Arctic Sleep never does the obvious thing. For roughly 15 years, the Milwaukee atmospheric/progressive metal band has defied expectations with a slew of ambitious records, songs inspired by unicorn-themed comic books, and its own limited-edition coffee. And now, for its latest release, Arctic Sleep has put together a quarantine-era tribute to the Top Gun soundtrack. Yep. The Top Gun soundtrack. “Danger Zone.” “Take My Breath Away.” “Playing With The Boys.” NEED WE SAY MORE?
Well, we’ll let the frontman of the sometimes-one-man-, sometimes-two-man-band, Keith D, say more:
This is just a fun “quarantine project” that was put together to cheer ourselves up during the darkest times of the 2020 pandemic lockdown. One night, in the “before times” shortly before the Covid pandemic happened, we were sitting around listening to records and having lots and lots of beverages. We listened to the Top Gun Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on vinyl, and had a great time revisiting this wonderful piece of 80’s rock-n-roll nostalgia. The conversation went something like “Dude, we should cover this.” “No dude, we should cover this WHOLE ALBUM.”
We set to work on making this absurd idea into a reality. It was around this time I realized that I could not sing any of this shit to save my life. So, we figured it would be even more fun to invite a bunch of fantastic special guests from all around the world to do lead vocals on each song. Most of our guest singers recorded their vocals themselves, right at home, and then sent their tracks to us over the internet to be mixed into the final product.
Well, okay, we didn’t quite make it around to doing EVERY song from the soundtrack, but we did most of them… definitely the best ones (sorry, Loverboy fans). So do you feel the need… the need for speed? Put on your aviator sunglasses, crank up your stereo, and ride into the danger zone with us for this inside joke that got taken way too far.
This rules. This absolutely rules.
Arctic Sleep & Friends Presents: A Tribute To The TOP GUN Motion Picture Soundtrack is free to stream on Bandcamp—but, if your ego is writing checks your body can cash, you can toss the band some money and it’ll go to the Animal Welfare Institute. That also rules.
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