News: Paralyzed official video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7m7l8iqGAk

I love Chad like a brother. Chad, you are the best.

Loving all the love! 

Can't go wrong with these two! Never, Neverland is my favorite Annihilator album.

By the way, did you hear Jeff Waters' new solo project? It's this thing here:



Apparently it's part one of a three-album project. Haven't checked it out yet, but from what I've read it has nothing to do with the Annihilator sound. More of a love letter to various eras of rock/hard rock. I'll give it a listen, as it's always a pleasure to hear his playing, but I'm not quite sure what to expect.

Never knew that! Thanks for letting me know, I'm on this! 

During this abundance of free time I have I was going to watch S2 and 3 of Picard, but haven't gotten around to it. Instead I've found wonderful docs on the actually good ST stuff. I gather it's all bonus content from the DVDs, but I'm not sure. The movies are a series of short docs (20-40M) totaling 2 or 3 hours. The Enterprise stuff seems to be about 1.5 hours x4 and has been surprisingly good. Almost makes you feel bad for Brannon Braga (almost). He really wanted it to be great and just couldn't pull it off. Instead he looks at the one show that was entirely his and really resents how lackluster it was, to the point of occasional humiliation.

Everything is presented by a channel called Cinemascope, if anybody's curious.

Round 2 album listening;

Okay, I've started on a few albums for round 2.  Here's some thoughts.


Crow - Wilderun - Sleep At the Edge of the Earth

I had tried this band a couple of times in the past before this roulette and they just didn't do anything for me at all.  Garden of Fire really grew on me and I definitely wanted to check the album out.  This was quite a trip.  Something obviously clicked a little more with that submission.  The mix of styles here is really really nice.  The heaviness is great and I love the growls but I've warmed to the clean vocals too.  I can see how these might have been a problem in the first instance but they work and intertwine with so many great melodies and a lush soundscape it feel like your running through a magical forest at dawn, or some shit like that.  I really dug the whole quieter middle bit too.  A lot of Opeth vibes here and again great atmosphere.  So yeah, I think you've won me over and I'm looking forward to spinning this one again, it was an excellent trip.



Jingle - Damnations Day - A World Awakens

So straight off the bat, this is nice and heavy.  I get strong Alter Bridge vibes here, like really strong, almost distracting.  This dude has pipes though, but I already said that.  To be fair, there's not a lot of variety here.  It's a pretty safe sound throughout, although very strong.  I feel it has hooks but not real strong hooks, maybe lacks a little character or personality?  maybe the songs all sounding a little too similar is what I'm hearing here.  I still enjoyed the whole thing though, some songs more than others.  That combo of Into Black/To Begin Again as you say is indeed epic as fuck.  I feel the album gets stronger as it goes along too.  I think it's very professional sounding and it's a wonder why these guys didn't do anything else after this.  While this is a great album, not sure if the familiarity of the sound will make it stick long term.  Will have to spin the first album too though I think.



Litho - Bloodshot Dawn - Demons

So, there is nothing new here at all.  This is melodic death metal which verges into technical metal vibes at times I feel too.  But this was tasty as fuck.  While I'm not discovering a new style of music, this was brutal and very enjoyable.  Quite heavy and the vocals are very harsh at times also bordering slightly more straight death metal, but that's certainly not a problem for me.  The guitar playing is top notch.  Again, pretty standard for the genre, but these dudes can obviously shred.  This kept my interest throughout though, despite everything being pretty similar.  There was enough edge and melodic playing along with the extreme vocal sections that kept me nodding my head.  Can see why they wanted Per Nilsson involved, a lot of his influence and some strong Holographic Universe moments in there too.  Keen to check out more from them, cool shit.



Puppies - Manticora - To Live To Kill To Live

I was hyped up for this one.  After Katana it really seemed like an album that could have had that prog metal side that I was started to tire of but mix it with some aggression to get me interested.  Unfortunately, I struggled with this.  Most of the album seems like more symphonic kinda power prog metal or something?  Not sure, I've tried this twice now, but I grew bored both times through it.  I'd probably need to sit with it and the lyrics or something to try and get it to crack cause I like the reprises throughout but not sure why it's not sticking.  I guess the rest for me doesn't live up to Katana and it ventures back into that generic prog metal type of feel.  I'll try again down the track because I'm sure there's a lot here I should be liking, it's just not sticking right now.



TAC - Autonoesis - Moon of Foul Magics

How can something like this be so easy listening?  Because that's what it fucking is.  This fucker ripped from start to finish.  Riff after riff with a great black metal style yet with many Metalica like old school thrash style riffing going on.  And many moments of groove that make you stop and go, 'woah' in typical Butthead like fashion.  The change in tempos and grooves during sections also works really well and not jarring at all.  The vocals are fine, I like them and they do their job.  Pure black metal vocals but along with the production really capture the essence of the style here and brings everything together.  The lead guitar in parts is also very tasty.  I love how at times the guitars just take the lead on their own going into their own sections and exploring and building in its own right.  So many amazing neoclassical moments too.  Such a great contrast with the vocal and riffing sections.  The few quiet bits add to the mood and along with some beautiful acoustics at times too.  like the intro of Black Wings is amazing.  These sections are placed perfectly within the album too.  Nihility, Endless Winter was fucking monstrous, I loved that one.  All in all, this is a great discovery.  I was surprised also the album was 66 mintues long, didn't feel anywhere near that.  Beautiful melodic black metal.


There's a few more I want to listen to but probably will update next week as I won't get as much listening done the rest of this week.

Gave the new live album a spin and it's nice to finally have a new live album after 13 years! I do wish Roine would've released a full show as there were some great songs played on that tour that got cut to make this a single CD. This is prog rock, Roine, you know we love double albums!

Listening to "Stardust We Are" was great as I hadn't listened to it in awhile, but it got me wondering - did the band ever play the studio version of the ending live? Or was it always the more bombastic, dramatic ending they've done on pretty much every live album? I quite like the studio version's ending, which revisits a lot of themes and motifs from earlier in the song and has a more "Awaken"-style ending that I enjoy.

-Marc.