Pandabear

My take on some of the recent metal releases I've checked out.
 
Veil Of Maya's Matriarch was amazing. Love how the elitists went apeshit because the band decided to use clean vocals while ignoring the fact that the music is the best it's been. Technical, melodic, creative and heavy. 
 


Those Human Abstract Vibes and Jason Richardson guitar solo
 
I really dug Iwrestledabearonce's Hail Mary. The band was always quirky but they don't get much credit for their creativity or technical prowess. Hail Mary went serious and just stepped up the heaviness and technical aspects. You get a chaotic metal onslaught. And Courtney was already a great vocalist and this album just proved she's one of the top female vocalist in the metal genre.
 


 
August Burns Red had another great release. They are one of the best bands in the metalcore genre IMO, and Found In Far Away Places was one of the best metalcore releases for this year. It's up their with Feed Her To The Sharks, Fortitude. Miss May I also had a nice come back up. Deathless is the best thing they've put out since Monuments. 
 
Bullet For My Valentine's Venom however was a disappointment. It was better than Temper Temper, but it was missing that bullet magic. It's not even up to par with Fever.
 
Lamb Of Gods VII Sturm Und Drang was killer. Really strong, and Chino Moreno guest vocals is an instant plus.
 
Cattle Decapitation, The Anthropocene Extinction was totally sick. Brutal, heavy, and aggressive. Still love those crazy goblin vocals. 
 


 
And I've been jamming Fear Factory's Genexus since it came out. It's like a cross between Mechanize and the best parts of the Industrialist. Glad to see these guys put out another great album and love the Andy Sneap production. This is why their my favorite Industrial metal band.  
 


 
 

Like the tittle says, what are some stupid and cool band names you've come across? For me band names are important, they can determine whether someone decided to listen to your music, how your indexed online, and should more or less reflect the genre of music you play.    I'll stick to purely Japanese just to keep it simple and relevant.    The Cool   Asian Kung Fu Generation Blood Stain Child - Intriguing and disturbing.  Boom Boom Satellites - This just sounds cool. Dir en grey Fade Galneryus - Is it an alien planet? An intergalactic spaceship? Who cares it sounds cool.  Lost Eden Luna Sea Deathgaze - Simple but cool. Too bad the band rips off songs and their original content is mediocre at best. Oblivion Dust T.M.Revolution - Takanori Makes Revolution. Nice usage of acronyms.  Pay Money To My Pain - I would be rich if this was a thing.   The Bad   Babymetal - I love this band and everyone behind it, but it sounds like they spent 5 minutes to come up with that name.   Screw - So apparently no one in the band thought about online search index?
  9goats Black Out - Too VK-ish. I actually love this band, but the name kept from wanting to listen to their music at first because I found the name off putting and thought they were just another generic vk band.   That being said, at least 50% of vk bands have really godawful band names.    That's about it for me. I don't really listen to vk anymore, so I'm spared some of those atrocious band names, and the rest of the bands I know don't really have bad enough or cool enough names to make the list.     

Ever since I bought a laptop about 6 months ago for vocal recording, which is now essentially my gaming laptop, I frequent the site often. I discovered cpu gaming which before was impossible on my desktop because i use that strictly for audio production. I have around 80 games in my library, about a 1/3 are actually installed and I've only beaten about a handful of those. Yeah i don't have a lot of time for gaming, but what I really like about the site is the indie games. So many gems, lots of duds too though. And the fact that on occasion i can get A list games for $5. The last games I beat and had a lot of fun with was Hero Siege and Unholy heights.
 
Right now I'm working on Claire, a indie horror silent hill type of game, and The Cat Lady,  a psychological horror game.  
 
 
So anybody here use steam? LIke it? or don't?

Ever since I bought a laptop about 6 months ago for vocal recording, which is now essentially my gaming laptop, I frequent the site often. I discovered cpu gaming which before was impossible on my desktop because i use that strictly for audio production. I have around 80 games in my library, about a 1/3 are actually installed and I've only beaten about a handful of those. Yeah i don't have a lot of time for gaming, but what I really like about the site is the indie games. So many gems, lots of duds too though. And the fact that on occasion i can get A list games for $5. The last games I beat and had a lot of fun with was Hero Siege and Unholy heights.
 
