This is a pretty incredible album. And incredibly technical, holy shit. I bought the tab book primarily to learn Complex Terms (which is one of my favorite metal songs of all time), and little did I know how much of a beast the lead guitar player is on this album. The odd meter start-stop, classically influenced riffing is just beyond insane. Neoclassical metalcore, whaaaaat??
4.0/5 - From classical guitar intro to roaring metal finale, just a great album. Can't wait to learn some of these songs!
Man, folks from Scandinavia are born with the ability to write metal. For instance, Children of Bodom band members were only 20 when they released Follow the Reaper... and it was the third album they released! In any case, it's not much of a departure from previous works, being synth-infused thrash with black and death metal influences.
2.5/5 - Pretty average release from these guys. The followup, Hate Crew Deathroll, is where they upped the ante.
Vaguely reminiscent (WARNING: turn your speakers down): https://www.youtub...v=I1aK8L5yvI4#t=39s (www.youtube.com)
I never thought I would like an album from a band that started out as goregrind quite as much as I like this album. For melodic death metal, its pretty groundbreaking considering when it was released (1993!). This album, along with Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates, essentially defined the melodic death metal subgenre.
4.5/5 - This is a mandatory extreme metal album. By historical standards, it should be a 5.0, but biased by my enjoyment it's a 4.5 instead. Excellent album, but not PERFECT for me.
This is classic Ayreon: space-sounding musical themes, homages to prog of the 60s and 70s, a nod to more modern metal, outstanding production, and fucking out of this world terrible lyrics ("I call upon the seer, MERLIN THE SORCERER"). While the story is hokey as always, the vocal performances (including Arjen himself) are quite good, and the music is generally awesome. At over 100 minutes long, it is, as all Ayreon albums, a bit too long... but still comes together somehow.
3.5/5 - A worthy beginning to the epic saga of Forever.
Going through the Tomi Jousten-era of Amorphis has been interesting, to see how they kind of found a sound and stuck with it until it got stale and beyond. However, the sound is one of the best in folk metal, so why change the formula? That being said, this album is not as good as I remember, and, while enjoyable, is about on par with their newest album. Silent Waters is just so much more fulfilling, even if there are good songs here.
3.5/5 - Very good folk metal, but definitely shows the band spinning their wheels instead of moving forward.
Another bloated proggy album (although, only 69 minutes this time around!). That being said, this album rocks pretty hard for the first half, with a opening sequence of really catch, groovy, and heavy songs. Of course, the production is sterile and probably brickwalled (thus is modern Pro-Tools self-production), but the band members are all really talented dudes, and there is enough variety over the course of the album to not make it a complete chore to listen to.
3.0/5 - It would have scored higher, but the unnecessary interludes and bloated album length detract from the experience. The first have is really good though.
Aside: The main songwriter (Misha Mansoor) decided to engage Angry Metal Guy on his blog (www.angrymetalguy.com). I don't know why artist would ever comment on reviews, it never ends well... but is an interesting read!
Man. This double album is WAY too long, even for prog. While there are moments that are quite good, they should have distilled this 140 minute monstrosity into a 60 minute platter of awesome rather than bloat the song lengths with meandering riffs and pointless noodling.
2.5/5 - Overall, oblivious to brevity. The good moments elevate the album above mediocrity, but as a whole it's almost a chore to listen to - thus, average.
My favorite is "being a girl, I hated it" on 2001 a Space Odyssey. I must add that to my list of things "girls don't do" so I can continue to fit into the monolithic and homogenous view of female-kind and not veer dangerously towards havng my own opinion and just being a person.
I didn't really like 2001 a Space Odyssey, but I assumed I just wasn't in the right mood when I watched it and found it a bit too slow. Somedays you need it slow, and somedays you need many fast explosions.
It is slow and boring. And great. Forces the audience to ask, "What the hell am I looking at?" or "How did they pull off solid, stand-the-test-of-time visuals in 1968?" or "What is our place in the universe?" while the space station rotates for two minutes.
Then again, I think I knew what I was getting into last time I watched it. And I was drinking.
