Pandabear

I’m not getting all the bashing this release is taking. I’ve never really been a fan of the band but I do like some of their albums. This being another one of them. It’s a good enjoyable listen if your into alternative metal or a Japanese metalcore derivative. This album does have a major metalcore inspired influence. The drumming, guitars and gang yells all pretty much are giving huge nods to the genre. That being said, the band still does manages to compromise with their new found influence and their signature sound, so the songs do sound and have that lynch vibe. There are a lot of songs I enjoy and moments within those songs that stand out to me. The signature lynch time delayed guitar lines, the drumming, or some of the melodies and choruses. The biggest problem with this release is undoubtedly its length. Making an album of long duration takes skill and careful execution otherwise you risk dragging out the album, boring the listener and recycling material. The aforementioned problems are all present in Gallows. It’s not even that the album is too long, it’s that there's not enough variation. There’s too much repetition and as a result too much stagnation. The band could have created a much better release by streamlining, get rid of the weak tracks, keep the great ones and work on improving the tracks that are just good. I would have taken a consistent and powerful 30 - 35 minute album over a 43 minute album of varying high and low points. Or if the band was deadset on making a 43 minute long album, at least put in more experimental or creative songs to avoid dragging out the album and boring the listener. I’ll take quality over quantity any day. To touch upon the production issue raised by others, I feel it’s been exaggerated. The way the production has been criticized is akin to hinting the album was recorded in someone’s basement and recorded with a potato. This might be the actual case with some indie brootalz vk band somewhere, but the production on this album is good and passable. Separation of frequencies is there and the instruments all have their place and are listenable. The production is not the greatest ever or without flaws but it’s listenable and doesn’t distract too much from the actual music. I will say the weakest point of the production are the vocals. Between the growls and cleans, there’s not much mids and I’m not particularly fond of how they sit in the actual mix at times. This occurs more in the heavier songs. The instruments do seem scooped, it’s actually common in this type of genre, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did go overboard and considering how the cleans vocals are more trebly, they probably could have gotten away with leaving more mids on the guitars or the vocals. Someone did mess up on the EQ. It’s not a great album or a bad album, but a fairly decent one with good and meh songs. You can listen to it in it’s entirety, or just hack it down it and get rid of the all of the weaker songs and enjoy what’s left. 6.5/10 in it’s entirety 7/10 hacked down to only the best songs.

I love this show. It's one of my favorite TV series right now. I loved the 1st season and was glad it came back for a 2nd season and didn't get cancelled. I have never read the Hannibal novels so I can't compare the quality or continuity of the Tv series to the books, but as a stand alone show I love it. Love the acting by the 3 lead males, the script, character development, symbolism, dialogue and the gory yet creative crime scenes. The cinematography is definitely one of the best things about the series and the avante gardesque musical score is also pretty sweet. It's not a perfect show, and does have it's flaws, but I feel they're minor and it would be nitpicking to pass of the series as bad because of those flaws and not give credit to all the excellent material the show does have and executes so well. I have seen silence of the lambs and I must I agree I prefer Mads over Hopkins as Hannibal. They're portrayals are both good, but I prefer Mads as his character has had so much more time to develop and for the viewer to get to know him. Mads has had 13+ hours over hopkins 2 1/2 hours to showcase the depth, evolution and character of Hannibal. It's one of the advantages a TV series has over movies. There so much more that can be done with a character over period of time than a 2 hour film can. I haven't missed an episode of this show and I don't plan to. It's consistently great and leaves the viewer wanting more. Good to see there are others who enjoy this show. There aren't many people I know who are into the show. This series also has an epic opening scene for it's 1st episode of its 2nd season. A fight to the death between Mads and Laurence fishburne's character. I can't wait to see how the events unravel to lead up to this and to get to see the conclusion to the fight. Hannibal vs Morpheus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMWhVMr8yss

Hmm.. Dem flutes...

