Bear

It really is, and it's one of the most underrated albums of all time. A perfect heavy/power metal album unlike anything you've ever heard, or will hear. Magic!

Day 4, the ending: Started the day with egg & bacon, beer and minttu shots for breakfast. And as usual we missed out on some bands we wanted to see because they started way too early. Secrets of the Moon, Deathcult and Kampfar played while we were still drinking beer and shotting minttu. Shame, especially about Deathcult, but that's festival life for ya. Slagmaur kicked off our last day at Inferno, and Slagmaur was one of the bands I had highest expectations about. It's only their third concert ever (one in 2013, one in 2014 and now one in 2015), but the band disappointed big. They started off with a way too long intro sample which was silly as fuck as well, and I had expected something weird and wicked, but this was standard shit with masks that didn't work and all that. There was nothing wicked about this at all, and it didn't sound very good either. 4/10 Dødheimsgard was one of the bands we looked forward to due to giving us a great concert some years ago, as well as a new masterpiece in their discography and original vocalist Aldrahn back in the team. But this was a disappointment. Aldrahn looked extremely uncomfortable on stage, the new songs didn't work too well, the sound was poor and bassist L.E. Måløy was acting like a moron on stage, reminding me of Robert Trujillo. Completely out of place. Yeah, no. Didn't work out. 5/10 Mortuary Drape are a band I adore more than most, and the band didn't disappoint me, which is weird because my expectations were immense... just like the band. I've seen plenty of pictures of the band live and they've done lots of different stuff from weird-as-fuck-makeup to other things, but this evening they entered the stage in robes and pretty standard corpsepain, and they looked great... but sounded even better. It was pretty untight and shabby, but it really does fit the heavy metalesque black metal of the band and things eally worked out. Among the festival's best bands if you ask me. 9/10 Bloodbath was the headliner of the evening and they really did surprise me. They delivered a great fucking gig, and with songs such as Breeding Death and Eaten you couldn't really ask for much more. Nick Holmes was a cool frontman even though he didn't know all the lyrics and had to use a lyric sheet tapes to the floor, and his vocals sounded brilliant. His vocals were powerful as fuck, just at the other end of what I had expected. I expected some cool, but weak and powerless vocals from the dude. But he's still got it. Anyway, great gig! 9/10 Sectu got to end this years Inferno and I thought they did well. Not the best, but it was a very enjoyable gig for sure. And a nice ending to a fantastic festival. 7/10 As usual a great festival. A big party with lots of great people and more than enough good bands. Satisfied? Fucking satisfied!

I have seen some more Tales From the Cryp season 2t: Episode 7, The Sacrifice - This one's directed by Richard Greenberg (Little Monsters) and is by far the weakest of the series till now. A huge disappointment. It's predictable and lacks everything really. It's not godawful, just not good either. 5/10 Episode 8, For Cryin' Out Loud - This episode with Lee Arenberg and Katey Sagal was really good. It's silly and fun, and the over the top performance by Lee Arenberg is amazing. 8/10 Episode 9, Four-Sided Triangle - Another one by Tom Holland who did the great Lover Come Hack to Me from seasn 1. Chelcie Ross stands out in this episode as the perverted farmer George. Love a couple of the scenes as well, as they are fantasticly surreal. 8/10 Episode 10, The Ventriloquist's Dummy - This is another episode by Richard Donner who did the great Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone from season 1 with great performances from Don Rickles and Bobcat Goldthwait, who's probably best known as screaming Zed from Police Academy 2-4. It's a great twist on the ventriloquist-story we've all seen so many times before. I actually got a bit of Basket Case feeling from the episode. Amazing stuff! 9/10 Episode 11, Judy, You're Not Yourself Today - Fantastic, over the top and silly episode with a superb Brian Kerwin who more or less drives this episode on his own. His theatrical acting just makes this a pleasure to the eye. Great episode! 8/10