I originally got into these guys back in the early 00s from the song Sworn Enemy on their first full-length release (I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of eponymous masturbation - see Black Sabbath). In any case, I never really kept up with them, but apparently they've been releasing albums since then, produced by none other than Tim Lambesis (who is maniacal, as it were). They've gotten somewhat heavier over time, but the Exodus-inspired thrash meets Hatebreed that defined their sound (apparently genre-fied as crossover thrash) on the first album has remained largely intact.
3.0/5 - Good workout music. The lyrical content is somewhat intelligent (well, just political) for hardcore-type anthems, with enough meat to inspire a sweat.
"Often popular explanations of security bugs require the issue to be simplified a lot and to leave out a lot of details. But in this case the bug is actually that simple."
-http://www.explainx...iki/index.php/1354 (www.explainxkcd.com)
Fascinating, and a little scary for a follow-up. The Heartbleed bug was used to steal ~4.5 million medical records (it.slashdot.org) from healthcare provider Community Health Services.
As the article comments point out, their intrusion started only a month or two after the Hearthbleed month was publicly announced, well within what I've experienced what a large company's patch turnaround might be. What's interesting, also, is that the affected device was a router (a specialized computer which sits at the edge of a large network and merely routes traffic according to defined rules), not a server on which the data would have resided.
And this is why I patched my shit within 24 hours. Though, I'm pretty sure I still have a few unpatched non-essential machines sitting at home. Behind an age'd WRT54G. (sigh)
I somehow broke Josh's formatting with this post, but this didn't break my ear...drums? (facepalm) Anyways, Lunasa is a great instrumental Irish folk band, very talented, very good live. This album is on par with their other releases, but good even if not breaking any new ground.
3.0/5 - Good Irish folk to tickle your whistle on St. Patty's Day, or whenever you feel the need to jig.
This pattern of dubstep/electronica artists releasing only EPs signals a somewhat troubling trend in modern music: the death of the album. While it makes sense in these cases to just release singles (TO DANCE TO AT DA CLURB), I love me a good album... so some of these bitesize chunks don't remain long in memory. Such I fear will be the case with this Zomboy release.
2.5/5 - Typical dubstep. While I did enjoy most of the songs, this is literally no different than any of the other EPs.
This is a pretty awesome folk metal album. Riffs are great, hooks are mesmerizing, and death growls are crushing all throughout the album. While the second half of the album gets a bit tired, this is an example of how to do a folk metal concept album correctly. I would love to see these guys live.
4.0/5 - Great album, probably my favorite from Amorphis (need to give Skyforger another listen, though). I even own it on vinyl, randomly ;)
I was oscillating between 4.0 and 4.5, but the second half is a little too weak to justify a 4.5. Still love it though!
Poseidon Rex (www.youtube.com). They included one hot shirtless guy, which means it (obviously) showed up in my RSS feed.
When it comes to hardcore, I'm essentially a Hatebreed bro and that's about it (Throwdown had at least one good album as well). The genre is just, so, limiting. Thrash-y riffs that descend into breakdowns at least once a song. Shouted vocals, punctuated by gang call and response. Uplifting bro lyrics about overcoming adversity and struggle (Earth Crisis broke the mold here and yelled about how we're all assholes for not being straight edge, vegan, and generally yuppie cunts). Sure, these can make good workout songs, but man it gets boring after a while.
2.5/5 - Typical hardcore, no more, no less. A few songs for the swoll circuit.
For a band not even having a wikipedia page, these guys have an incredibly well-produced and well-written technical death metal album. The riffing is relentless, the vocals brutal, and the songs easy to headbang to! Many of these songs will become swoll staples.
4.0/5 - Great tech death album. I'm surprised these guys aren't bigger. All killer no filler, as they say.
This is a pretty awesome album... if you love vocoder vocals. And I do! Robot voice, when done right, is so fucking good (www.youtube.com). The beats and approach are an homage to 70s and 80s synth-y electronica/dance, but done with a modern feel. The lyrics are mainly about love or lack thereof, and it works in the context of the songs. The guest spots mostly work as well, even the guy from the Strokes!
3.5/5 - Very good. A few of the songs drag a bit, but it is overall quite an impressive album.