Right now I'm working on Claire, a indie horror silent hill type of game, and The Cat Lady,  a psychological horror game.  
 
 
So anybody here use steam? LIke it? or don't?

Ever since I bought a laptop about 6 months ago for vocal recording, which is now essentially my gaming laptop, I frequent the site often. I discovered cpu gaming which before was impossible on my desktop because i use that strictly for audio production. I have around 80 games in my library, about a 1/3 are actually installed and I've only beaten about a handful of those. Yeah i don't have a lot of time for gaming, but what I really like about the site is the indie games. So many gems, lots of duds too though. And the fact that on occasion i can get A list games for $5. The last games I beat and had a lot of fun with was Hero Siege and Unholy heights.
 
Right now I'm working on Claire, a indie horror silent hill type of game, and The Cat Lady,  a psychological horror game.  
 
 
So anybody here use steam? LIke it? or don't?

Imagine that by some magically way music could play during certain moments in your life. Like in a movie. Well just what would those songs be? To make things interesting and make people put some thought into it, I came up with a couple of categories. For the most part they’re self explanatory but I’ll go over each one.
For the Personal Theme song category, pick a song that would be your own personal theme song. For the Happy song category, pick a song that would magically play every time you were happy. For The Sad category a song that would play when you were sad. For the Angry/Frustrated/Fight Song category, pick song that would play when you felt angry/frustrated or felt like fighting. Or maybe even when you actually got into a fight if you’re that type of person.. For The Sulky/Alone category, pick a song that would play when you wanted to be alone. For The Things Gone wrong category, pick a song that would play when something in your life went wrong. For the Hopeful category, pick a song that would play when you feel hopeful or that would play when you were getting yourself out of a dark place. For The Love /Romance Category, pick a song that would play whenever a romantic moment occurred. Now for the Death Category, pick a song you would like to hear as you die. And for the Funeral category, pick the song that would be played at your funeral.
Like I said, it’s self explanatory. Once you’re done you will have the soundtrack to your life. Here’s mine with the categories next to each song.
Personal Theme song: Filter- Hey Man, Nice Shot
Happy song: Blink-182 - Feeling This
Love/Romance song: A Flock of Seagulls - Space Age Love Song
Sad Song: Gabriela Robin- Some Other Time
Angry/Frustrated/Fight song: Skeletonwitch - Crushed Beyond Dust
Sulky/Alone song: Deftones: Change (In The House Of Flies)
Things Going Wrong Song: Scarling - Crispin Glover
Hopeful song: Coheed and Cambria - Far
Death song: Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
Funeral song: Marilyn Manson - The Last Day of Earth
Okay now here would be mines without the category next to each one. And what yours should look like as well.
Pandabears Life Soundtrack
1.Filter- Hey Man, Nice Shot
2.Blink-182 - Feeling This
3.A Flock of Seagulls - Space Age Love Song
4.Gabriela Robin- Some Other Time
5. Skeletonwitch - Crushed Beyond Dust
6. Deftones - Change (In The House Of Flies)
7.Scarling - Crispin Glover
8. Coheed and Cambria - Far
9.Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
10.Marilyn Manson - The Last Day of Earth
Hope that all makes sense. And as you can tell from my selections the songs don’t have to be Jrock.

Summer Slaughter Tour 2015 + The All Stars tour
 
Normally they are both separate tours but they came together in my city to create one awesome metal lineup.
 
Arch Enemy
Born Of Osiris
Veil of Maya
After The Burial
Cattle decapitation 
Within The Ruins
Upon A Burning Body
Iwrestledabearonce
The Acacia Strain
Conquer Divide
 Plus a ton more.
 
I actually only got to see 6 bands perform because they took up all the floors of the concert venue and multiple bands were playing different floors at different times. I will say the stand outs for me were Veil of Maya and Arch Enemy. I knew alissa could growl, but holy cow she sounds amazing live. And Jeff loomis and Michael amott were spot on perfect.