Finished Better Call Saul season 1 yesterday and rewatched Game of Thrones season 1 these last two days. Better Call Saul's been very good. I really enjoy getting to know my two favourite characters from Breaking Bad, Jimmy/Saul and Mike, a lot better with their back history and such. I really enjoy it, and they just get more and more likeable and awesome with every single episode. I'm really looking forward to next season even though I've heard it might not start where this season ended. But we'll see. Rewatched Game of Throne season 1 as well, and it's even better now than when I first saw it. Best drama there is. Lots of fantastic actos and even more fantastic characters. The highlights of the season are without no doubt whatsoever Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, Charles Dance as Tywin and Conleth Hill as Varys, backed up by Maisie Williams as Arya, Jack Gleeson as Joffrey and Aidan Gillen as Littlefinger. Every single scene with Tyrion, Cersei, Tywin ad Varys are a pleasure to the eyes and airs. The performances, the dialogue, it's so fucking brilliant. I would pay a lot for a spin-off with Tyrion, Cersei, Tywin, Varys, and some of the later characters like Olenna, just sitting around a table and talking, and with different guests like Littlefinger and more appearing in every episode. I'd love that because the dialogue for the series are amazing, as are their performance. Top, top notch! Game of Thrones are a political drama done right, and everyone complaining that there isn't enough action or fantasy should just fuck off back to their mothers womb. Basta!

Oldest Japanese: Abigail - Descending From A Blackend Sky 7" (1993) Newest Japanese: Abigail ‎– Intercourse And Lust 12" (2014) and Sigh ‎– Gallows Gallery 12" (2014) (I own two different versions of these) Both these were re-releases previously released on vinyl though. So the albums themself are old(er) (1996 and 2005), but the releases are new. If we're talking something completely new, then it's Sabbat - Sabbatrinity 12" (2011) Oldest non-Japanese: Buck Owens - I've Got a Tiger By the Tail / Cryin' Time 7" (1964) Newest non-Japanese: Alucarda - Raw Howls tape (2015) All these are obviously physicall copies that I own.

Day 3: There wasn't to many interesting bands this day, but we planned to see 4 and ended up seeing 5, which is pretty decent. Our friend left before us to see Skeletonwitch and my brother and I arrived just in time to catch the last three songs... which was not a positive experience, because it was really bad. The band looked bored as fuck as if they hated being on stage and the vocalist, Andy "Weedgrinder" Horn previously of Cannabis Corpse, came of as mentally challenged. Was shit. 2/10 Dødsengel was the first band I wanted to see, and the band did not disappoint. The band came on stage dressed in red robes and it was like a 50 minute long dark ritual, where the drummer seemed to be in trance for the ritualistic parts of the songs. He looked to be in a different place than the rest of us. Everything really worked well here, and the vocalist Kark was the most impressive aspect of the concert. I never actually expected him to be able to pull off the clean vocals live, but he proved to nail every single type of vocals and his range is just unbelieveable. I doubt there is many others involved in exteme metal that are as talented as him. Breathtaking! Brilliant concert. 9/10 My Dying Bride was next up and did not disappoint. It was the band's first concert with Calvin Robertshaw, who left the band in 99, back in the lineup and that was exciting as hell. I thought the band did really well, and it was damn cool hearing older songs like The Thrash of Naked Limbs and something I believe was God is Alone. The minus here was the sound. Mostly good, but there was some annoying feedback every now and then when the violin was played. But other than that it was all good. 8/10 Sargeist wasa band I had been looking forward to as I am a huge fan of the band, and they did not disappoint me. The sound was allright and the band did really well. Cold, grim and dark. Amazing gig! 9/10 Enslaved ended the night at Rockefeller/John Dee, and I was not looking forward to it having seeing the band twice before, where the last gig was awful. The streams I've checked out for the band in later years have been bad too, so I expected nothing. Or, I expected something bad. But was I surprised. This wasn't bad, this was super fucking bad. Almost as bad as SepticFlesh in fact. They actually played one song from Hordanes Land, one song from Frost, one song from Monumension and one song from Below the Lights, but sadly they all sounded uninspired and like shit. The rest were awful songs from Isa and onwards, which all sucks. But the band looked uninspired, Grutle had nothing to give as a frontman and it was just godawful. Really fucking shite. Also, out friend fell asleep standing during this shit gig. Heh... 1/10 Sheol ended the night at the nachspiel. I had not heard the band before, but I really looked forward to the gig anyway and I was not disappointed. They really delivered the goods and I am sue it would've been even better had I been familiar with the band. A great gig, and they ended it with a cover of Darkthrone's death metal classic Cromlech, which was awesome. Really good gig. 8/10 To be continued... as usual.

