Long Live Lounge (Live)

Swedish group Hellsongs perform acoustic-based arrangements of metal and hard rock songs. The thing that keeps this from being Richard Cheese-esque kitsch is that even though they've swapped electric guitars for acoustic, and added piano and strings (on this live recording, courtesy of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), the songs retain the uptempo, charging energy of the originals. Metallica's "Seek and Destroy," the album opener, becomes an Up with People-esque singalong, the pumping piano and surging strings turning it into something genuinely impressive. Lead vocalist Siri Bergnehr has a crystal-clear voice that transforms lyrics like those from Iron Maiden's "The Evil That Men Do" — "The evil that men do lives on and on" — into something almost sweet, even when she's singing about "the slaughter of innocents." Admittedly, the faster songs often translate better — a version of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" is outdone by the moody, female-fronted doom rock outfits (the Devil's Blood, Blood Ceremony, et al.) currently populating the metal landscape. But taken as a whole, Long Live Lounge is a terrific record that will quickly cause any listener to shed his or her smirk. Their arrangement of AC/DC's "Sin City" alone is a folk-jazz assault worthy of Pentangle or Fairport Convention at their fiercest. Indeed, this album's title is ultimately misleading, and metal fans shouldn't be put off by it.