Don't know whats up with the dragon ball super stills. What do they not have the budget for it or something? Or could it be that the project was rushed, which I'm founding out is a common thing in japanese anime/film. Mostly film.
 
So i recently discovered crunchyroll and totally went on some anime binges.
 
 
Another  - This is probably one of the best japanese horror/mystery animes i have seen. I can't help but think it might have something to do because it was based on a well received Japanese novel.I don't even want to write a summary because I don't want to give anything away. In any case I love how addicting this thing is. It leaves you wanting more, wanting to find out what, why and who.
 
Again, I don't know want to say much because I don't want to give away spoilers, but there's a couple of well executed twists. And although i wouldn't really call it a horror anime, it has a very spooky and drab atmosphere and lots and lots of death. The first one was extremely gruesome.  And for once, this a 12 episode anime that actually manages to end without feeling rushed or incomplete. Recommended.
 
BTOOM - The plot for this had me intrigued. Basically your NEET type anime guy is sent to a island to play a popular online game for real in a deathmatch against others. There are some familiar concepts in this anime but I'm glad they made those concepts their own. You actually learn to care about the main characters and they have decent backstories. The animation and style is also very good. In a lot of ways this show reminded me of an anime version of battle royale, which isn't  a bad thing imo. My only two main gripes are its length, 12 episodes, and something in the actual anime that I can't really say because of spoilers, but I'll just say venom.
 
Your Lie In April  - And this just became one of my favorite animes of all time. The simple synopsis; a tragic/drama story about a young piano prodigy who stops playing after the death of his mother.  Let me just say there are SO MUCH FEELS in this show. If you think that summary i gave was tragic wait till you actually watch the anime. This a real tear jerker, pulling on your heart strings kind of anime. You would have to be a robot for this show to not evoke emotion out of you. On personal level I found this show to deeply resonate with me, because i was/am going to something similar(but not as tragic) as some of the concepts in this anime and I am violinist/pianist too.
 
The concepts of guilt, loss, love, depression and adolescence are explored and presented very well. The story is tragic but also has beautiful animation and music. Lots of classical pieces and musical duels. This is as much a drama piece as a musical one. If you're like everyone else, you'll probably be looking up classical music or wanting to go play violin or piano by the time the show ends. Highly recommended. Just be aware, the feels is strong in this one. Be prepared to hold back tears. 

Recently Finished 
 
Death Parade
 
Gunslinger Stratos - Thought the plot was messy at the very beginning, but surprisingly they more or less made it work after a couple of revealing episodes. 
 
The Devil Is A Part Timer - A teenage satan working at mcdonalds trying to make his rent because he’s stuck in the world of the living. This is probably one my most recent favorite comedic animes. I need a second season now. 
 
Corpse Princess - Saw the trailer a longtime ago, picked up the dvd, it was pretty decent. Thought it was going down a predictable road towards the middle but glad that changed by the end. It was decent, even if the budget for the anime was obvious.
 
Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? - One of my favorite anime series for the year. Despite the sucky 12 episode run. (De hell is up with all these 12 episode anime runs anyway? No I don’t want to go read the manga. Just finish the damn anime) Basically about adventurers going into a dungeon in order to level up their skills and earn money.
 
It’s funny because it reminds of me being in a fantasy RPG yet this anime isn’t about being stuck in a virtual reality game or something like that. And it pulls off a lot of things those other virtual game animes tried to do but better. It’s not without fault or cliches, but the good outweighs the bad. Plus there’s some bad ass battles in this.
 
 
Watching 
 
Plastic Memories - Only watched the 1st episode so cant say much about it yet. 
 
Prison School - This is so hilarious. And those facial expressions  
 
Ninja Slayer - Just randomly start watching this and I’m glad I did. It’s like a strange hybrid of an adultswim stoner show like Aqua Teen Hunger Force crossed over with traditional anime. Both in comedic taste and in the actual animation, 
 

 
, and even it’s short 13 minute per episode runtime. Plot is nothing special, but it picks up after a couple of episodes. It’s interesting to see Japanese audiences getting into western animation and comedy. Also love the series has featured everything from 80kidz to Boris in its ending credits. 

