Holy! Fucking! Shit!

Tool – Live at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 24^th January

It's been almost five long years but finally I had another chance to see Tool in concert once more. Tickets went on sale in September so I have suffered months of anticipation leading up to it, but the day finally arrived and after the longest eight hours of work ever I shrugged off the effects of my cold and headed down to Darling Harbour for the crowning centrepiece of my week of awesomeness.

Upon reaching Haymarket it quickly became apparent that we were not the only ones to whom this concert was an 'Event' with a capital E. A huge swarm of goths, bogans and general freaks had descended on central Sydney like some black-clad biblical plague. Back in Christchurch it never seemed like a big deal to see a huge crowd of alternative people hanging around in a mob but it was genuinely unusual to see the metalheads invade sophisticated, trendy Sydney. I wish I'd taken a photo.

Unfortunately tickets to this concert sold out in less than an hour, and I refused on principle to pay six hundred dollars to a scalper for moshpit tickets, so I had a pair of seated tickets which were unfortunately not together. Investigation revealed that one seat was right in the centre, more or less the best seating available, whereas the other was right around the side against the wall where you could barely even see the backdrop screens behind the band. Basically I had one ticket for the best seat in the house and one that was almost the worst. Shrewdly I gave the good ticket to B, reasoning that if she was in the crap seat she'd miss out on the visuals and a lot of other stuff, whereas the muso in me would be more than satisfied by having the perfect vantage point to overlook Danny Carey's drumkit. I was also on Adam's side of the stage, even though it's harder to see guitar playing from so far away he is my idol so I take what I can get.

Yeah my photos suck. At least it emphasises how crappy my seat was.

The mood in the concert hall was totally amped, almost euphoric. Even though the people sitting immediately around me could be charitably described as dour and taciturn, the room as a whole was buzzing with energy and excitement, about a dozen mexican waves traversed the room before the band appeared and I've never seen so many of the black t-shirt set smiling at once.

A few general comments about the concert: the sound mix was really good. All four band members came through crystal clear but there was still enough punch to feel the heaviness in your guts. I did like sitting in the seats as a change from the moshpit as it meant that your whole attention could be focused on the performance without having to be concerned about someone crowd surfing over your head or the stinky guy next to you rubbing his armpit in your face. On the other hand the area where I was sitting was a bit subdued compared to the rest of the room, I wanted to have the whole 'shared experience' thing and sing along and wave my arms about with everyone else, but it just wasn't happening where I was. Also I was quite a long way away from the band. Better seats would have helped these problems but it still would have been no substitute for being in the crowd.

But on to the songs. The lights went out, and a low bass drone filled the room. The band walked on stage to rapturous applause and launched straight into 'Stinkfist', complete with the usual extra guitar solo before the 'I'll keep digging' part. I hung on the edge of my seat with my tongue hanging out watching Adam play it, thinking that it couldn't get any better than this, but I was wrong.

A bit of keyboard noodling from Adam introduced the second song, '46 & 2'. Both of these tracks were performed with expert musicianship and genuine energy, which is rare for a band to do with singles that they've played to death a million times before. One of the highlights of the night came when Danny played his legendary solo in the middle of this song. It was amazing in and of itself and I was almost wigging out thinking, 'This is only the second song and this concert is already blowing my mind and I'm going to get to see it again tomorrow!'. I can't describe how awesome that moment was without stringing an endless list of superlatives together so I'll just say that I nearly shit my pants out of excitement.

The aforementioned keyboard noodling.

Once they'd finished Maynard took the time to inform us that the word of the day was 'holyfuckingshit'. A phrase that was to emerge unbidden from my lips more than a few times before the concert was over. The next song turned out to be 'Jambi', a catchy, relatively accessible song from the new album and an obvious choice for inclusion in the setlist. Maynard's delivery was soulful and powerful and Adam's guitar solo was just as awesome as on the album.

Maynard Fashion Watch:

Maynard still has a mohawk. He also wore blue jeans, sunnies and an ATF jacket. The jacket disappeared pretty fast.

Next was 'Schism', with a sad little guitar intro added at the start and a new drum solo before the quiet breakdown bit, with Adam playing a fast, heavy version of the quiet riff and Danny Carey causing me to cream my pants for the second time in half an hour. I thought the '46 & 2' solo was insane enough but this one was even more unbelievable. There must be something to this sacred geometry crap because I can scarcely believe anyone can play like that without supernatural assistance. 'Holyfuckingshit!', said Jon.

This photo didn't turn out too bad, but better ones can be found here. Thank you mainstream media.

Following that song the haunting, feedback drenched 'Lost Keys' started up. I was very pleased to hear this one, as it's one of my favourite tracks off the new album and it seems to be unfairly bagged by a lot of people as 'filler'. As expected it segued right into 'Rosetta Stoned', with Maynard babbling his stream of consciousness lyrics into a megaphone. On the album the guitar solo for this song didn't do a lot for me but in this live performance Adam infused it with the emotion it lacked in the recording. Very satisfying.

'Rosetta Stoned' was followed by a bit of a random jam, with Danny playing a repetitive tribal rhythm while Adam soloed with his epilady over the top of it. Fantastic stuff.

After that it was time for the nights obligatory nostalgia trip. The only track from Undertow they played was 'Swamp Song'. One of my least favourite Tool songs to be honest, but they certainly looked like they had a blast playing it. Justin was going nuts (I guess it's more fun to play other peoples songs) and Maynard goofing around trying to psyche Danny with fake starts into the outro.

Then it was nap time. A bit of ambience started playing and the band all put down their instruments and lay down on the stage to have a rest. I guess they decided it was a bit antisocial to hide backstage for their intermission like they did on the previous tour.

Once they returned to their positions they played 'Wings for Marie/ 10,000 Days'. The light show was very impressive, with green lasers being fired across the hall. The performance was quite subdued and had a very different vibe to the rest of the show (which is no surprise really). Maynard especially was very memorable. I've been known to bag him for being a bit overrated as a singer but seeing him perform this song live will probably shut me up for good, I was really struck by the power in his voice. Ninety nine percent of the audience were respectful and obliged the band when Maynard asked for no flash photography during this song, but of course there are always a few who don't get it. I'm actually pretty impressed that they play this song at all. Maynard has a prickly reputation and it must be hard to get up and sing a really personal song about a the death of loved one while a thousand shirtless bogans wave their arms at you and scream 'Woohoo!'.

A trio of fan favourite anthems closed out the night. 'Lateralus' was probably the highlight of the concert for me, I was never a huge fan of the song on the album but live it's just amazing, with Adam playing some of the most inspired melodies and solos he's ever come up with and Danny offsetting them with sublimely inventive rhythms matched with his typical virtuosity. It gives me a huge kick that Danny sets up that huge big gong behind himself to use it just once, at the beginning of the climax of this song. The crowd knows it too; a huge cheer erupted when he hit it.

A really spacey and pretty electronic, ambient instrumental led into 'Vicarious', which appears to be a favourite of the band. After that headfuck of an opening riff, the drop into the main melody of the song could only be described as 'thunderous' and the song came off with energy even greater than that of the rest of the concert.

The night was capped off with 'Aenima'. The band made a point of hanging around on stage for a bit after the lights came on and waving to everyone, which I thought was really nice, especially for a band that supposedly hates their fans.

The hordes of goths, westies and outcasts then tumbled out on to the streets with huge dopey grins on their faces. A pair of well heeled young ladies strolled out of the hotel lobby over the road as I walked past. “Oh my God!” one of them cried with a mixture of panic and disgust, “Where did all these goths come from!?” For one glorious night Sydney took a break from shitty indie rock and boring house and let good music have its day in the sun. Or evening under the moon, as the case may be.

Heh

My political views according to the ozpolitics political spectrum test (via No Right Turn):


(Click for larger image.) I think it sums me up pretty well. Nontraditional and proud of it. Why didn't I get 100% damn it!

