A Crossover Concept Album Inspired by Fantasy, Myth and Legend. Sung in English & Anglo Saxon:
‘Rainstriker’ is a unique concept album with ethnic elements and film music style arrangements. Inspired by Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Norse and Greek myths and legends, the album taps into the fantasy genre given global profile by films such as, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Thor, ‘Beowulf’ and ‘The Avengers’, as well as the popular TV series, ‘Game of Thrones’.
‘Rainstriker’, which can also be described as a contemporary dramatic ‘song-cycle’ (a style popularised by the great classical composer, Franz Schubert), evokes a past mythical age that centres on Celtic, Brythonic and Norse Gods and Goddesses of the earth, moon, sea, sky, rain, wind and fire. With captivating melodies and music steeped in “late nineteenth century romantic style” (as with film music), ‘Rainstriker’ fuses English and authentic Anglo-Saxon lyrics to bring to life colourful sagas of marauding Vikings and mythical heroes, such as found in the great English epic, ‘Beowulf’ (‘Beowulf and Grendel’), or in the song, ‘The Great Ones’, featuring the mythological Norse gods, Odin, Thor, Loki and Freya, who live in Asgard and Valhalla. Love stories permeate the song cycle too, as in ‘A Lover’s Tale’, which recounts the Greek tradgedy of ‘Hero and Leander’. Songs of fantasy with dwarves and elves, as in ‘Shining Summer’, tells the story of ‘The Ruler of Nine’; a tale of nine magic rings that feature in J. R. R. Tolkien’s, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, as well as the tale of the Rhinemaidens and the gold they guard, as found in Richard Wagner’s opera, ‘Das Rheingold’ (from his famous ‘Ring Cycle’).