Day 2: I was eager to see both Haemophagus and Execration, but as both played so fucking early we didn't bother going to see them. Shame, but that's life. Septicflesh started off the day for us as both my brother and friend wanted to see them, and they were, as expected, a fucking disgrace. They turned to shit many, many, many years ago and live they're even worse. This might be the worst concert I've ever been at. 1/10 Antichrist was next up, and I was impressed. A bit too polished on album, but live they were very good. Thrashed out and had fun. 7/10 1349 was next and they did their usual stuff. Solid liveband, but they were the exactly same as last time I saw them, just with more boring songs to play. 6/10 Vulture Industries had a special show this evening, but they had started earlier than expected so I only catched the second half of their concert. Apart from one moment the 25 minutes I saw were amazing. Did really well on stage, and at one point the band went 100% Devil Doll and it was nothing short of brilliant! Shame I missed the first half of the concert. 8/10 Behemoth was the first headliner of the festival, a concert I had been looking forward to because of their last album, but was sceptical towards due to 10 years of shit prior to that. But god damn did they deliver the goods. Powerful, majestic, crushing and god damn awesome. Visually amazing as well as a great performance by all the members. Especially frontman Nergal was amazing and Orion looked really well on stage. The whole concert was perfect, and even shitty songs from the shitty albums Demigod, The Apostasy and Evangelion worked really well live. That's impressive, because how it is possible to make shit like that sound god is beyond me. The only thing that disappointed me here was that they didn't play a single song from their early (92-98) period. That's disappointing because they have more than enough classics to choose from that period, but apart from that I have nothing to complain about. Brilliant and the highlight of the festival for me. 10/10 Doomraiser ended the concert with a "nachspiel" concert at another location after Behemoth. It was OK. But I was too tired to focus at that point. To be continued again...

A small Inferno Festival update. As usual there was too much good too drink and lots of great peole to hang around with. Oh, and plenty great bands. Day 1: I had massive expecations to the bands I was seeing this day, and I'll have to admit I was a tad disappointed by all of them. Had expected much more. Misþyrming was first out and did good, but not nearly as good as I had expected. But I'm not overly familiar with their music to begin with, and that probably had much to say. 6/10 Sinmara is another band I am not too familiar with before, and I thought it all seemed way to generic both musically and visually. Not bad, but not amazing either. 5/10 Svartidauði was good, but very disappointing as I love their album and shit. Was poor visually, but musically allright. 6/10 Naglfar was a huge disappointment. Watched the first four songs before we gave up. Was shit. 2/10 Arcturus finished this evening off and was very good, but visually it was a big disappointment. Lacked the theatrics and was more or less doing exactly the same as last time I saw them, just with another setlist. Sounded good, though, and the new songs were cool. 7/10 This was the end of day 1, and I was drunk off my mind and had too high expectations. Probably ruined it for me, cause I've seen nothing but praise for the three icelandic bands other places. To be continued...

Great song and very much Scenario IV-esque with hints of both Hail Horror Hail and Gallows Gallery, something I really like. Guitars still lack power, though, and You Oshima just isn't Shinichi no matter how one twist and turns it. He's more gifted on the technical part of the playing, but he lacks his own stye. And Oshima's solos just isn't anywhere near as good, cool and unique as Shinichi's. They're pretty standard and without any sign of uniqueness to them. But I am enjoying this a lot. Gonna be such a great album.