The Time Has Come To Make Things Right

Muse – Live at the Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, 23^rd January

And so begins the chronicle of my week of awesomeness. I was a little leery of seeing Muse; while on one hand I've attended two of their concerts in the past and both of them were supurb, on the other hand I was not too impressed with the big shit that Matt Bellamy and co took in my ipod earlier this year so I was prepared for potential disappointment.

Although my lovely companion and I were beset by numerous pifalls and terrors on our way to the concert venue, involving burst water mains blocking off major thoroughfares, tight transportation connection times and mixed drinks of highly variable alcohol content, we arrived with about half an hour to spare before the main act started (fortuitously completely missing the opening act).

Matt Bellamy Fashion Watch:

Matt wore a red tracksuit with white stripes. He's also had a haircut so that he looks like a dorky indie rock guy as he did on the Origin of Symmetry tour. His haircut on the last tour was much cooler.

Take a Bow
Map of the Problematique

They opened with two of the better tracks from the new album. The pit was rough but very appreciative, even of the new songs. 'Take a Bow's intense build and release is custom made for arena rock spectacle.

Butterflies and Hurricanes
Supermassive Black Hole
New Born

A trio of popular and catchy singles got the crowd well and worked up. They've added a cool extended break down to 'Butterflies and Hurricanes', and 'New Born' was the same version as on the last tour, with Matt playing an extended feedback solo bridging the intro and the first appearance of that awesome main riff, just to crank the anticipation up.

Starlight
Forced In
Bliss
Feeling Good
Hoodoo


After all those rock out songs the audience probably looked a bit worn out so it was on to a few mellow 'wave your hands in the air' tracks. 'Starlight' and 'Hoodoo' are new songs and worked a lot better live than on the album. 'Forced In' and 'Feeling Good' are random older tracks and were most welcome surprises, at least for me. 'Forced In' was performed without vocals in front of video screens displaying images of fire (see figure 1). Very cool and moody. During 'Bliss' they released the big confetti filled balloons like at the end of their set on the last tour. Not as fun as at the Auckland show, and there's nothing grosser than being squashed up against a greasy sweaty munter with red confetti stuck all over his shirtless torso.

Invincible

Bleh. Don't like this song, but Muse are such a powerful live act that they can inject even their more average songs with undeserved energy.

Time is Running Out
Plug in Baby

And two big anthemic singles to close out the set. By the end of these songs it was fair to say that I was completely fucking wasted from my hour in the moshpit. I got a bit of a rest at this point but it wasn't over just yet...

First Encore:
Soldiers Poem

A nice acoustic interlude from the new album. For some reason seeing and hearing it live made me finally 'get' the song. Damn you Muse for giving me new appreciation for an album that I bagged!

Hysteria
Stockholm Syndrome

And just in case there was anyone left in the pit with an ounce of energy left they belt out their two most hard rocking songs back to back. Total insanity ensues.

Second Encore:
Knights of Cydonia

And they finished with their most recent single. I thought this one would go off better (the 'No one's going to take me alive' sing along section is pure calculated live performance gold) but maybe the crowd was just too worn out to get into it.

After that it was just a long wait for a taxi in the rain with a pair of the saddest (and drunkest and tackiest) wannabe groupies I've ever encountered, all the while coughing my guts out on account of the nasty cold I caught.

Muse are the anti-Placebo. Placebo can release a pretty good album and then proceed to retroactively ruin it with an incredibly lackluster live performance. Muse can release a total stinker but walk out on stage and belt the songs out with such enthusiasm (Dom had a look on his face while smashing the shit out of his kit during 'Knights of Cydonia' that can only be described as total joy), flair and virtuosity as to completely change my opinion of the album, if only for the duration of the concert.

I think the Auckland concert on the Absolution tour was better, as they played a little more random stuff whereas this time they mostly stuck to their singles and tracks off the new album. Plus the energy of the crowd there was more positive and less muntery. But those are not serious complaints, it was still a fucking awesome concert. And yet it was only the first leg of my long weekend of awesomeness, over the next couple of days, things were only going to get better!

Quick

There have been no posts for the last couple of days (and there probably won't be any for a few more) on account of fucking shit up.

For those who are interested, just quickly:

Sydney, 24th Jan:
Stinkfist
46 & 2
Jambi
Schism
Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
Danny and Adam jam
Swamp Song
Nap time
Wings for Marie
10,000 Days
Lateralus
Aenima
Spacy electronic jam
Vicarious

Short verdict:
Fucking awesome

In Which You Follow The Gospel Truth

Deftones – Saturday Night Wrist

The Deftones are a notoriously uneven band, capable of being both absolutely brilliant and completely disappointing, often almost at the same time. Their b-sides album (released the year before last) contained both an audio disc (pretty average) and a DVD containing their music videos interleaved with random footage (totally awesome). Their albums are usually pretty strong, the high points being Around the Fur and White Pony (opinions differ as to which is better, I prefer the latter but I can see why the former is well loved too), Adrenaline is not bad for a first album and their fourth (self titled) contains a lot of very good songs but for some reason is usually too dense and hard to listen to all at once. On the other hand I can't recommend them as a live band. I saw them live at the Big Day Out in 2004, and I hate to say it but they were a tremendous disappointment.

So it was with grounded expectations that I bought their new album, Saturday Night Wrist, fortunately I'm pleased to report that it's pretty good. I doubt that they'll ever recapture the brilliance of White Pony, but this album is a solid effort. These guys are one of those bands who go in a different direction on each album, and on this one they've chosen an interesting, promising one. A lot of bands continue to pretend to be angst filled youths when in actual fact they've long ago begun comfortably settling into a tame middle age with their bags of money, so it is nice to see on this album that the Deftones have managed to introduce a more upbeat mood while still remaining heavy. This is complemented by an increased use of electronics and loops, and lots of generally weird noises and kooky scales. A Faith No More influence is definitely in attendance.

The first single, 'Hole in the Earth', sounds like it could have come off one of their earlier albums but is not representative of the rest of Saturday Night Wrist. A more typical track is 'Beware', which combines a haunting but slow and heavy chorus with a quirky off-kilter verse riff, and a nice, heavy, more traditionally Deftonesy outro. Other notable tracks include 'Mein', which features Serj from System of a Down, and 'U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,SELECT,START', which is an instrumental with a sad, lonely mood that belies it's goofy name. The only song I like more than 'Beware' is the outstanding 'Pink Cellphone', which sets sultry spoken word female vocals atop a minimal electronic backing loop. The lyrics start out as strange religious phrases but end up mutating into dirty sex talk. Frivolous but endlessly entertaining.

Most of the rest of the album is good but not superlative. These guys have done a lot better in the past but the highlight tracks more than make it worth the purchase and I'd probably rate it higher than their self-titled. They'll also have another chance to increase my opinion of them next month when I see them live again...

I Can't Say No To You

Evanescence – The Open Door

There should be some kind of music snobs anonymous group where you can go and admit to all the terribly uncool music that you secretly like. "Hi. My name's Jon and I listen to Evanescence." Maybe I'm just subconsciously biased because Amy Lee is hot but for some reason I'm prepared to accept and enjoy their brand of histrionic goth-metal cheese at face value.

The new album is more or less the same as their first. The band lineup has seen a few changes but you'd barely notice, save for the regrettable absence of Josh Freese on drums. On the first album, Fallen, it was the heavier songs that were worth listening to and the ballads, like the cringeworthy 'My Immortal', were Celine Dion-esque exercises in rectal bleeding. In contrast The Open Door's heavy tracks tend to be generic and forgettable, whereas the ballads range from 'embarassing but fun' (I'm thinking of 'Call Me When You're Sober') to genuinely moving ('Like You'). Usually Amy has a great voice but unfortunately years of struggling to be heard above a distortion laden backing band in a live setting seem to have instilled in her a tendency to go into foghorn mode when the music gets heavy. For these reasons I found the first album to be more consistently good overall but the stand out tracks on The Open Door easily surpass anything on Fallen.

