If you want “otherworldly,” it’s hard to beat “Blows Against The Empire” by Kantner/Slick, et al, or “The Intergalactic Touring Band” by ITB. Or how about Jeff Wayne’s version of “War Of The Worlds?”
If you want something a little (um) different, you could try First Utterance, by Comus.
Song to Comus on YouTube.
I’m going to go in a slightly different direction. How about some Cocteau Twins? Beth Fraser’s voice defines otherworldly, to me. Music can be described as “pastoral,” too, I’d say. If fairies could make music, this would be it. I would start with Treasure. For somethiing a little more rocking, I’d say My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless fits the bill. But that all depends on what you mean exactly by evoking fantasy. The four bands mentioned in the OP are not any I would have thought of given the wording of the OP, so I’m trying to go off on another tack.
How about some Be Bob Deluxe? Bill Nelson wrote lots of that kind of stuff. For example:
Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape
Jet Silver and The Dolls of Venus
Life in the Air Age
Sister Seagull
Jets at Dawn
There’s also this: Shine On, by some crazy diamond, shining on. Hey, he’s at least trying to evoke a fantasy setting. I think.
Wolfmother’s albumhas a few songs that might fit the bill actually.
Whenever I listen to that album, I immediately start thinking of a fantasy realm of things for a few of the songs.
Helium and frontwoman Mary Timony’s music (released under her own name) use a lot of fantasy/medieval times imagery.
“In The Hall Of The Mountain King” by Savatage.
Seconding almost anything by Sabbath.
Dio’s got some good imagery and lyrics. And he had a big ass fire breathing dragon on stage.
Iron Maiden has lots of good stuff: Powerslave (egyptian kings), Of Sun and Steel (12th-ish warriors), the one from Piece of Mind album about Dune (I forget the name right now)Oh, To Tame A Land, Quest For Fire, Invaders (huns attackinga village), Charlotte the Harlot (hey, you said fantasy, right?). The Flight Of Icarus.
And I gotta put this one in there: Queensryche: OPERATION MINDCRIME. Not really fantasy, but a good rockopera about Big Brother and conspiracies. OPERATION MINDCRIME II is also good, but I didn’t see the show live, so the former still has a special place in my heart. This was quite possibly the BEST live show I have ever seen.
If you can do streaming audio, please consider taking a listen to this album. If you like it, this one would be another you’d probably like. If you like both of those, then you can delve (since all of the albums are available via streaming audio now), but at least try the first one. If you like Sarah, and Fumbling is a stellar album, you’ll probably like it.
I was going to mention Dragonforce and Rhapsody [of Fire], but since they’ve already been named, I’ll mention another great one: Avantasia. Get The Metal Opera, Disc 1. It’s about a monk in the year 1602 who gets thrown in the dungeon and . . . oh hell, the whole story can be found here. It’s really, really good. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Disc 2 is almost as good as Disc 1 (and in fact the first song on disc 2 is the best song on either album), but don’t bother with anything else they’ve done. It’s crap.
Who the hell is Be “Bob” Deluxe? It’s Be BOP Deluxe. :smack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post-rock_bands
If you do like Sigur Ros, one of my all time favorite albums is Mogwai’s Happy Songs for Happy People. A more rocking edge than Sigur Ros or múm. The whole genre is usually light on lyrics, but chock full of atmosphere. A lot of guitar and strings.
Coheed & Cambria’s catalog is a four album space opera (complete with comic books and everything), but the dude’s voice is kind of emo, so it’s a love it or hate it thing.
Also, Björk has some good stuff, Homogenic & Verspertine both interesting, and added bonus - she’s a vodka-soaked Icelandic pixie.
Nitpick: It’s going to be a 5 album space opera. There’s a Prequel coming out as the next album.
I do love me some C&C… Actually you can sorta pick and choose songs from the catalog to get that fantasy evocation. “Welcome Home” is a great example, whenever I hear it I ALWAYS end up visualizing a Final Fantasy sort of Boss Battle Sequence or something.
May as well throw in the Prize Fighter Inferno side story for completion’s sake.
I think The Fall of House Atlantic is the Boss Fight music. Too bad it’s just a minute or so segway rather than a full song.
Though for epic imagery, I put my money on the title track from In Keeping Secrets. Pitched space battle and Jesse and a bunch of freedom fighters duking it out on an apocalyptic battlefield. (Plus the IRObots are kind of like fantasy monsters)
Starcastle?
Back in the early 70s Bo Hannson (top Swedish keyboard player of the time) released the instrumental Music Inspired by LOTR followed by several other similar sounding albums… Attic Thoughts is probably the best of the other lps.
Van Der Graaf Generator often used fantasy in their songs; any of their earlier albums might fit the bill. Try Pawn Hearts or The Least We Can Do… Possibly not very pastoral though.
I heartily agree with everything here.
And if you like Co&Ca, but are specifically looking for fantasy with more of a medieval feel, rather than more sci-fi-ish like the main story of the Amory Wars, the Prize Fighter Inferno (only album so far: My Brother’s Blood Machine) is the way to go because it evokes a more lo-tech world. Although of course it’s less qualified as “rock” than Co&Ca because of its electronica influences (put together, the electronica combined with the folk-y acousticness of the slow tracks always reminded me of “contemporary adult alternative/progressive” such as Peter Gabriel.)
Not sure if this is exactly what you’re looking for, but… the album “Another Green World” by Brian Eno came to mind. He made this record when he was transitioning from standard songs to ambient music, so there’s a mixture of both. The music tends to be based on simple but emotionally evocative melodic lines or chord progressions, and he adds a multitude of studio treatments to warp the sound in various ways; the lyrics, when there are any, tend to be somewhat stream-of-consciousness. The overall effect is generally peaceful and drifting, but with enough variety to keep you interested. This is one of my all-time favorite albums – when I put it on it’s like taking a one-hour trip to the Caribbean or someplace. If you like that, then also check out his “Before and After Science”, and his collaboration with Robert Fripp, “Evening Star”.
And then there’s Gong. In the early 70s, they put out a trilogy of albums – “Flying Teapot”, “Angels Egg”, and “You” – collectively known as the “Radio Gnome Trilogy.” These albums tell a rather chaotic and episodic story based on an intricate mythology developed by the group’s leader, Daevid Allen, concerning … well… it’s a little hard to explain. You see, there’s this place called Gong, which is a green planet of perpetual orgasm, populated by Pot Head Pixies, and they make contact through Radio Gnome Invisible with an Earth human named Mista T. Being, and … well, maybe you should just listen to the music, which is a rather odd mix of progressive rock, jazz, mutated pop, and trance music.
On a more traditional level, I would suggest “A Gift from a Flower to a Garden” by Donovan. This consists of two records, “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” and “For Little Ones”. The former is sort of quiet, settled pop, and pretty; the latter is very much in the vein of traditional British folk, and beautiful.
Queens 2nd album called Queen II, for sure.
And the next album too, “Magician’s Birthday”.