Recently Finished 
 
Death Parade
 
Gunslinger Stratos - Thought the plot was messy at the very beginning, but surprisingly they more or less made it work after a couple of revealing episodes. 
 
The Devil Is A Part Timer - A teenage satan working at mcdonalds trying to make his rent because he’s stuck in the world of the living. This is probably one my most recent favorite comedic animes. I need a second season now. 
 
Corpse Princess - Saw the trailer a longtime ago, picked up the dvd, it was pretty decent. Thought it was going down a predictable road towards the middle but glad that changed by the end. It was decent, even if the budget for the anime was obvious.
 
Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? - One of my favorite anime series for the year. Despite the sucky 12 episode run. (De hell is up with all these 12 episode anime runs anyway? No I don’t want to go read the manga. Just finish the damn anime) Basically about adventurers going into a dungeon in order to level up their skills and earn money.
 
It’s funny because it reminds of me being in a fantasy RPG yet this anime isn’t about being stuck in a virtual reality game or something like that. And it pulls off a lot of things those other virtual game animes tried to do but better. It’s not without fault or cliches, but the good outweighs the bad. Plus there’s some bad ass battles in this.
 
 
Watching 
 
Plastic Memories - Only watched the 1st episode so cant say much about it yet. 
 
Prison School - This is so hilarious. And those facial expressions  
 
Ninja Slayer - Just randomly start watching this and I’m glad I did. It’s like a strange hybrid of an adultswim stoner show like Aqua Teen Hunger Force crossed over with traditional anime. Both in comedic taste and in the actual animation, 
 

 
, and even it’s short 13 minute per episode runtime. Plot is nothing special, but it picks up after a couple of episodes. It’s interesting to see Japanese audiences getting into western animation and comedy. Also love the series has featured everything from 80kidz to Boris in its ending credits. 

I'm probably sure this has happened to everybody at some point. You were expecting a release you were looking forward to only to be disappointment by the material when it was actually released. Or a band catches your attention and you wait and wait and wait for that amazing release but they're never able to produce anything actually astounding or brilliant. I've had both of these happen to me. 
 
 
For bands I feel that never were able to produce anything amazing but got/are stuck or went downhill;
 
Jewelduel - They have good singles, but I feel they're always stuck in mediocrity with their albums. They don't stand out for me or push the envelope.
 
Vamps - Again they put out good singles but their albums are filled with way too much filler. I was actually looking forward for their album after they released Ahead/Replay, but the album proved to be another letdown. : ( 
 
Lycaon - Got into these guys because of their Red Rum mini. Great release.  I checked out their next release after release after release, year after year and was always disappointed. Everything else that followed was sub par. I eventually gave up on them and stopped following them.
 
Deluhi - I was always hearing people talk/rave about this band. Still do. Never got the hype around them. They had amazing players but only ok songs with only a few songs I would actually call great. 
 
Cyntia - Pretty cool all girl power metal band. Their debut was decent but they total went downhill on their 2nd album
 
Scandal - Really dug their brand of rock-pop, but the same fate befall on them as above.
 
 
As for albums
 
That weird girgumesh 2 album phase were they did a complete 180 and tried to be j-pop Oricon chart hipsters.
 
Kyary Pamyu - Pamyu Pamyu Revolution. Wasn't as catchy or cohesive of an album as her debut. Although I will say a lot of the songs on this album are 10x better live.  
 
Perfume - Delta. Had some strong and ok songs but as whole was a weak album.  (defaq is up with nakata and his sophomoric releases?)
 
Crossfaith - Apocalyze. The music on this was actual decent, although it could have been better. But what really let me down was the production on this album. So god aweful. Goes to show production can still fuck up albums, seen it happen to A list bands as well. 
 
 
I'm drawing a blank now. Have been out of the Japanese music scene for a while so perhaps I don't have as many examples. 
 
What are everyone else's musical disappointments/letdowns? Band wise or album wise?