As of the time of writing my Amy Lee vs. Natalie Portman poll had them both tied on six votes each. My analysis of the results is: 'What the hell is wrong with you? Get the fuck off my webpage.'

Having said that, I'm not inclined to argue the point much more, as like all celebrities eventually do Amy has succumbed to Hollywood Makeup Drenched Skeleton Disorder. Disregarding the portraits in the album art, which are so airbrushed as to be considered anime, take a look at these:

Before:

After:

Is This Shit For Real?

Old school men's magazine cover. (via Fleshbot)

"The coming homosexual explosion of the 70s!"

Smoke and Mirrors

by Neil Gaiman

Most fantasy authors, even those fond of writing huge multi volume doorstop epics, really shine when it comes to short fiction and Neil Gaiman is no exception. The absurdities of the genre make it hard to sustain belief and take the story seriously, and the longer and more complicated the story becomes the harder it is to pull it off. Even a brilliant writer like Gaiman drops the ball once or twice when working on a years long serial like Sandman, but in a short story collection like this one he is free to introduce an interesting fancy or a witty perspective and play with it for a few pages before moving on.

As with his other writing the fantasy aspect is fairly is not really all that fantastic; there are no clichèd Tolkien-esque conventions here, every story is set in what is more or less the 'real' world and the magic works in a manner more like that of a fairy tale or an urban legend rather than the more typical Dungeons and Dragons type mechanics. This realistic grounding is one of the things that makes Gaiman's work so resonant. He always starts with a story or a premise that is completely drawn from real life, and the supernatural elements merely serve to emphasise or reframe that premise.

The stories in this collection are drawn from over a decade of his career so there is a fair amount of variation in style, tone and subject matter. Just as a few examples: a science fiction version of Beowulf with a werewolf as the hero, a pair of unique and perverse takes on traditional stories (namely Snow White and Santa Claus) and Gaiman's version of the last book of the bible. Some of the stories are obviously earlier work and aren't up to his usual standards, but even taking them into account the collection as a whole is such high quality that it would be impossible to pick a favourite tale.

His latest collection, 'Fragile Things', is awaiting consumption and as much as I'm keen to devour it, I'm forcing myself to finish the history books I've had lying around for months before I do so.

In the Shadow of Deepest Darkness

Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

Yes I realise I bagged these guys fairly hard for their shitty concert last year, but I figure I'll still write up their albums, as the ones I've listened to were at least passable enough to convince me to go see them live.

Dark Medieval Times is their first album and is probably their best. This is of course a relative judgement; Satyricon's best is still pretty average by most standards. There's nothing on this album that Emperor haven't done better, and there's almost nothing that makes them memorable or stand out from other black metal bands.

The one gimmick that is uniquely theirs are these cheesy medieval folk instrumental interludes featuring flutes and harpsichord style keys, which are just that, a gimmick. They're kind of funny the first time you hear them, but I doubt that it is intentional humour. I will admit that there are a couple of good points about this album. The album divider 'Min Hyllest Til Vinterland' (My Tribute to the Winterland) is a very nice acoustic guitar interlude, and at one or two other points on the album they actually do manage to legitimately rock out, so the album is saved from complete mediocrity. And if that sounds like damning with faint praise, well that's exactly what these guys deserve. Take the balls out of black metal and you're left with mostly just spooky photography and bad production.

Holiday Watching

A few movies I saw over the summer holidays.

Hart's War

A courtroom drama set in a Nazi P.O.W. camp. Starts out promisingly enough with some interesting characters and plenty of moral ambiguity, but rapidly devolves into typical Hollywood hocum complete with grand speeches about honour and Bruce Willis dying to atone for all our sins.

Walk the Line

It would be pretty hard for this movie to really fail, as it has the sure fire asset of Johnny Cash's awesomeness to rely on, but they've still managed to take his story and render it impressively bland and lifeless. It's a waste and a pity, but hopefully sometime in the future when a bit more time has passed since Cash's death someone will make a biopic about him with a bit more guts.

Silent Hill

I was prepared for this to be absolutely terrible and in most ways it was; bad directing, terrible pacing and actors that could benefit from coaching by the cast of Shortland Street. But it turned out to be worth the trouble both for the 'so bad it's good' factor and for its surprisingly good backstory.

Kung Fu Hustle

A perfectly decent martial arts comedy. Works great as a comedy, but not so well as a martial arts film save for one really cool fight scene involving a pair bad guys armed with a guzheng (Chinese harp) with deadly magical powers.

Holiday Reading

A few quick reads from over the holidays.

Girl Genius – Phil and Kaja Foglio

A nice breezy steampunk manga style comic. It's complete fantasy cheese without being stupid or cliched and has a very original story and setting. It's been a long time since I read a decent by-the-numbers epic fantasy so this was a nice discovery. A few teaser chapters are available online at their website if you're interested.

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – Will Eisner

Another graphic novel. In stark contrast to Girl Genius this book is about as dark and depressing as they come, diving into the nasty details of anti-semitism in the 20^th century by chronicling the history of the forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As you probably know The Protocols is a vile piece of hate literature that continues to be published worldwide today, despite being debunked as lies many times since it first appeared.

It's grim stuff, but as well as being interesting to know the book itself is stylistically an interesting implementation of a non-fiction comic. Just don't read it at the same time as Girl Genius. Too much cognitive whiplash.

Water From The Sun/ Discovering Japan – Bret Easton Ellis

A pair of short stories by the author of American Psycho published in one tiny book. These are really pretty superfluous; they merely retread the same territory as his infamous novel, only quicker and with less ickiness, and with the protagonist replaced by a soulless TV news presenter and a soulless has been rock star respectively. Not worth the half an hour it'd take to read them.

Holocaust Tips For Kids/ Smite The Heathens, Charlie Brown – Shalom Auslander

I have no idea who this guy is but these books were only $3 each so I grabbed this one at the same time as Easton Ellis' on account of its amusing titles. The first story, Holocaust Tips For Kids, delivers almost exactly what the title promises. A young Jewish boy learns about the holocaust in history class and details his intended courses of action in case the Nazi's should ever come for him and his family. I think it's meant to be comical and serious at the same time but coming on the heels of The Plot it was really just depressing.

Smite The Heathens, Charlie Brown is a lot lighter. Using the time worn characters and scenarios from the Peanuts comic strip, the author recounts a tale of religious rivalry growing from innocuous mistrust to all out war. The message is serious but who can't laugh at the idea of jackbooted 'Snoopy Youth' marching the streets to flush out 'Great Pumpkinites'?

Breaking News

After six months of unsuccessful searching researchers uncover trace amounts of good local metal in Sydney.

A spokesman for the research group said they were alerted to the discovery by the fact that their name is a Mr. Bungle reference.

Wildebeest Asylum User Feedback Time

On account of Jungle Rhino's wrongheaded and unfathomable comment to the previous post:

Oh come on she's not that hot. Now if Natalie Portman goes and gets married before becoming washed up and posing for Playboy - that would be a true tragedy...

I have created a completely unbiased poll to prove that he's nuts.

Reference photos:

Natalie Portman:

Amy Lee:

Take care to examine the reference pictures carefully and make your decision. Natalie Portman Amy Lee

If Anyone Wants Me I'll Be In My Room

Crying.

In unrelated news, cats and dogs now living together. In Soviet Russia, incredibly talented classic rock drummer collaborates with Korn!

I Am... The EMPEROR!!

Emperor – Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

My little overview of black metal has been continuing apace over the holidays. We now come to one of the most iconic bands in the genre, Emperor. Yes they're Norwegian, but I believe it is up for debate as to whether they're trve or not.