Saw Kyary Pamyu Pamyu last night. It was a blast. Show sold out. It was good to see people of all ages waiting in line.The mix for her live songs were spot on and her songs from her second album, which I thought mostly weren't good as her first, are about 10x better live. Only disappointment was the merch table. One hoodie and t-shirts that weren't male friendly at all. A meh poster, $10 sticker set, a towel and a cheap looking inflatable pink bunny. Don't know why they didn't have any of her albums available for purchase. I think I'll just purchase my Kyary merch online. Other than that it was super fun.

I've had a modest increase. 158.6 Gigs 28619 songs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU6TDgqFXbc Considering they're my all time favorite shoegaze band and that they just reunited, it seemed appropriate to make a thread for these guys. Needless to say I love their music. Souvlaki is a shoegaze masterpiece. Even if you're not familiar with the genre, but enjoy good alternative rock or indie music you should check it out. I'm dying to see them live, but they've only announced 2 dates so far. One in Spain and one in London. I think both have sold out. There has also been hints of possible new music. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for U.S concert dates and a new album.

Kyary Pamyu Tickets Asking Alexandria Tickets CPU RAM Periphery's Clear

Need new album now.

Both are important for me. Can't have an amazing instrumental without equally quality vocals. It works the other way around too. Can't have amazing vocals without a proper instrumental backing it up. It does no good if you have an awesome vocalist when the rest of the music is crap/boring or vice versa. I think most bands can get away without having a great vocalist, or maybe even having a crappy one, if the rest of the members are great composers/players, but even if you have a god like vocalist, it won't be enough to save a horribly performed/written track. I'm a huge guitar/music nerd so with me, all the components ( great vocals, great instrumental, great composition, great production) have to be there for me.

Awesome. It's about time. Can't wait.

Not sure if I should be excited for this or not after their alchemy release. I really hope rikki got the vocal help he needed.

I'm just going to jump in and say none of the bands mentioned earlier are post-hardcore. Atreyu is metalcore with vocals heavily influenced by hardcore, early Ax7 was also metalcore before they went alternative metal/hardrock. And devil wears prada is also metalcore, although their ZOMBIE EP had some deathcore influenced vocals. I'm not really familiar their earlier work, but everything from ZOMBIE EP upwards is amazing. Heavy, melodic and creative. There's a lot of interesting riffs, cool synths, brutal vox balanced by melodic cleans and sick drumming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejMB0oYWYok Seeing as TDWP is metalcore and a thousands years of plague is deathcore I feel it's unfair to compare the two. I liked what I heard from a thousands years, but I honestly wouldn't call them original or creative by any means. At least not from that one song. There are a lot more creative/brutal bands in the deathcore scene. I can't say I share the same sentimentality with people who say all the bands in the core scene sound the same or are generic because there are a heap doing really creative and interesting things. There are some fantastic ones too. I feel like most ppl who say the aforementioned statement aren't listening to the right bands or maybe just haven't realized the scene isn't for them. If you go in expecting not to hear chugging, double bass, growls and perhaps melodic cleans, than your simply setting yourself up for a fall. Those are trademarks of the genre. Some people get so caught up in these details they fail to see when a band uses these elements in a new original way or when the band does come with something unique. It's like going to listen to rap and then railing on it because it has beats or rapping ,or complaining about rock music because it contains electric guitars. And if you want dynamics in your vocals, death metal and deathcore are probably not the genres to be looking at. It might be harder for someone who's new to those scene's to distinguish between each band's vocalists, but there are small and huge differences between vocalists depending on the band. Metalcore would probably be a better place for more dynamic vocals as the growls and screams vary more in style and most of those bands also implement melodic cleans, which has been done to death, but can be amazing with a proper band and singer. The good thing about the generic bands that did pop up after the core thing became popular was that it forced other established and up-incoming bands to be more creative in order to set themselves apart. And being generic in of itself isn't a bad thing. There are bands that are not original by any means, but they play damn good music. I enjoy a lot of bands from different genres that could be considered "generic", but they make good music so I don't really care if they're not the most creative or original band in the world.

+1 for an anime movie to start things off with.