Oh dear god, Behemoth was amazing. Surpased my expectations with miles, and even songs from their weaker albums worked well. The power, the atmosphere, the show. Brilliant! And Nergal is an amazing front figure.

I cant get any sleep on this god damn train. Death to all!

I'll be leaving for Oslo with the night train tonight. I am ready for another year of Inferno festival (the bands in () are maybe's, the rest I will see for sure): Wednsday: Misþyrming Sinmara Svartidauði Arcturus Thursday: (Haemophagus) (Execration) (Antichrist) (1349) Vulture Industries Behemoth (Doomraiser) Friday: Dødsengel My Dying Bride Sargeist (Sectu) Saturday: (Secrets of the Moon) Deathcult (Kampfar) Slagmaur Dødheimsgard Mortuary Drape Bloodbath (שְׁאוֹל / Sheol) Looks pretty nice! It's gonna be a blast as always. Haven't checked for a place to stay yet, though. We'll go to our buddy who we'll spend time with anyway and see if we can crash there, like last year. It's such a small apartment, though. It means 4 nights on the fucking floor. That'll do my already back good, just like last year. Heh.

Second season will be something completely different, with different actors though. I agree though. Brilliant!

Five Fingers of Death - This cult classic with Lieh Lo is badass. The plot is something quite similar to other films of the time, but as many of the others it manages to set itself apart from those. Good fights, blood and lots of awesomeness! This is also one of the films that started the kung fu craze in the US in the early/mid 70's and a massive inspiration on Tarantino's Kill Bill.

I stay up late and get up early. Love doing both, even though it means I won't get many hours of sleep. But im vanilla ice cool with that.

Tales From The Crypt, season 2: Episode 1, Dead Right - Another one by Howard Deutch who also did Only Sin Deep from season 1, and this time it's better. Silly, fun and slightly over the top. Very fun, and both Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor does well, especially Tambor is fantastic. 8/10 Episode 2, The Switch - This episode features a short cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the intro sequence and is actually directed by him, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that this in one way deals with muscles. Heh. This also marks the first episode to actually be based on the Tales From the Crypt comic. It's silly, but enjoyable. One of the weakst till now, though. But still more than solid. 7/10 Episode 3, Cutting Cards - Another one by Walter Hill who did The Man Who Was Death from season 1, and once again he is spot on. It's very silly allright, but it's really entertaining. So over the top and stupid. 8/10 Episode 4, 'Til Death - Very atmospheric piece with voodoo and all kinds of shit. Over the top? Yes, but I really enjoyed it. Get's really out of hand towards the end, in a very good way that is. 8/10 Episode 5, Three's a Crowd - A surpriser. I thought it started off pretty poor, but it didn't take long before things got better and shit really got good. Great episode! 8/10 Episode 6, The Thing from the Grave - This is directed by Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, The Monster Squad) and stars a way too sexy Teri Hatcher and Miguel Ferrer. This one's among my favourite in the series so far and I thought this was genius. Fairly predictable, but lots 'n' lots of fun. Great episode!