Anyone who's curious about this kind of music should definitely start with Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk, as these guys seem to be the black metal band most easily enjoyed by people who don't like black metal and this is probably their most well regarded album. Indeed it is very accessible when compared to other bands of a similar style. Despite containing all the standard trappings of the genre (low-fi production, raspy vocals and spooky keyboards) it has some pretty solid and catchy songwriting which is still eminently enjoyable even when buried under a layer of fuzz. Compared to their contemporaries these guys have a far more epic sound, they're more about majestic satanic ritual whereas Mayhem and Burzum are more about grim frostbitten moors under moonlight.

Like those other bands these guys have had band members incarcerated for murder and arson but musically they don't compare to Mayhem for manic intensity, and in fact they seem to be deliberately aiming for a more commercial sound. While they're more sophisticated and have one or two great melodic moments on this album (for the record the tracks in question are 'The Oath' and 'With Strength I Burn') I'd still prefer to listen to Mayhem. Nevertheless I'd recommend these guys as the church burning, queer bashing murderers you can play for your Mum.

Now Everyone's Doing It

Making a sex video that is.

New to me is one featuring the dude who played Screech on Saved by the Bell. Rumour has it that he used a cock double.

There's a one minute preview up on pornotube. I don't recommend watching it.

Doing Your Mom And Trying To Kill Your Dad… There Should Be A Play.

Angel Season 4 Part 1

Yes I am still watching these, although at a very, very slow rate.

Angel was always a much darker show than Buffy but in its fourth season it became truly grim and the humour, while still present, started to become somewhat out of place. As in earlier seasons the plot is quite well done on the larger scale. The main storyline, in which L.A. is menaced by a seemingly invincible Satan-like demon is nicely intertwined with the dangling plot threads from the end of season 3, namely the arrival of Angel's teenage son, Cordelia's mysterious disappearance and Wesley's involvement with the show's perennial bad guys, the law firm Wolfram and Hart.

The grimness of the season is in part due to the hopeless nature of the heroes' battle against the big bad, who despite Angel and Co's best efforts persists in doing unpleasant bad guy type things such as blocking out the sun, making the sky rain fire and your standard general slaughter, but mostly the sad, depressing mood comes as the constant messing around with the main character's relationships done in the last season bears fruit, leaving the heroes mistrustful and resentful of one another. Lots of nice angsty character development ensues.

The highlight of the first half of the season comes at the end, when the heroes, out of desperation, are manipulated into transforming Angel into his evil alter ego Angelus. This cheerful, maverick psychopath is a smart addition to an already tense scenario and revives what was starting to become somewhat of a miserable, depressing plot arc. It's disappointing that we didn't see more of Angelus during the show's run because he's a great character. While I understand that the writers didn't want to overuse him, I think there still should have been more of him (other than in this season he only shows up in one episode in season one, and in flashbacks in season two), as his evil deeds are the basis for the whole backstory behind the show.

Despite the writer's numerous missteps this show continued to be worth watching, it's just a pity that the same could not be said for its parent.

P.S. Even though I'm a bit late with this news some of you may be interested to know that season eight of Buffy is in the works, as a comic series.

New Years Resolutions

Are made to be broken. I only had two and the first one was "drink more moderately".

I acquitted myself very nicely on Friday up in Brisbane, achieving only a responsibly pleasant level of drunkenness before calling it a night at 4am.

Flash forward 24 hours, and I am throwing up in the toilets of a club in Kings Cross before returning to the bar, sculling the rest of my beer and buying another sambuka shot to mask the smell of vomit on my breath. At least I retained the presence of mind to stay out of the strip clubs this time but it wasn't the finest hour for my new year resolution.

Year End Round Up

As the year draws to a close we here at the Wildebeest Asylum took the time to reflect on 2006 and remember which books, movies and music best distracted us from the horrifying pointlessness of human existence. Our choices are:

Best TV:
Dr Who

Biggest Downturn in Quality:
Lost (The start of the third season has been a shitfest.)

Best Games:
Oblivion (A review of this will appear when I finish the main story. I anticipate the post appearing while our distant descendants silently watch the Earth as it is slowly consumed by the dying sun.)
Shadow of the Colossus

Webmasters Choice Award For Special Achievement In Gratuitous Sex And Violence:
The only thing that fits the bill of being gratuitous that I played this year is Sin Episodes, and it didn't do a very good job of it. In protest I am giving the award to We (Heart) Katamari.

Best Book:
Lost Girls

Best Movie:
Munich

Best Albums (in no particular order):
Tool – 10,000 Days

Runners up:
Isis – In the Absence of Truth (Review coming some day...)
Thom Yorke – The Eraser

Best Album That Actually Came Out Years Ago, But Can Pretty Much Win Every Year As Far As I'm Concerned:
Opeth – Blackwater Park

Best Concert:
Mogwai

Shittest Concert:
Satyricon

Runner Up:
Placebo

Concert That Was Both The Best and the Shittest at the Same Time:
Korn

Concert I Will Forever Hate Myself For Missing:
Opeth

Biggest Disappointment:
Muse – Black Holes and Revelations

Most Incredibly Overrated:
Justin Timberlake

Runner up:
The Killers

Guiltiest Pleasure:
Evanescence

Trent Reznor Award For The Best Album That Was Supposed To Come Out This Year But Didn't:
Trent Reznor – the Closure DVD and the new NIN album.

Past Years:

2005 Parts 1, 2, 3

2004 Parts 1, 2

My Seduction Style

Seems fairly accurate. (Via Squirk)

Merry Christmas

The Wildebeest Asylum wishes all it's readers a very merry christmas, and to get you all into the spirit of the season here's a link to Ruthless Reviews' review of A Christmas Carol.

"The message of this story is that it is okay to use the despicable practices of torture and terror to promote your religious agenda. It is okay for a law-abiding and legitimate businessman to be brutalized for his lack of religious beliefs. It is okay to disregard legitimate business contracts because of your own fiscal irresponsibility and poor decisions. Scrooge provides a much needed service by issuing B-C loans to marginal credit risks, providing much needed liquidity into the economy of his city."

Cliffhanger!

"Don't push the button Locke!" screams Charlie, but it's too late! The lights go out! An ominous hum begins! The woman from Jack's flashback comes riding out on the back of a polar bear! Then the screen fades to black...

A digital clock is ticking down to zero! There are only four seconds left! Jack Bauer struggles furiously with the controls, but it looks like nothing can stop the jetliner carrying four hundred passengers, ten nuclear bombs and a tiger with a rocket launcher from crashing into the Pentagon just as the President reveals his plan for curing cancer! Close up of Keifer Sutherland's terrified face before we fade to black to...

"Are you saying you never loved me?" cries Amanda, tears streaming down her face. Thomas opens his mouth to reply, but is suddenly distracted by a fantail flying into the car through the open window! Their vehicle swerves across the road, right into the path of the minivan driven by Tama and carrying Jenny with her newly born triplets, Tammy and Lisa on the way back from their Civil Union and the vaccine to cure tall poppy syndrome! Close up on the shocked faces of the passengers. Cut to the smoking wreckage of both vehicles, as a solitary, ethnically indeterminate hand reaches trembling outwards. Who has lived? Who has died? Fade to black...

The Wildebeest Asylum will be taking a break for the rest of the year. I hope the suspense isn't too difficult to bear!

WTF? WTF?

Via Making Light and Wired:

World Net Daily: Homosexuality is caused by soy milk.

In case that article disturbs you as much as it did me, here's something nice to distract you from right wing cranks.

I Hope George Bush Drinks The Blood Of Every Last Man Woman And Child In Iraq

Borat

I saw this movie over two weeks ago. The fact that I've only gotten around to posting this now is an indicator of how much of a blogging backlog I have...

Anyway, as everyone else has already said, this movie is just fucking hilarious. I'm perpetually surprised at how many stupid clueless people Cohen is able to round up for his comedy. In this movie many of the unsuspecting cast are the same kind of dopes that he picked on in his TV show Ali G, such as a dramatically unfunny humour coach, and the highly strung inhabitants of New York City who respond rather strongly to having a moustachioed man come up to them on the street and attempt to kiss them. Although Borat's driving instructor is actually kind of cool.