I'm probably sure this has happened to everybody at some point. You were expecting a release you were looking forward to only to be disappointment by the material when it was actually released. Or a band catches your attention and you wait and wait and wait for that amazing release but they're never able to produce anything actually astounding or brilliant. I've had both of these happen to me. 
 
 
For bands I feel that never were able to produce anything amazing but got/are stuck or went downhill;
 
Jewelduel - They have good singles, but I feel they're always stuck in mediocrity with their albums. They don't stand out for me or push the envelope.
 
Vamps - Again they put out good singles but their albums are filled with way too much filler. I was actually looking forward for their album after they released Ahead/Replay, but the album proved to be another letdown. : ( 
 
Lycaon - Got into these guys because of their Red Rum mini. Great release.  I checked out their next release after release after release, year after year and was always disappointed. Everything else that followed was sub par. I eventually gave up on them and stopped following them.
 
Deluhi - I was always hearing people talk/rave about this band. Still do. Never got the hype around them. They had amazing players but only ok songs with only a few songs I would actually call great. 
 
Cyntia - Pretty cool all girl power metal band. Their debut was decent but they total went downhill on their 2nd album
 
Scandal - Really dug their brand of rock-pop, but the same fate befall on them as above.
 
 
As for albums
 
That weird girgumesh 2 album phase were they did a complete 180 and tried to be j-pop Oricon chart hipsters.
 
Kyary Pamyu - Pamyu Pamyu Revolution. Wasn't as catchy or cohesive of an album as her debut. Although I will say a lot of the songs on this album are 10x better live.  
 
Perfume - Delta. Had some strong and ok songs but as whole was a weak album.  (defaq is up with nakata and his sophomoric releases?)
 
Crossfaith - Apocalyze. The music on this was actual decent, although it could have been better. But what really let me down was the production on this album. So god aweful. Goes to show production can still fuck up albums, seen it happen to A list bands as well. 
 
 
I'm drawing a blank now. Have been out of the Japanese music scene for a while so perhaps I don't have as many examples. 
 
What are everyone else's musical disappointments/letdowns? Band wise or album wise?

I'm probably sure this has happened to everybody at some point. You were expecting a release you were looking forward to only to be disappointment by the material when it was actually released. Or a band catches your attention and you wait and wait and wait for that amazing release but they're never able to produce anything actually astounding or brilliant. I've had both of these happen to me. 
 
 
For bands I feel that never were able to produce anything amazing but got/are stuck or went downhill;
 
Jewelduel - They have good singles, but I feel they're always stuck in mediocrity with their albums. They don't stand out for me or push the envelope.
 
Vamps - Again they put out good singles but their albums are filled with way too much filler. I was actually looking forward for their album after they released Ahead/Replay, but the album proved to be another letdown. : ( 
 
Lycaon - Got into these guys because of their Red Rum mini. Great release.  I checked out their next release after release after release, year after year and was always disappointed. Everything else that followed was sub par. I eventually gave up on them and stopped following them.
 
Deluhi - I was always hearing people talk/rave about this band. Still do. Never got the hype around them. They had amazing players but only ok songs with only a few songs I would actually call great. 
 
Cyntia - Pretty cool all girl power metal band. Their debut was decent but they total went downhill on their 2nd album
 
Scandal - Really dug their brand of rock-pop, but the same fate befall on them as above.
 
 
As for albums
 
That weird girgumesh 2 album phase were they did a complete 180 and tried to be j-pop Oricon chart hipsters.
 
Kyary Pamyu - Pamyu Pamyu Revolution. Wasn't as catchy or cohesive of an album as her debut. Although I will say a lot of the songs on this album are 10x better live.  
 
Perfume - Delta. Had some strong and ok songs but as whole was a weak album.  (defaq is up with nakata and his sophomoric releases?)
 
Crossfaith - Apocalyze. The music on this was actual decent, although it could have been better. But what really let me down was the production on this album. So god aweful. Goes to show production can still fuck up albums, seen it happen to A list bands as well. 
 
