Went back in the vault and gave this one a thorough judging. Interesting independent release from Hungary, progressive death metal with female soprano vox. Overall, an enjoyable listen, but pretty derivative - you can certainly hear that these guys are fans of Opeth and Dream Theater. Could have used a little more editing.
3.0/5 - Good album, definitely back-loaded (not a fan of the first couple of tracks). I don't get the amount of praise this is getting around the web, although it certainly is stellar for a debut (and independent, at that!).
For a Christmas album, this is great (maybe even classic, 5.0/5). Apparently, it's the highest charting Christmas album since 1962. However, this makes sense, as a cappella lends itself quite well to these classic tunes (some of which have been rearranged in interesting and awesome ways). Highly recommended if you need a Christmas song fix.
The best death metal supergroup of all time is finally back! Being a HUGE fun of their previous releases, I was a little anxious about this one because Mikael Akerfeldt was no longer on growling duties. He was replaced by Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost fame, a doom (NOT death) metal band that primarily utilizes him as a singer (not growler).
Initially, I was not a fan of the vocals at all. The somewhat raspy vocals that replaced the monster growls of previous Bloodbath albums were underwhelming. However, upon multiple listens, I realized the music was subtly different sounding than previous albums... and were designed with a crusty edge that fits almost perfectly with Holmes' raspy take on growls. In fact, the throwback sound really started to remind me quite a bit of Vallenfyre (perhaps the second best death metal supergroup of all time).
The riffs and drumming are incredible, as on all Bloodbath albums, and harken back to the good ol' days of death metal. Lyrically, this album is perhaps a bit less tongue in cheek and more straightforward than past releases, but still fun... in a brutally Metalocalypse sort of way.
3.5/5 - Very good, although doesn't live up to past releases. The new sound is not really an improvement to me, although it all fits together very well. Really, they absolutely nail the early to mid 90s sound that they're going for... I'm just not the biggest fan of that era of death metal.
SPDCA: New Phone
I ended up getting a new phone. My prior device, the 2011 Motorola Atrix 4G, had long since been obsoleted by its manufacturer, leaving it up to me to find operating system updates. As such, I could keep up with the individual application updates, but it was still running Android 2.X, compared to the now 4.4.X. Often, features of newer applications would be disabled due to my inability to find updates, if the features would work at all:
Group texts all but rendered the phone unusable, especially if MMS messages contained any sort of multimedia.
Video players quit for a month. Then came back after an update. Then quit again. Then started to work randomly, but had a chance of hard-rebooting the phone, or causing a strange "overlay" effect when the video would render into a layer that could never be written to again.
Software keyboard would randomly insert Z's.
The hardware was also falling apart. The protective filter in front of the camera had shattered at some point, causing understandably blurry and greenish photos. The touch screen would only work on every second or third unlock, and the metal speaker cage had eroded allowing the speaker diaphragm to be punctured, making for weird gaps in the sounds it was capable of (notably: most of the alarms were whisper quiet).
It still had its charms, though. Standard USB cable recharging, mounting as a USB drive, replaceable battery, upgradeable microSD storage, and a sense of elitism, entitlement, and a sort of "you kids get off my lawn" feeling.
However, spending a weekend trying to communicate with people over MMS pretty much sold me on an upgrade. It'd been three and a half years, after all. In phone years, that's a healthy age.
In researching, I found that some things had stayed the same, and some things had changed. Android is still the Wild West. I still don't want to go back to an iPhone. Windows phones were barely on the radar in 2011, but I'm still not super interested in a non-*nix based platform. Phone are now also huge, the reign of the 1080p and greater displays pushing most phones into what would have been considered tablets a few years ago. I laughed. Then grumbled.
I did briefly look into the stranger things out there. I took a gander at the Jolla, FirefoxOS, and Ubuntu Touch stuff they had out there, but the developer ecosystem and overall support for the devices seemed comparatively small. I even found a small, exclusivity-driven phone called the OnePlus One, supposedly a "killer" phone, but you have to have an "invite" just to buy one. Reports were that they had a decent product, but their support was disorganized, at best, or non-existent at worst.
Leaning towards Android, that still left me with a lot of options. The Google Nexus 6 looked like a decent contender, but wasn't available anywhere I checked. Plus, it was godawful expensive.
There was the Moto X, which I was somewhat excited about in its first generation (enough to put myself on a mailing list, which I unsubscribed from after a while). Looking again, I found they had released a second generation of the phone, which had a number of nice features:
The problem with the Moto X was that it is a sealed product: no removeable back- plate, no replaceable battery, and no upgradeable storage. Also, the pain of being outright abandoned by Motorola for software updates with my Atrix still pissed me off.
