Metal Music Blog

Have you heard about Northern Kings, those four mighty metal tenors from Finland? Northern Kings is a project of Jarkko Ahola (Terasbetoni, Dreamtale), J-P Leppaluoto (Charon), Marco Hietala (Tarot, Nightwish) and Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica). They play well-known symphonic metal covers, such as I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight and We Don’t Need Another Hero. In the beginning they were supposed to be called Helldivo or Killdivo (related to quarter Il Divo), but finally Northern Kings was chosen. As the band says in their MySpace site, they can without a doubt be called as all-star line-up of Finnish metal.

Northern Kings released their debut album, Reborn, in the end of November. They had their first gig in Radio Rock Finland festival in Helsinki in December 5th. After their gig the band was certified gold in Finland for sales in excess of 15,000 copies.

“Reborn” track listing:

01. We Don’t Need Another Hero
02. Don’t Bring Me Down
03. Sledge Hammer
04. I Just Died In your Arms Tonight
05. Hello
06. Ashes To Ashes
07. Broken Wings
08. Brothers In Arms
09. Rebel Yell
10. Creep
11. In The Air Tonight
12. Don’t Stop Believing
13. Falling On Hard Times

What do you think about Northern Kings? Some folks have praised them in metal forums, while some folks think the band sucks. I do like them because of their singing skills. I enjoy listening good singers, and in this band I really enjoy listening to the songs sang by Jarkko Ahola and J-P Leppäluoto. Jarkko Ahola is a damn good tenor, while J-P Leppäluoto has a unique and wonderful low velvet sound. Tony Kakko and Marco Hietala are pretty good singers as well, but I prefer these two guys I mentioned. Listen to Brothers in Arms and I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight and you know why I enjoy these two metalheads.

Many people will probably miss Northern Kings just because the album is full of covers and the target audience is rather small. Anyhow, I recommend you to check them out. Listen to more than the Tina Turner cover below. I recommend you to listen to these two at least to know more about the band.

I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight.
Brothers in Arms.

So, what do YOU think about Northern Kings? It would be nice to hear your opinnion. Please, drop your comment below.

Finnish symphonic metal band Northern Kings released their debut album, Reborn, just few weeks ago. The band is founded in 2007 by four leading metal music singers in Finland, namely Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni), Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (Charon) and Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot). They play 1980’s classic songs, such as Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero”, as symphonic metal cover versions. Northern Kings was first called as Hell divo and Kill divo, but finally the name was chosen to be Northern Kings. They have sold already gold in Finland.

Northern Kings has received feedback from both extremes, good and bad. Some folks seem to like Northern Kings very much, while some folks hardly can stand them. For example in RateYourMusic.Com the scale of rates is from one to four. Interesting thing is that many people have given one, while nobody has given five stars.

HardRockHouse.Com has rated the album 7.5/10. They praise the band for being courageous and different, but they also point out that some parts of the album just don’t work. Especially they seem to like the operatic vocals and orchestrations in this album. For instance, HardRockHouse review praises the ballad I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight because of the simplicity of the song, while Rebel Yell just does not work at all.

In FinnishCharts.Com Northern Kings has stayed in the list for five weeks now. I hope all the best for this band. I really enjoy these guys and I recommend this album for you as well. Back to the original question, “is Northern Kings continuing their success or flopping”? I would say they are not flopping and there is a big enough market for this kind of music. If you haven’t heard Northern Kings yet, check out the video below.

Northern Kings - We Don’t Need Another Hero

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The winner of our October competition was published today. Let’s dedicate this Monday for Northern Kings music. Here is Sledgehammer from this great band whose line-up contains some of the leading metal music singers from Finland. Heh..I don’t wonder why the guys initially wanted to call themselves as Helldivo or Killdivo

Northern Kings will release their debut album by the end of this month. Here is “We Don’t Need Another Here” from the upcoming album. This is a cover song, originally sang by Tina Turner. Northern Kings is a group of “A-class” heavy metal singers from Finland, namely Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni) and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (Charon). My opinnion is that this is one of the best metal cover songs for long time. Very well done and sounds great.

Notice our October competition in which you can win this upcoming album!!

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Have you heard about Il Divo (Carlos Marín, Urs Bühler, David Miller, Sébastien Izambard)? The famous pop-opera quartet, created by Simon Cowell. Now there is a new star rising, called Northern Kings. First they were supposed to be called Killdivo or Helldivo, but finally Northern Kings was selected as their name. The line-up is Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), J-P Leppäluoto (Charon) and Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni). They play 80’s classics, such as Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero and Cuttin Crew’s I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight. The first album is going to be released on October 24th. Tina Turner’s cover has been played in Finnish radio and Northern Kings sounds very sinfonic, very good. Northern Kings is a fantastic idea and will definately be successful at least in Finland. I just wanna get that album in hands..