 
I'm drawing a blank now. Have been out of the Japanese music scene for a while so perhaps I don't have as many examples. 
 
What are everyone else's musical disappointments/letdowns? Band wise or album wise?

I second this. I miss having my playlist on the side as well without having to switch the My Music and Playlist tab. This is why I don't upgrade itunes anymore. I've thought about downgrading back, but too lazy for that. 

^ Yeah that was a fun episode. I think my favorites from the 1st season are the ones with the cronenberg creatures and meseeks box. And the one with satan selling cursed items and rick using science to uncurse them lol. 
 
 
I haven't really searched online but it wouldn't surprise me if the first 2 episodes were released/leaked ahead of the scheduled airdate. The 1st episode of the new episode was really good as expected. Schrodinger's cats everywhere.

Like the title says, how does everyone go about it? Right now I have 4 hard drives. 2 internal and 2 external hooked up. I mainly keep what I listen to on the 2 internal drives i have and use the other 2 external as backups.
 
As far as organizing goes, I keep all my music in 1 main folder with all the according albums following for each drive. I go artists/band name followed by the tittle of the album. I tried to include dates at one point in the folder name but it was too much work, made things messy and I realized I don't really care about date.  I have shortcuts on my desktop to access all those main music folders so I can store or bring up any album relatively quickly.  I recently also made a new folder where I keep all my lossy files.
 
For actually listening to the hundreds of gigabytes worth of songs I have amassed over the years, I usually stick to itunes. Not my favorite platform and I haven't updated it because the newer versions tend to have lots of bugs. I think I used foo bar for awhile but i forget why i stopped using it. Now i mostly use winamp. It's a pain opening and closing itunes with the huge amount of songs i have, and it's a resource hog. That's why I stick to winamp. I do audio production and sometimes I just want to listen to something inbetween sessions and itunes just takes too long and takes up ram i need. 
 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wG8ObCBE0
 
Anybody watch this? It's like a crazy back to the future with interdimensional space travel on crack. Was a huge fan of the first season and can't wait for the 2nd season. Love the crazy scifi antics, the strange creatures/aliens, the cleaver writing and the way this show pulls off crude jokes in a smart way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wG8ObCBE0
 
Anybody watch this? It's like a crazy back to the future with interdimensional space travel on crack. Was a huge fan of the first season and can't wait for the 2nd season. Love the crazy scifi antics, the strange creatures/aliens, the cleaver writing and the way this show pulls off crude jokes in a smart way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wG8ObCBE0
 
Anybody watch this? It's like a crazy back to the future with interdimensional space travel on crack. Was a huge fan of the first season and can't wait for the 2nd season. Love the crazy scifi antics, the strange creatures/aliens, the cleaver writing and the way this show pulls off crude jokes in a smart way.

Probably the first band that exposed me to the post-punk scene was Interpol. Every album they put out is great and they're still one of my favorite bands, but their debut album, Turn On The Bright Lights, remains their masterpiece.
 


 


 
And of course can't have a post-punk thread and not mention Joy division.
 


 
Also good thread. I'm always in search of more bands of this style.
 

They're awesome! Ever since Game I've become a huge fan. Especially since I'm a sucker for electro pop. I've been meaning to download their latest album. I'm hoping it's as awesome as their last.

Such brutality and groove. Ian way improved on his already amazing vocals.
 

Such brutality and groove. Ian way improved on his already amazing vocals.
 

Terra Formars - Going to fight giant mutant-beast humanoid roaches on mars to find a cure for a deadly virus on earth? Hell yes.
 

 
Parasyte The Maxim - Having an alien parasite trying to take over your brain but instead having it take over your hand and giving you a shape shifting intelligent talking parasite for a hand to fend off the other invading alien parasites. A 2nd hell yes.
 

 
And Psycho-Pass 2
 
Gotta love the sci-fi anime.

Found out about Slaughter To Prevail the other day only because lucas munn posted about them on his facebook. Speaking of which, I can't wait for the new Rings Of Saturn album to drop. More insane double bass, blast beats, technical guitar riffage, brutal vocals and alien themed songs.