Driving Instructor “No Borat! In America a woman is allowed to choose who they have sex with.”

Borat: “You are serious!?”

It's all fun and games until the middle section when the movie goes through a seriously unsettling phase as Borat travels through the southern USA. The appalling racism displayed by some of the subjects is funny in a way but also seriously disturbing. The gun salesman who carries on trying to make a sale after being asked which gun is the best to kill a Jew is probably just a case of someone using their selective hearing to ignore the things they don't know how to deal with. On the other hand the high society diners who laugh it off when Borat brings a turd in a plastic bag to the dinner table, but threaten to call the police when he invites a black prostitute into their home are displaying some seriously fucked values.

There was a lot of slapstick humour but it was far less interesting. Most of the scenes in Kazakhstan were fairly juvenile and mean spirited and Borat's naked fight scene with his obese male companion wasn't funny until they ended up in the elevator with some of their fellow hotel guests. However exceptions are made for every scene with the bear, which are easily the funniest parts of the movie.

Occidentalism

An article accusing Al-Qaeda's ideological godfather Sayyid Qutb of occidentalism (via Arts and Letters Daily). Mainly I just think the term is funny, but it's a good article.

True Norwegian Black Metal

Satyricon – Live at The Metro, Sydney Dec 5^th

Unfortunately I must once again inform you that due to a last minute camera malfunction I have no photos of this concert. This is a real pity as, unlike some bands I've been to see recently, Satyricon presented plenty of nice photo opportunities (if little else). This has happened once too often for my liking so this weekend's plans shall include an upgrade of my current camera situation.

This concert was a bit of a last minute escapade for me. Satyricon are, along with In Flames, the most successful black metal band in the world in terms of sales, and as such are despised by the metal scene as lacking trveness (at least they're Norwegian). Never one to merely accept conventional wisdom on these matters I went on a quick Satyricon education program (as currently viewable in the 'Now Listening To' panel on the right). I found their music not terribly exciting but decent enough to justify going along to see them perform live. As it happens the albums I've been listening to are their earliest, and most black metal fans will begrudgingly admit that their early music is, if not actually good, at least less offensive than their contemporary output. If I'd heard their latest album I may not actually have bothered going.

Again I must lament not having a camera, because these guys at least look interesting, with their necro makeup, grimy black metal fashion sense, Frost's enormous drum kit and the obligatory hot blonde chick on keyboards in the background. Black metal is meant to be cheesy, and their presentation certainly delivered in that regard. Their on stage antics made me feel like I was at an 80s hair metal concert. Especially when all three guitarists started whirlwinding their hair around in a synchronised fashion while playing. Satyr, the vocalist, was especially retro with his stage banter: “Wow I think you guys might be going even harder than Melbourne!”, which made me laugh because it reminded me of Mike Patton's hilarious piss takes of that sort of shit.

The crowd was pretty rubbish too. I guess this is what happens when you gather together the subset of people metal enough to be into Satyricon but not hipster enough to know that Satyricon aren't cool. The moshpit was especially bad, at least to begin with, I have no problem with a bit of violence in that setting because that's to be expected but when it's just a bunch of incredibly drunk guys stumbling into each other it's just annoying.

Wildebeest Asylum Moshpit Safety Tip:

When getting yourself thrown high in the air in order to begin crowd surfing make sure you are completely and utterly drunk out of your mind beforehand, so that when the moshpit parts and you smash right into the ground you are relaxed enough so that you only break a leg rather than your back.

For some reason there seemed to be a high number of angry young women in attendance who weren't afraid to try and kick the shit out of any guy who drunkenly crashed into them.

Wildebeest Asylum Moshpit Safety Tip:

Young ladies attempting to inflict bodily harm on drunk angry men in black metal moshpits should be aware that said angry men will probably start hitting them back (hard), no matter how hot they look in that skanky little outfit.

And now we must turn to the sad topic of the band's performance. To put it plainly, it kind of sucked. I won't say they totally sucked, as a few tracks came of brilliantly, most notably the opening song 'Walk The Path Of Sorrow' (the first track off their first album), and the last song of their main set (before the encore), which I didn't know but which fucking rocked out all the same. Most of the rest of their set was uninspiring to say the least. Their new songs were garbage (barely black metal at all) but even old classics from Nemesis Divina such as 'Du Som Hater Gud' and 'Mother North' fell flat. It was worth going to for the sake of going to a concert, but I definitely wouldn't drag myself out on a Tuesday night again to see them.

One last thing. The opening act, Ruins, were pretty good.

Wildebeest Asylum Bonus Moshpit Safety Tips:

Don't piss off the chick in the wheelchair. No matter how ill advised it is for her to be in the moshpit it's not a good look if you knock her over.

Clueless eighteen year olds who stand in the middle of the mosh circle and then looked shocked and surprised when people start slamming into you: please continue doing this! It is greatly amusing to your fellow concert goers!

You Know You Spend Too Much Time On The Computer When...

...for once you find yourself writing out a whole page of handwritten notes and (a) your hand hurts by the time you've finished and (b) you're not sure how to spell 'contingent' so you write it out and then wait a few seconds to see if the spellchecker picks it up.

An Unfathomable Well Of Something

Sam and Max – Culture Shock

I have very fond memories of the original Sam and Max adventure game that was released when I was a teenager. Like so many of the old Lucas Arts games it was genuinely hilarious in a goofy cartoony way and it also combined elements of the black but surreal humour of the comic strip it was based on to become a genuine classic of the genre. Fans of the game comprise a rather large cult following, and as a group we were delighted when Lucas Arts announced a sequel a few years back, then disappointed when they cancelled it, then delighted again when it was picked up by Telltale Games. Of course with such a rocky road to production it was possible that the expectations placed on it would be too much and it would turn out to be a disappointment, but I am happy to report that this is not the case.

The new Sam and Max series is being released in episodic form, much like the Half-Life 2 Episodes series but hopefully with a more punctual schedule. In the first episode Sam and Max, freelance policemen by trade, come against a troublemaking gang of mind controlled washed up former child celebrities. The humour doesn't quite live up to its predecessor, but it's very hard for indiscriminate vigilantism not to be funny and there are plenty of laughs to be had. For some reason I couldn't get enough of pulling over random motorists and charging them with nonsense crimes like 'worshipping false idols'.

As a game this first episode is mostly excellent. Adventure games can often devolve into boring scavenger hunts but Sam and Max consistently provides you with puzzles that actually involve logical thinking, while at the same time being quirky and entertaining. One of the best set pieces of the game is taking a psychiatric test and having to emulate the symptoms of a particular disorder in order to proceed. The lateral thinking part of it is fun and there's plenty of absurdist humour to be had in having Sam re-enact his dreams for the psychiatrist. Towards the end some of the puzzles turn into pointless 'go fetch' scenarios but most of the game holds up well. The next episode is out on the 5^th of January, but I'm not sure if this is through Gametap (I refuse to sign up to this, it's too easy for me to find time wasters as it is) so I might have to wait a little longer before I can play it.

You Know Working In The Financial Sector Is Getting To You When...

You immediately think this bar sounds like a great place to have work drinks.

Vikings Were Born To Fight And To Kill For Pleasure

Burzum – Hliðskjálf

When I wrote about Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas a few weeks back I made reference to their insane bass player Varg Vikernes, a.k.a Count Grishnackh. As well as being a murderer he also likes to burn down churches (at one point making himself responsible for the death of a fireman) and although he doesn't like being described as a Nazi, he is a white supremacist. Despite such unpleasant attributes he's widely respected in black metal circles, mostly on the strength of his solo project Burzum.

