In the Shadow of Swords (trials.bandcamp.com)
- another unsigned metal band. This time, thrashy metalcore.
The 6th song, Childhood, has this part (www.youtube.com) that reminds me of ewoks every time.
Maybe it's an ocarina? Here's the RotJ celebration in ocarina (www.youtube.com)(stupid copyrights)!
This makes me want to go back through the rest of the Ayreon library, multi-album concepts are pretty awesome. I guess I'll go through all of Coheed's albums afterwards, although that story is just as incomprehensible.
3.5/5 - It would be a classic prog album, but: -0.5 for silly ESL lyrics, and -0.5 for being a little too ridiculous at times, and -0.5 for being a double album with fat.
Also, I'm borrowing the rating scale from Angry Metal Guy:
5.0 - Perfect
4.5 - Excellent
4.0 - Great
3.5 - Very Good
3.0 - Good
2.5 - OK - Nothing Special
2.0 - Disappointing
1.5 - Bad
1.0 - Embarrassing
0.5 - Pathetic
I think I like the followup album slightly better, but this is a solid prog release.
4/5 - there's just so much going on, but the group is incredibly talented.
Transcension (sleepersawake.bandcamp.com)
- now this is my type of indie. "An unholy union of sludge, Tool, and Opeth."
This is the most impressive indie metal release since Ne Obliviscaris (neobliviscarisofficial.tumblr.com)' debut, Portal of I.
4/5 - can't wait to see if these guys can follow up with something a little more refined (70 minutes for an album is almost always too long - cut the fat, gents!).
So, I'm walking through a memorial/museum for the nuclear explosion that destroyed the city.
A vine is playing over and over, captured just as the explosion hit. There is no audio, but shows four teenagers lining up for the camera just as the bomb goes off. A bright light flashes behind them, and they turn around to face it. They hold hands as a wave hits, graphically disentigrating their bodies. Video corruption and compression artifacts follow. The video stops, then repeats.
Another video is playing beside it. A professor talks about the likelihood of it being a sophisticated forgery, conveniently capitalizing on the media frenzy and political aftermath. Another man talks about how it is a single, brilliant, shared magical moment at the end of the lives of four strangers.
---
4:30am, terrible headache.
Looks like someone (www.metal-archives.com) wants to be the next Dimmu Borgir (www.metalinsider.net) c. Death Cult Armageddon...
So... I went back and listened to this a few more times. This album is overall pretty incredible. I mean, the lyrics are typically terrible Arjen ESL nonsense (which is discussed in hilarious fashion in this review (www.angrymetalguy.com)), but the music and the vocal performances are fucking out of this world. I love Seventh Wonder (one of the bands I've listened to the most... ever [at least according to iTunes play counts]), but Tommy Karevik really shines on this album (much more so than on his recent Kamelot work where he just tries to emulate the legendary Roy Khan). Cristina Scabbia nails it as well (better than her main band).
This album is really just a metal version of Tommy, with less pinballs and more physics. Rating individual tracks was essentially impossibe (but I did it anyways), as this shit is cut up arbitrarily to coincidence with a tracklist of 42 tracks (sigh).
4.0/5 - This album is great. The lyrics are really the only reason it is not a 4.5, as they are just... bad ("loser" should NEVER be a lyric. EVER). This is probably my favorite thing that Arjen has ever put out (although, need to give all the other items in his incredibly extensive discography another listen, there are so fucking many though).
4.5/5 - This album is my favorite album in recent memory. Not a 5 solely because the lyrics are often terrible and the story is kind of dumb. Music is sooooooo good. Michael Mills seriously needs to do more music, his voice is incredible.
SPDCA: What I do in my free time (stackoverflow.com), or, giving myself Internet high-fives.
A fun read if you're into Git, or caching, or what I have to do in order to get web pages to process in less than 200ms.
I love children's librarians. They're wonderful, hardworking, dedicated, sweet souls who want to do the best possible for their patrons. They give out good intentions, sunshine, and rainbows everywhere they go.
But not a one of them should ever be allowed to handle money. I'm sorting out expense sheets. They received gift cards to various places (Costco, craft stores, general Visa cards) for program expenses. We started with ONE template and master form to track expenses on. We now have 6 forms saved in five places with six different file names and six different tracking systems. Some info is on every form. Some of it is in one or two places. Some of it is nowhere. Pulling together a year end report may take weeks. These are excel spreadsheets with many many many tabs, some created at random.
And I'm pregnant but I could use a drink.
Fortunately everyone kept all their receipts. God bless librarians who never threw anything away and happily file into labeled folders. I could just recreate entirely from receipts. Might be quicker.