The alternate was the Samsung Galaxy S5. (Slightly) smaller than its Note companions, it has almost the exact same specifications as the Moto X, has a removeable back-plate, as well as boasts that its case design is intended to keep dust and moisture out (by way of some meaningless certification), as well as be able to be submerged for short periods of time. For how many times my phone emerged sweaty and gross from my pocket, this seemed pretty valuable.
There's also that Costco put the S5 on sale for $150 off yesterday, putting it down to $50 for a 2 year contract renewal. So, that's what I went with.
As some of the reviews had said, Samsung does weird things with its software, and a lot in terms of bloatware. I spent about three hours configuring the phone last night, but I probably spent 45 minutes uninstalling/replacing the things I didn't like or wasn't interested in. I spent some time finding a drop-in replacement for the AMOLED low-light notifications, which I ended up being very happy with. Also, a few other things I'm trying on for size:
I also did a test last night. MMS, both in groups, and with images, work swimmingly, which I feel is sort of a game changer. I'll never have the right colored bubbles for my friends with iPhones, but that's okay. I'm alright being the weird bubble.
Some updates:
Robbie, I'm getting to your bullshit post. But in the meantime: WTF Sennheiser (mikebeauchamp.com). I own some Sennheisers. This makes me sad.
Seems like audio equipment brings out the worst in companies. This reminds me of the Monster Cable ripoff (consumerist.com), but I think this might be even worse.
It's exceedingly rare I have any sort of dream I can remember for long, but Josh's continued and occasional posts reminded me on one last night.
A big group of us are wandering around something similar to one of those indoor/outdoor malls. Mostly it was the same group as was just in Vegas. Someone mentions being hungry and they know this great milkshake place up ahead. So we all make our way to this really strange restaurant, it was decorated a little bit like Willy Wonka's factory from Tim Burton's version.
The specialty was milkshakes there, but they would put either dead or unconscious kittens in each clear cup. The cups had some kind of stirring or vortex system that would twist the kittens around in circles and you could see them spin around and around. When you ordered your drink the server would hand you your kitten to hold and pet while you waited, then when the cup was ready they would take it back and somehow incapacitate it. Then hand your drink to you with this swirling kitten in it.
I think the milkshake did taste really good, I ordered chocolate malt and got a tabby kitten in it.
So I'm moving my parents out of their old house. The place is huge, more like an apartment building rather than a house. In fact, other people lived there, renting from them (apparently). Helping them move out, there is a ton of stuff left behind by previous tenants, especially in the shared storage space in the attic.
So I'm tasked with cleaning out the attic. In it, I find the storage unit for a person I vaguely remember: a Bulgarian composer. I open his unit to find a small, darkened theater, filled with dusty seats and a small stage. Of course, the light switch doesn't work.
My parents tell me that there is an entertainment center in here that I should look at to see if I want it. The guy was strange, and the theater is pretty creepy, but I walk in further. Free furniture, after all.
I walk further, peering into the darkness, when the stage suddenly comes to life. Strangely real animatronic creates start dancing and gyrating on stage to some bizarre, otherworldy ambient music. The characters follow me with their eyes.
I wake up. 3:30am. Write an email to myself. Subject line reads "Nightmare."
Why I listen to vinyl. (mic.com)
In fact, I'm in the process of upgrading my turntable right now. It is not an easy process.
I'm all for vinyl for nostalgic or visual art reasons, but trying to play the audio quality card seems like obvious bullshit to me. If you were collecting music media based strictly on quality, you'd collect CDs. They can handle a higher Kbps, don't become slowly destroyed in the process of being played, don't warp in bad conditions, and are easier to transport.
First of all, a 96-whatever Kbps that is like a mid-quality mp3 is probably more info than your (the general public you, not YOU you) Beatz by Dre headphones can replicate anyway, not to mention your tinny laptop speakers or Bluetooth jambox. Even if you have studio quality speakers and cabling, you're probably not listening close enough to notice a difference.
Also at question is the genre of music- if you're listening to computer based digital music anyway, the extended frequencies and overtones the are captured by greater data rates aren't even created in the original studio captures. Grungy rock amps probably don't either. Acoustic music, or live vocals, benefit most from better quality, but there will probably never be enough data or capture ability (in our lifetime, I should add) to genuinely recreate a live sound. Recording fundamentally changes the experience anyway, and stripping some of those overtones is a consequence of that.
The best example of this I have is organ music: electric organs use prerecord samples, which can be extremely high quality and very, very good sounding. Recordings of real organs can capture nearly all of the measurable frequencies. Yet both electric organs and recordings of organ music generally bore me, where a live organ recital can be absolutely thrilling. I think there's something about the experience more than just frequencies; with the organ you can feel the rush of the air and feel the vibrations in the room. It isn't replicable, except for possibly by newer electric/acoustic hybrid technologies which are attempting to get the best of both worlds.