Burzum is often described as 'ambient black metal', which would seem to me to be an oxymoron, but I will refrain from judging until I've heard more of this stuff. Hliðskjálf is completely ambient, without a trace of metal (apparently this is because he's not allowed guitars or drums in prison). This album has more in common with the mellower kinds of industrial than anything metal. In fact it reminded me rather a lot of Coil in their more restrained moments.

The music is very gentle and delicate, most songs are just one or two vaguely medieval sounding synthesised instruments playing over a subdued ambient background. It's quite a nice album, although it has nothing on Coil's Musick to Play in the Dark or Jordan Reyne's The Loneliest of Creatures. I would hazard a guess that it's inflated reputation mostly comes from closeted metal fiends who've never heard it's like before. But it's still worthwhile, even just to make you wonder how such pretty music can be made by such a horrible person.

The CEO Of Seagate Is A Clever Guy

Interview here.

"YouTube is like eBay. The founders didn't know what they were doing. The consumers just took hold of it."

"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

Damn You Penny Arcade

For introducing me to Bookworm. As if I didn't have enough timewasters already...

Dr Who

Finished watching the second series of the new Doctor Who the other day. I didn't like David Tennent as The Doctor as much as Christopher Eccleston in the previous series. He seemed somewhat smarmy and winked at the camera a bit too often, I preferred Eccleston's more alien, serious incarnation of the character. Still I love the show as much as ever, even if at times it can be over the top cheesy, but of course that is part of its charm. The first episode, 'New Earth' and a few of the others are a bit stupid, but they're more than compensated for by the highlights: 'The Satan Pit' (Dr Who versus Satan), 'Tooth and Claw' (Dr Who versus the wolf man and a team of ninja monks in Victorian England) and 'School Reunion' (Dr Who versus Giles from Buffy). The season finale is a bit goofy and predictable, but I guess it had to be done one of these days: Cybermen versus Daleks.

P.S. No one has sex inside the Tardis. Maybe next season.

Something Awful

...used to kind of annoy me with its snide sarcasm but I have to admit they come up with some pretty funny shit. I was especially amused by their obnoxious antics on Second Life, the September 11th recreation is particularly good.

Lost Girls

by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie

Being one of my favourite writers, Alan Moore is no stranger to these pages. With every project he takes on a different style and puts his own unique twist on it. Political allegory in Watchmen, an esoteric horror story in From Hell and parody in Top 10. Eager to learn what he was going to do next I was very pleased when in an interview with the Onion AV Club he announced that 'for this project I just wanted to write some really good porn' (it's a great interview, read the whole thing). And that's exactly what he did.

Still Moore's 'plain old porn' is a lot more sophisticated than most serious literature. The story is centred around three women, Alice, Wendy and Dorothy, who are real world allegories of their famous fictional namesakes. Over the course of three volumes they retell the plots of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz in flashback as kinky coming of age stories. In Alice's story for example the White Rabbit is replaced a nervous old paedophile who initiates her into a life of debauchery. Peter Pan is the boy who climbs in Wendy's window at night and 'takes her to Wonderland'. Obviously the original versions of those stories were intended to be coming of age allegories (especially Peter Pan), but I doubt that Moore's interpretations are quite what the authors had in mind (except maybe that dodgy bastard Lewis Carroll).

As you'd expect from an explicitly pornographic graphic novel, the art (drawn by Moore's fiancée Melinda Gebbie) is big, colourful and sumptuous. And yes, hot as hell. The books themselves come in a beautifully illustrated hardcover edition (with a nice slipcover to protect unsuspecting eyes from the explicit material on the covers of the volumes inside). I really like it when graphic novelists make nice physical artifacts out of their work like this.

Moore's writing is as good as ever here. Three volumes of just one sex romp after another could easily get boring but Moore presents each chapter with a different twist; the three main characters each have their own panel layout for their individual flashback chapters and other chapters are intercut with intertwining narratives from the erotic fiction that the characters have been reading offscreen, while some chapters show the same events from different perspectives.

Of course, Moore can't just let porn be porn. He stages his story against the backdrop of a world on the cusp of a transformation from the modern to the post-modern eras. The first volume ends with our protagonists attending the infamous May 1913 performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Paris, which ended in a riot (Stravinsky consciously veered away from conventional rhythms and tonality in this piece, and the ballet as a whole is a celebration of the primitive (he was like a neo-classical Cryptopsy). The riot is very much symptomatic of a change in perspective from the absolutist attitudes of modernism to relativism). The second volume ends with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, obviously a different kind of trigger point for the new age that we now live in. I won't spoil the end of the third volume but it's an astounding passage, both poetic and morbid at the same time. It resoundingly refutes anyone who says comic books or pornography can't be art.

I think this is quite comfortably the best book I've read all year. Not only is it cleverly written and achingly poetic, it's also thoroughly refreshing to read some fiction with a genuinely healthy attitude towards sex, and if we feel a wee bit guilty when we enjoy reading such a lurid piece of prurience Moore placates our Victorian guilt with a monologue that is both eloquent and amusing:

[As our protagonists' host reads aloud from a Victorian erotic novel in which a pair of young twins engage in enthusiastic sex with their parents.]

“You see, if this were real, it would be horrible. Children raped by their trusted parents. Horrible. But they are fictions. They are uncontaminated by effect and consequence. Why, they are almost innocent. I, of course, am real, and since Helena, who I just fucked, is only thirteen, I am very guilty.”

I'm Listening To The Wrong Genre

This is a bit mean of me but:

First three results when you search by interest on hotornot.com for 'metal':




Contrast with 'hardcore':




Expect more Converge and less Cryptopsy in the future.

Phoenix In Flames

Converge – Jane Doe

It just goes to show that there's nothing new under the sun. After raving about how brilliant and original Dillinger Escape Plan are for the past eighteen months or so I've finally clicked on to Converge, the band Dillinger stole all their best ideas from.

Jane Doe is an intense barrage of almost non stop thrashy hardcore, with some of the elements of arrhythmia and disharmony that appealed to me so much in Dillinger's music. If you like one of these bands you're likely to enjoy the other, as they are pretty much of a fit genrewise. There are differences though, Converge is notably more intense and impassioned (the vocalist's sustained screaming is fucking impressive) while Dillinger have better production and a broader emotional palette, as well as being perhaps just a little bit more insane, so it's hard to say which one I enjoy more.

It's a no-brainer as to which one you bring up in a music snobbery conversation though, Converge were doing it first, so of course they must be better.

1001 Albums – Number 3

The Louvin Brothers – Tragic Songs of Life

I'm pretty sure this is the first country album to show up on these pages.

Like most country music the compositions on this album are quite sparse, and the focus is on the vocal harmonising of the brothers as they sing sorrowfully about unrequited love, untimely deaths and southern American states.

The first couple of songs are twang-mungus paeans to Alabama and Kentucky and their distillation of everything cringeworthy about country music provides a challenge to getting into the album, but once past them it's generally a pretty agreeable listen. 'Agreeable' as in 'good to listen to' not as in 'happy fun times'. These guys sure have a heavy morbid streak, well over half the tracks are grim murder ballads or not much milder tales of broken hearts. The 'tragic' part of the title is well earned, and their maudlin style is a good fit for Nick Cave who covered 'Knoxville Girl' on his b-sides album.

Country music is not the best fit for my temperament, but when the mood strikes this album goes down pretty well. What I wrote about Elvis definitely applies here as well, in that these guys sing like they mean it, and that makes their sad stories (mostly autobiographical I believe) resonate even so many years later.

Warriors Of The World Unite

Thank you Squirk, for bringing to my attention one more stupid website to waste my life away with.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

The Crossing Of The Threshold

Mastodon – Blood Mountain

After subjecting myself to Dragonforce's embarrassingly stupid swords and sorcery nonsense it was just as well I had another metal album with similar subject matter to turn to that's actually worthwhile. Blood Mountain is a concept album chronicling the journey of a nameless adventurer as he (or perhaps she) scales the titular mountain. The reason it works where Dragonforce doesn't is that the story is kept very ambiguous. Despite having listened to it quite a few times and read through the lyrics I still only have a vague idea of what the narrative is about as the lyrics are more than a little opaque. For example:

Hunt for ogres and dwarves/
Lion slicer/
Run with death/
Run with death

is a fairly typical passage.

