Tarja – Victim of ritual (single)

tarja - victim of ritual (single)Tarja’s new album, Colours in the dark, is due for release on 23rd August, but ahead of that comes the first single from the new album – ‘Victim of ritual’.

The song is inspired by a well known piece of classical music, ‘Bolero’ by Maurice Ravel.  You can actually hear a clear resemblance at one point in the song, but overall the song doesnt feel like classical music – it’s got that typical Tarja feel, where rock is influenced by classical.

On the CD you get 4 songs – the title track, Victim of ritual, a demo version of the song, then two live tracks.  The demo version seems an odd inclusion – it’s not significantly different, in fact a lot of people won’t notice any real difference between the two versions.

One very interesting bit of information is mentioned in the inlay – “Songs 3 and 4 from the upcoming live release out Christmas 2013”.  So it sounds like we could be getting a new live album from Tarja, only a year after the release of her first live album/DVD, Act 1.

So, how does ‘Victim of ritual’ sound?  It’s a great song that really shows off Tarja’s voice fully.  It’s definitely a great Tarja song – her voice sounds superb as always, and there’s plenty of power from the band with the orchestra adding a huge amount of richness to the sound.  An excellent song and a great choice for the first single.  The song was the first choice of both Tarja and her record label to release as a single, and its clear why they agreed.

The live tracks sound great too, both are songs from her earlier albums, and sound great performed live.

You can hear Tarja talking about the single and the album in our interview with her, which will be published soon here on Planetmosh.

Track listing:

1. Victim of ritual
2. Victim of ritual (First demo)
3. I walk alone (live from Luna Park)
4. Underneath (live from Luna Park)

About Ant May

I spend half my life at gigs or festivals and the other half writing the reviews and editing photos, and somehow find time for a full time job too. Who needs sleep - I've got coffee.