When it comes to me, It’s not like the first thing I focus on when listening to a metal band or a band who uses unclean vocals are the growls or screams. I generally take in the music as a whole and different overt elements on how melodic or skilled they may be and some subtle aspects after multiple listens. However if I’m listening to a song and I hear something I don’t like, it automatically draws my attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s the vocals, the guitars or the drumming, a bad enough performance by either of those things can and will ruin a song for me. Sure you don’t need formal training to growl, in fact a lot of vocalists in the genre started off as self taught, but they practice their butts off to sound good and learn proper technique. Like it or not, technique is a huge part of unclean vocals, regardless of the type you’re doing. It’s protects your voice, maximizes the impact of your growls/screams and allows you to be more versatile if needed. Just like a good self taught guitarist will work to learn how to properly play a guitar and be competent at a basic level, so should anyone doing growls. Otherwise much like a incompetent guitar player, you will sound bad. This is hard to explain when it comes to growling/screaming, but if it sounds wimpy, awkward, is missing prescence, off time, too shrill or sounds shakey, than chances are it's bad. I understand the tone and style of unclean vocalist’s vary and will attract certain people and repel others, but the basic foundation for the growls and screams should be there. If it’s not, then in my opinion the performance is bad and it will undoubtedly ruin the music. There’s no way around it, just like you can’t excuse a guitar player for hitting all the wrong notes on the fretboard, or a sloppy out of time drummer and expect to achieve a good level of quality music. Suck at growls? Suck at playing guitar or anything else? Then don’t put out music that sounds bad, has any type of bad performances or practice until at the very minium you sound decent. This is one of the core factors that separates the pro’s/serious musicians from the noobs. I’ve seen this problem in the underground metal/hardcore scence on the web too. Kids trying to be all metalz by doing unclean vocals that just sound god awful, so this isn’t just limited to VK. Unfortunately VK has become one of the few scenes on the planet where anyone who wants to be metal (or actually play any type of genre), yet don’t quite possess the skills to do so, can get away with bad performances and still get a decent amount of fans/fame. If these bands started off as “normal” non VK bands they would either get laughed off for their terrible music/performances or no one would even pay attention to them. But don typical VK attire, use stage names and quirky nonsensical album/tour/song titles incorporating butchered English and OMG, these guys are so good, their so unique (bad). I’ve gone off on an entirely different matter here, but I feel it applies to the reason why there aren’t many good metal bands in the VK scene and why their growlers suck. And as Arithmetica has mentioned they’re trying do the whole core genre which already has a set standard. Even the most unoriginal, blandest boringcore bands out there have better skill and performances than most VK bands. To bring things back on topic, here are some Japanese Bands I can think of who use unclean vocals and who's music I dig. One of my fav metal bands from Japan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fo0CR23Z8 Maiko has more balls in her screaming rants than most of her male counterparts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVG_bBJU94A Hayato has pretty good screams/growls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-g_LiHK6w Who says girls can't do death metal? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teFUAmqHqKA Shoohey is featured in a lot of vocaloid work but he's got the goodz. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LKmFWAyQso Other non vk bands with good/decent unclean vocals IMO. Maximum the Hormone Backshot Roberts Crossfaith Pay Money To my Pain Artema And a lot more that escape me at the moment.

Yeah, I'm one of the people who loves unclean vocals. Ever since I got into metal it's something I highly enjoy. I feel like for most people who have never heard it, it might take some time to full appreciate and enjoy the technique. I used to not like unclean vocals at all when I was younger. I think it was my attraction to melodic metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage and All That Remains that made me appreciate the raw power, passion and immense technique involved in being able to pull off growls. I gravitated toward those bands because of the instrumentation and the singers awesome melodic cleans, but overtime grew to like the screams/growls. Now I enjoy all types of extreme metal and usually any form of unclean vocals. I think it is highly under rated how much technique and practice is involved in pulling proper screams and growls. There are numerous techniques and many different types of unclean vocals; grunts, death growls, death shrieks, pig squels, the more raw black metal vocals, etc. These may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they require endurance, good technique, presence, timing and in some cases good articulation. Strictly speaking for Japan, there are some decent vocalists who use unclean vocals, but they mostly are outside of VK. For some reason Vk houses a lot of terrible unclean vocalists. Unclean vocals are suppose to be powerful, brutal and harsh, but Vk vocalists only hit the harsh quality and it's in the making my ears bleed type of way. I get not all vocalists out there are trying to be have the most BROOtal sounding vox, but there still should be some type of power behind it. With the majority of vk, they just sound half assed, wimpy and plain terrible as a result of bad technique. As mentioned before the only vocalist who actually does it right is the vocalist for Nocturnal Bloodlust. All these other wanna be metal vk vocalists should pay attention and learn a thing or two from him.