Still, the important thing is that the general feeling of the words and music and the incredibly cool album art are enough to inspire all kinds of fanciful interpretations.

The album's music all fits within the broad church of metal, but changes wildly between styles from song to song. The opening track 'The Wolf is Loose' is almost a hardcore song while 'Bladecatcher's spastic rhythms and gibbering vocals are more than a little reminiscent of Fantomas. 'Sleeping Giant's slow, ponderous riffs could have been lifted straight out of an Isis album. Throughout there's a general restlessness and schizophrenia to the compositions, so that it can be an offputting listen to start with but once it becomes familiar it's very good.

Another comparison with Dragonforce that I can't resist making is that of their guitar solos. Dragonforce's are tedious five minute wankfests, while Mastodon's are short, to the point and inspired. They're also infrequent enough to leave you wishing there were more.

The reason why Dragonforce is lame and Mastodon is cool is analogous to the difference between good and bad fantasy novels. The bad ones (or at least the ones that are only enjoyable when you're in your early teens) are nothing more than escapist fantasies, whereas the better ones reflect the real world, usually through metaphor but also just by presenting realistic issues or experiences in a different light. For example in the song 'Hunters of the Sky' Mastodon recognise that at times during our lives we all find ourselves running away from something, and in this case that something just happens to be a pack of ravenous flying lizard sharks.

The Future of Entertainment

Interesting article at Wired about that lonelygirl business.

You couldn't pay me to watch that crap but it looks like the creators are very savvy about the potential of creating what amounts to interactive TV via sites like youtube. It's also kind of sad to see how completely clueless and stuck in their ways the TV executives they bought the idea to were. I think those guys will be kicking themselves in five years time for missing the opportunity to get on board early with this stuff.

My Guitar Solo Will Go On (For All Of Eternity)

Dragonforce – Sonic Firestorm

Dragonforce is my first foray into the unfortunate genre of power metal. Hopefully it shall also be my last. For some reason occasional exposure to Manowar had predisposed me to looking into this sort of thing, and I thought it might make a nice change from 'serious' music. Sadly, Dragonforce is not a nice change from anything.

Sonic Firestorm starts out with its best riff and provides a pleasant fifteen seconds or so of ponderous, brooding buildup, promising an explosion into thundering heaviness. Unfortunately that promise is unfulfilled and the only explosion that happens is, it must be said, one of gayness, when the song busts into the first of many incredibly cheesy and annoyingly juvenile straightforward speed metal riffs while the vocalist (in his best Freddy Mercury impersonation) starts singing about dragons, demons and mighty battles. This is bad enough, but then the guitar solos start. To be fair Dragonforce do deserve credit for the fact that their two guitarists are simply amazing from a technical perspective, and for the first minute or so it seems as if it would be worth listening to the whole album just to hear these guys shred like maniacs. But then the solo keeps going... and going... and going... and even when it's finished you only get a few minutes downtime until they start up all over again. It doesn't matter how incredibly fast you can play, but an hour long album which is thirty percent diddly-diddly-diddly guitar solos can only be a trial of patience.

At times it seems that these guys might be verging on 'so bad it's good' territory. The most appealing riffs are those when the guitar's ultra clean 8-bit sound is at it's most Pokemon, and the uber-cheesy ballad 'Dawn Over A New World' is so ridiculous that I can scarcely believe that it's not intended to be ironic. Try these lyrics:

Across the highest mountains/
And through the endless seas/
I journey ever onwards/
Fight until we all be free.

By the time it reaches the climax and pulls out a truck driver's key change straight out of the Michael Jackson textbook of shitty pop songwriting the listener is unsure whether to applaud their subversive commentary on the shallowness of popular culture or to shoot themselves in the face to escape the lameness.

New Shit

The new Fundy Post blog. Keeping an eye on the loonies back home.

Dan Savage's podcast. Great stuff as long as you're comfortable hearing about diaper fetishes or proper etiquette when contacting a transgendered prostitute while riding the bus or walking to work.

Plus this blog just moved to the new version of blogger. If it eats your pets or murders your family let me know.

American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

A truly great work of art in any medium, be it a novel, a piece of music or a film, can leave you with a feeling that permeates into your day to day life. Most of the time these feelings are happy ones; wonder, hope or belief in the goodness of humankind. Not too many good artists set out to make their audience's lives worse, but some of them do, and those that are good enough produce an experience so unpleasant that it casts an ugly pall over everything you see in the real world afterwards.

And so we have American Psycho, not only do it's unbelievably gory torture scenes pop into your head at inappropriate times (try attending a design meeting at work when images of a woman being tortured by having a car battery attached to her nipples while her eyes are burnt out with a cigarette lighter keep popping into your head), but its whole perspective of modern life as shallow, worthless and without compassion, leaves the reader with a lingering morbid depression.

Of course from an unemotional point of view it's a very good book. I certainly appreciated the clever way it was constructed. Our protagonist, executive and serial killer Patrick Bateman, seems like a normal rich arsehole at the beginning of the book and to start with the story is a goofy black comedy about shallow yuppie idiots. As we make it further through the tale more and more evidence of Bateman's true nature is dropped and the book becomes more and more gruesome. By the halfway point we start getting snippets of Bateman's murders in flashback, and then we begin to see them in more and more detail from a first person perspective. At the same time Bateman's psychosis becomes more and more pronounced, and the novel climaxes in a murder scene so disgustingly gory that I can't even bring myself to mention any of the details here.

All the meanwhile Bateman's idiot colleagues and brainless girlfriends carry on performing the same repetitive running gags (not being able to remember anyone's name correctly, not listening when Patrick tells them to their faces about his crimes) right up to the end. Their unchanging stupidity contrasted against the continually escalating horror scenes makes it seem as though our murderous protagonist is somehow admirable in comparison to them, as he at least realises what a pointless mockery his life is and rages against it (although perhaps killing people in unbelievably horrific ways is not the most ideal way he could have chosen to express himself).

So while it's a very intelligently constructed book it's very hard to read and its bleak theme, that our modern lives are devoid of meaning and that too much leisure and aimlessness is driving us to self-loathing and cruel inhumanity, is not likely to make anyone feel better about themselves for having read it. And yet for some strange reason, I am glad I read it. It made me feel bad at the time but once I'd finished it I felt like I'd learned something or gained something from it. Of course, I fucked if I can explain what that 'something' is...

Behold, The Flying Spaghetti Monster

WTF

I'll never eat McDonalds again:


Oh wait, maybe I will:

Random Observation Of The Day

Kylie Minogue died of cancer over a year ago, but they just kept it quiet and replaced her with computer animation.

Lucifer: Mansions Of The Silence

by Mike Carey

Well it's been a while since I read an instalment of this series and it seems that absence has made me less fond of it than I was. The plot still seems to be going somewhere interesting so I will continue reading it, but without much enthusiasm because the details (little things like the characterisation, dialogue, and art) are fairly plain and uninspired.

The set up for the plot arc of this collection is quite promising. In a fit of loose end tying, all the remaining major characters of the series (save Lucifer himself and a few other exceptions, such as the archangel Michael and, to no great surprise, God) are bundled up on a boat together and given a quest. In a Gaiman-esque detail, the boat is forged by Nordic giants out of the fingernails of dead men, and the quest is to retrieve the soul of a little girl from the afterlife. Sounds pretty cool right? Well unfortunately Carey found a way to retell a soul imperiling journey through the godless nether realm between the worlds of life and death and neglect to include any memorable events of note or exciting encounters. If the best you can do is a bunch black bat people and a wall of thorns, it's probably best to leave this sort of thing to the experts.

