Update 6/11/2015: Sir Christopher Lee has passed away at age 93.
Sir Christopher Lee is, without a doubt, the most metal nonagenarian on the planet. In truth, the fact that he's pushing 92 and releasing an EPs worth of heavy metal tunes to commemorate his birthday (May 27th) means he's almost certainly more metal than you. Granted, his contributions to the heavy metal community range from questionable to "Oh my God, what?!", but Lee's a classically trained singer who still has a mean set of pipes and his heart is in the right place. The songs on this new EP, titled Metal Knight, aren't great, but the arraignments sound less clumsy than the music from Lee's Charlemagne albums.
All of the songs on Metal Knight are covers which explains the improved song composition, but the generic symphonic power metal band that supplies the soundtrack renders Lee's versions of these classics impotent. If you're going to cover well known songs from Man of La Mancha and Carmen, as well as the Frank Sinatra standard "My Way," the music needs to be suitably grandiose. Sir Christopher Lee is a good singer for his age, but the musicians he's working with don't exude any personality or passion in their music.
The digital EP will only set you back $5.99 if you purchase it though Amazon, but this isn't something anyone besides hardcore Christopher Lee fans are going to buy anyway. It's cool that Lee is the oldest performer in the history of heavy metal and the oldest performer to debut on the Billboard Hot 100, but, if you want to hear him sing, watch The Wicker Man instead. Below is an interview with Lee regarding the inspiration behind this project. It also has some music samples from the various songs on Metal Knight. If you're still curious, there are worse ways you could spend eight minutes.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/L-DTNRoL95o[/youtube]