Oblivion - Amazing visual effects. Tom cruise does some good acting and the sci-fic story is not too shabby. 7/10 Hansel and Gretel - Action packed film version of the children's tale. I wouldn't really call it action packed....violent..yes. Predictable story and dialogue with some okay acting. I would only watch this film if you're really bored. 4.5/10 The Great and Powerful Oz - 2013 prequel to the great wizard of oz. Visual effects are great and so is this acting. Mila kunis, why you so hot? It is a bit long at 2 hours and a half, but still enjoyable. 7/10 Jack The Giant Slayer - Another movie based on a children's tale. This was actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was a fun watch. 6.5/10

Wrapping up the last few days... Boris - You can never go wrong with Boris M-Koda - I loved Drawing Arrow Diagram. It's one of my fav electronic albums of 2013. Glad to see it made it on the list. Nocturnal Bloodlust - Grimoire was great, even though I liked their other 2013 releases better. Still, Nocturnal Bloodlust is one of the only Japanese bands that does the core genre any justice. They have the creativity, technicality and brutality so many other wannabe core vk bands lack. Ling Tosite Sigure - Good to see I'mperfect didn't get overlooked either. Fantastic album. This should make an appearance on everyone's list. Overall I highly enjoyed this 25 days of xmas music review stint. I have yet to check out all the bands but I already have discovered quite a few jems. I know lists can subjective for everyone, but I agree with 98% of the bands that were chosen for this. The staff reviews were also fun to read. So to everyone involved in this I will say good job.

Street fighter based songs for the win. Emmure - Last words to Rose

Checked out Div and I was highly impressed. Finally a VK band that does the electronic thing right! Not only is the production great but so is the music. I really enjoyed their rock style and the electronic flourishes. The vocalist actually knows how to sing and the guitar riffs and drumming is great. You can tell the effort that went into this release. If only other vk bands could strive and achieve this level of quality. 2nd best vk album of the year behind Jupiter imo. My 2 other discoveries from this list was Kinoko Teikoku and Tam Tam. Loved eureka by Kinoko Teiku. That release is just amazing and so is this band. I have to go check out there other releases now. Also really enjoyed the eccentric sound of Tam Tam. I'm glad Yōsei Teikoku's PAX VESANIA was included on this list. It's the best album they've done so far. I need to check out the other releases but there's lots of quality awesome stuff here.

Awesome cover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kNetd_lISI

I’m just going to throw this out there. Does Lichtnoire need anyone to handle mixing/production duties? I wouldn’t mind it giving it a shot. I think I could get good results and not only maintain the old school vibe but add to it too.

Prometheus - Awesome sci-fi film. The basic premise, trying to prove that the existence of human beings came about as the creation of advanced ancient aliens. Traveling in a space-ship to some unknown alien planet to discover the origins of humanity....you know things will go wrong eventually, but the ride is immensely enjoyable. 8/10 Akira - I'm an anime fan and have seen most of the acclaimed must see anime films, but I had yet to see this one. This film was incredible. Love the dirty cyberpunk feel and the animation. The story and characters were great. It's funny, intelligent and brutally violent at times. 9.5/10 Mr.Brooks - I guess this would be your thriller/psychological movie. Basically about a seemingly normal business/family man who has a secret addiction to murdering people and gets blackmailed into continuing to kill, despite wanting to quit his addiction. It's not perfect, but it keeps the viewer interested and the lead performance is strong. It also made Asking Alexandria's song, Hey There Mr. Brooks more enjoyable now that I've seen the movie. 6.5/10 Sunshine Cleaning - Comedy/drama film about a single mom who takes on the job of cleaning up gruesome crime scenes. An enjoyable indie film with good acting, dialogue and story. 7.5/10

Emmure - Protoman Hmmm there's something about this song I really like.