Still, the overall series story arc, involving God and Lucifer's competing plans for the universe, has me hooked (plus these things are a quick, easy read) so we shall see if future volumes improve.

Lucifer: Inferno

Lucifer: The Divine Comedy
Lucifer: Children And Monsters and Lucifer: A Dalliance With The Damned
Lucifer: A Devil In The Gateway

Motions That Make Gods Cringe

Dillinger Escape Plan: Plagiarism

Poor old Dillinger Escape Plan. A year or so ago I couldn't stop singing their praises but now, for two reasons, I've gone a bit dark on them. The first is their new EP, Plagiarism. When I first heard about it I was quite excited about the idea of these guys doing a covers album. They have such a fucked up, unique style that I expected them to come up with some interesting reinterpretations of the songs they'd chosen. Sadly, it was not to be.

The EP starts out with the radio edit of their single 'Unretrofied' which is utterly inferior to the album version. It's surprising how just a few small cuts of ambience and interludes can completely neuter a good song.

'Unretrofied' is followed by four covers. Nine Inch Nails' 'Wish', Massive Attack's 'Angel', 'Jesus Christ Pose' by Soundgarden and (for some reason) Justin Timberlake's 'Like I Love You'. There's a lot of potential here. I think all of those songs could have been twisted in interesting ways to match Dillinger's style but unfortunately every version is played more or less completely straight. It is impressive how vocalist Greg Prusciato does bang on impersonations of the voices of Trent Reznor, Justin Timberlake and Chris Cornell, but a cover version that sounds exactly like the original does little to interest me, and it's especially frustrating when a band like Dillinger, whose original material is so distinctive, chooses the easy route.

The last track is a live version of 'The Perfect Design' and it's pretty good. Perhaps they should have released a live EP instead.

Mike Patton And Faith No More Are Awesome

Item #497 in a series:

Soulfly Video Clip

Soulfly at the gig I attended the other weekend:



Don't you think Max looks kind of tired?
Marc is going nuts though...

The Sun Sets Forever...

Opeth: Blackwater Park

I must admit I'm rapidly running out of ways to say how awesome these guys are. Blackwater Park is by common consensus Opeth's masterwork (at least to date) and, with the caveat that I'm still working my way through their back catalogue, I'm not inclined to disagree. The style and tone is much the same as that of Deliverance and Ghost Reveries; melancholy, elegant and heavy. Once again I'm very impressed with Akerfeldt's vocals, no other cookie monster singer I've heard manages to convey as much emotion as he does while growling. The truth is that I could go on fellating this guy for paragraphs, his guitar solos are always brilliant, and his songwriting is even better. One of the things I find so great about Opeth's songs is the way that every riff and passage segues perfectly into the next. Each song comes across as a wholly conceived piece where every part has it's meaning in the greater context.

Blackwater Park starts strongly and only gets better as it progresses. Every track has something special to recommend it as a candidate for 'most brilliant song ever', 'The Leper Affinity' is a good album opener, and is notable for a beautiful extended piano outro. 'Harvest' is probably the best acoustic ballad they've ever done, 'The Drapery Falls' has a haunting, sad main riff that will stay in your brain for days and 'Blackwater Park', the finale, just fucking rocks out more and more before culminating in one of the most powerful album climaxes I've ever heard. However I think my favourite track is 'Bleak', which manages to pack excellent examples of every style of Opeth's writing into nine too short minutes. Moody gothic passages, heavy metal, quiet peaceful interludes and a surprisingly catchy chorus. It's definitely a good place to start with these guys, and if you've never heard them before then your homework for this week is to listen to this album.

How To Make A Truly Realistic Computer Game

At Curmudgeon Gamer.

Speed Dating

Ever get tired of spending a long time getting to know someone only to be rejected? Ever wish there was a way to simplify and streamline the elaborate social rituals of meeting new people? If so then speed dating might just be for you! Now you can save time by being rejected by up to a dozen people in a few short hours! Recommended for everyone looking to lose a whole lot of excess self esteem.

Random Search Phrases

People have used the following terms to get to my blog:

"balding retaining widow's peak"
"wildebeest catfight artist"
"is there a song called stuck in your eyes?"
"you're still alive of course i'm alive no one can defeat me"
"the great singer jhon cash"
"chloroformed sleep video"
"falling out of my top"
"starfuckers britney comic"
"tequila and gatorade"
"good old fucking"
"buffy his sex slave"

and one that makes me feel this whole blog thing is worthwhile:

"midnight tides review steven erikson capitalism"

...possibly the first searcher who has found exactly what they were looking for (and it wasn't something dirty or inane).

N.B. forgive typos. Been speed dating. Very drunk.

A Virgin Whore In A Dirty Wedding Dress

Lamb of God: Sacrament

Smart enough to be interesting and relevant, rock 'n roll enough to satisfy an urge for a good hard munt, Lamb of God are a solitary example of decent American metalcore in a sea of shite. Sacrament, their newest album, is somewhat of an attempt to break into the mainstream (based on its more catchy nature when compared to their earlier singles that I've heard). Even though it doesn't have the more aggressively 'mathy' (there's another term I hate) aspect of their older stuff, there's still enough of it to make things interesting, in a way they're kind of like a poppy Meshuggah. But aside from that twist it's pretty much just straight up, catchy metal.

It's brilliant for the most part, the highlights are 'Redneck' (with its must watch video) and 'Blacken the Cursed Sun' (which I mentioned when writing about their live show), but there's unfortunately some filler to be found on this album and the mood is pretty much monotonic, so it's best to listen to it in small doses rather than all at once.

The Wildebeest Asylum Saves The World

Looks like some important economists listened to what I had to say about climate change.

Fables: Legends in Exile

by Bill Willingham

The Fables graphic novel series has been produced for a few years on the Vertigo label, also home to the Sandman and Lucifer series'. Fables has a similar sort of premise to those other titles, only instead of mythological figures the protagonists are the inhabitants of European fairy tales, Snow White, Bluebeard, The Big Bad Wolf and so on. These characters have been exiled from their traditional fictitious homelands by a malevolent evil force (left fairly mysterious in this volume), and now reside incognito in New York City.

In this first collection Snow White (with the help of The Big Bad Wolf) investigate the disappearance and suspected murder of her sister Rose Red. The story is a clever enough murder mystery, and there are plenty of cute uses of the fairy tale setting. However while the mythological inhabitants of 'Sandman' or 'Lucifer' invite plenty of allegorical resonance, it's hard to do the same with fairy tale characters, as they're fundamentally shallower. Unless of course you do something like the Alan Moore 'Lost Girls' route and explicitly modernise them, but that's a post for another time...

The Saturday Lesson

Gay dudes don't like it when you move in on their fag hags.

This Is The Place We Have To Go... To DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!

Mayhem: De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Black Metal? Brutal grimy blast beats? Stupid facepaint? Or a bunch of maniacs running around Norway burning down churches? For most people with a partial knowledge of the genre it's the latter. Now meet Mayhem; the band more or less singlehandedly responsible for establishing this reputation. I recommend their wikipedia page for a run down on their general shenanigans. It's a good read, I laughed all night.

This particular album marks the last release of their 'classic' lineup. The only member remaining in the band after the release of the album was the drummer, Hellhammer, the others being respectively dead by suicide, murdered with a knife and in jail for murdering his fellow band member with a knife.

Although their music is broadly similar to death metal, when compared to the likes of Cryptopsy this album is much slower and less technically impressive and also very low-fi. The vocals too are completely different, rather than a death metal scream stand in singer Attila Csihar's voice (original singer Dead being, uh, dead) is more of a gurgle. For these reasons I wouldn't have expected to like it a lot but for some reason I can't get enough of this shit. Maybe it's just because I get a kick out of knowing that my music is being played by genuine honest to god homicidal maniacs, or maybe it's just because playing with balls to the wall insanity counts for as much as technical wizardry or amazing songwriting.