthesis becomes a much bigger player, especially the erie “Shores”, which is arguably the peak of the album. They are heavy and brooding, and mixed with drums that are just a little muffled and the desperation in the vocals, this is heavier than any of those ‘heavy for the sake of it guys’.

The parts aren’t terribly complex by any means, but with music like this, it would just be distracting. The first lines heard are almost barked by the beast itself, and later during the more grooved and laid back portions being a bit more depressed, even adding some clean vocals over the top.Īs for the other performance, I felt the emotion from the instrumentalists as much as the vocalist. The song “Beast” makes for a good example. Mixing elements of post metal and black metal pretty seamlessly when the time calls. Also, I think the vocals here fit the sound perfectly. Almost like the real thing! I’m not saying that they are copying that sound totally, I would say Nug has a more raw and less polished sludge-ish way about them. One European band comes to mind that I won’t mention by name, but golly does this painting of an ocean scene great. I will say that sonically, this album isn’t a totally original opus, we’ve heard this brand of progressive post metal before.

Alter ego band 2019