This article does get right the emotional importance of repetition, which is why we feel so strongly about music from our college days and not necessarily new music we like but are less familiar with. The ease and ubiquity of music provided by streaming is maybe an issue in really enjoying music, but we still seem to manage to enjoy new things sometimes, because really good stuff (or stuff we like) will eventually stick.
I had started a post, but it looks like it didn't save (THANKS OBAMA... I mean JOSH).
In any case, this article (www.metal-fi.com) puts it much better than I could. That is why I really listen to vinyl. And I have bought a tracking force gauge, alignment protractor, a spin clean, and a better phono preamp (along with a good cartridge). So in theory, depending on the master, I should certainly be able to get better sound than a CD. However, as I've stated before, this is music worship. You can't listen to vinyl casually, since it requires so much effort. It helps you focus on the music, which I love.
...I also have many discs with bluray audio, which is probably the best sound I can get (better than vinyl). But few albums have been released this way.
I've seen much worse shows featuring Alaska. (thescene.com)
Plus, I'm fairly certain I've seen a number of the locals they had on there.
Her name is "Mamrie." But yes.
Only reason I know about these people is they used to be featured pretty regularly on My Drunk Kitchen (www.youtube.com).
I love me some Eluveitie. One of my favorite concerts of all time was seeing them perform with Amon Amarth. They have so many instruments, all of which are played well, that it just blends together to make some truly memorable folk metal.
For the last two albums (although present throughout), they really take their pagan heritage seriously with the lyrical themes (they are from Switzerland, which is a melting pot of German [read: Helvetian], Roman, and French influences). Unfortunately, this album feels more like a retread of Helvetios, which was simply a better album. While I like this album, they're going to need to inject something new on the next outing.
3.0/5 - Good overall album, but the individual songs aren't as memorable as past releases. Still one of the best folk metal bands around!
Die Antwoord as main characters, what the fuck???
Lest we forget, Evil Boy (www.youtube.com) (i.e. DICKS).
4.0/5 - Excellent album. It is a pretty unique mix of ambient, ethereal soundscapes and incredibly brutal death metal (so much double bass drum!). There isn't really any other band out there that sounds like this band. The guitar oscillates between dreamy melodies and technical, jazz-infused soloing. Very interesting listen.
Sidebar: there is a fascinating discussion of this album on Angry Metal Guy, who initially panned the release due to the mastering job. The sound engineer defended the album in the comments section, and then supplied a new master that was much more well received. I bought the vinyl version of this album based on this discussion, as the vinyl master is more dynamic than the digital master. I have yet to listen to the vinyl (as I'm currently living out of boxes), but I can't wait - since I already enjoy the album!
http://spaceflightn...of-rocket-failure/ (spaceflightnow.com)
http://spaceflightn...uring-test-flight/ (spaceflightnow.com)
Bad week for American rocket powered things.
3.5/5 - Interesting, ridiculous electronica-tinged metal. Split into two parts, Sky Blue and Dark Matters (on two discs), this album takes to wholly different approaches to music. Sky Blue is rather serious music, while Dark Matters is an over the top sci-fi concept album (centered on Ziltoid). Sky Blue is incredible; Dark Matters, is just far too silly with it's story that it's a bit distracting. Luckily, the version I bought came with a bonus disc that has the Raw version of Dark Matters, without narration. The music underlying is quite fantastic. Overall, very good if bloated.
That is awesome. I hope he used excerpts of ...And Justice For All (www.youtube.com) as his campaign song. You know, to really punch home his anti-corruption stance.
Somewhat related. Was reading the wikipedia entry on liquid breathing while inspired by the most recent xkcd What IF. Found this in the section Examples in Fiction, "In an episode of the Adult Swim cartoon series Metalocalypse, the other members of the band submerge guitarist Toki in a "liquid oxygen isolation chamber" while recording an album in the Mariana Trench."
Something a bit lighter...
There is well known within the Alaskan librarian community a specific patron. He calls various libraries and asks to have the librarian read him the list of Tom Clancy titles. And then to repeat it slower. Eventually it becomes obvious that he is "enjoying" this in a non-literary manner.
The librarians typically respond to this by hanging up on him and emailing the state librarian listserv. Over the years (he calls a few libraries over a few weeks, takes a few months off, reappears, etc) he has been reported to the state troopers. Librarians tell him that now. Personally I expect that this is not very high on the list of cases for the troopers to solve.
I guess this most recent time when he called Delta Junction he asked to be read a list of Stephen Hawking titles before the big finish with the Clancy.
No mail librarian has ever been asked this, so presumably he asks them a different cover story and calls until he gets a woman. A male Alaskan librarian made a youtube recording of himself reading the titles that could be played for this man.
Two conclusions: 1. The breadth of things to which people will pleasure themselves never ceases to amaze me. 2. Librarians and listservs and a little free time result in some amazing stuff.