Tales From The Crypt, season 1: Episode 1, The Man Who Was Death - A lovely little vigilante-story with a fantastic William Sadler in the lead, a great plot and soe titties, and let us not lie, titties are always a plus. Høh. Anyway, a fantastic start to the series by Walter Hill (The Warriors, Streets of Fire). 9/10 Episode 2, And All Through the House - An instant classic and an episode I'll be watching every single christmas from now on. Horror-comedy at its very best by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future trilogy). Nothing short of perfect! 10/10 Episode 3, Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone - A great, innovative episode by Richard Donner (Leathal Weapon, The Omen) with a genius Joe Pantoliano in the lead. 8/10 Episode 4, Only Sin Deep - A nice episde, but the first which disappointed me a bit. A step down from previous ones. It's good, but just not as good as the others up till this point. Really enjoyed Lea Thompson in it though. Great work! 7/10 Episode 5, Lover Come Hack to Me - A great episode by Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child's Play) with a really freaky Amanda Plummer in the lead. Very good stuff! 8/10 Episode 6, Collection Completed - Stupid and silly, but so very, very fun and enjoyable episode by Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary) with a fantastic M. Emmet Walsh in the lead. He just drives everything here almost all by himself. Magnificent performance! 8/10 Brilliant season 1. So fucking good! Highly recommended for fans of horror/black comedy/thrillers.

As well as watching horror anthology series, I've also been watching a couple of horror anthology films. Good shit. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors - The first out of 7 horror anthologies by Amicus Productions released between 65-74. This flick was directed by Freddie Francis (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, The Evil of Frankenstein) and written by Milton Subotsky (The City of the Dead, The Skull), as well as having a cast featuring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Donald Sutherland. This means that I quite obviously had massive expectations for it, and it delivers the goods to some degree. Well, it was a very cool flick, but as usual the quality of the shorts are a bit up and down. A short comment on each of the stories: The main narrative that connects everything together is very cool, and in this you get Peter Cushing as Dr. Shreck, Christopher Lee and Donald Sutherland. It's cool, but nothing too special and very predictable, other than Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee being together on screen which is always amazing. Werewolf - The title says it all, and I was very entertained by this. Atmospheric and nice. My favourite of the lot. 9/10 Creeping Vine - The title says it all again, and I thought it was very enjoyable. A step down, but great fun nonetheless. 8/10 Voodoo - Title says much, if not all. I thought this was a huge step down. I was entertained, but it wasn't amazing. Weakest of the lot. 6/10 Disembodied Hand - Another title that says it all. This one was very good. Christopher Lee is amazing as always, and the story is nice. Lovely special effects for the hand too. It looked so god damn good! 8/10 Vampire - Title says it all again. Heh... Thought this was pretty good. It's very silly but I felt it was kinda unpedictable. At least I was surprised. Donald Sutherland is great! 7/10 And it ends with the main narrative, which as said previously is cool. All in all very good! Torture Garden - The second of Amicus Productions many anthology films. Again directed by Freddie Francis, but written by Robert Bloch (Psycho), as well as having a cast geaturing Peter Cushing, Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance and Michael Ripper among others. So my expectations were very high. But I was disappointed This is a mixed bag. Amazing at its best, but bad at its worst. The main narrative is a bit disappointing, despite Burgess Meredith being amazing. Fairly straight forward and predictable. Enoch - Silly, but nice and atmospheric short. I enjoyed it quite a lot though. 8/10 Terror Over Hollywood - By far the weakest of the lot, and Beverly Adams, as hot as she is, sucks. She can't act for shit, but even if she could it wouldn't have helped this short too much. The story isn't very engaging either. Nah, not good at all. 3/10 Mr. Steinway - This is really fucking stupid, but it's fun enough and managed to entertain me. 6/10 The Man Who Collected Poe - By far my favourite of the lot. Very nice and atmospheric, and Peter Cushing is godly. The whole story really hirts the right spot at me. Truly great! 10/10 And the main narrative ends it. Predictable, but decent to get shit going and keeps 'em together pretty nicely.

I thought it was awful, but so I've thought about all their albums since Isa. So it didn't come as a surprise. But if you do enjoy recent Enslaved it'll probably please you.

I downloaded it from kickass or thepiratebay. It's hard to find for it though. While I don't need subs myself, I do prefer having subs and I could only find english subs for 4-5 out of the 13 episodes. Also, I'll admit that I am very disappointed by the series. It's enjoyable, but not close to as enjoyable as I had expected. It lacks the usual Hammer Horror standard, especially as far of the visuals and casts goes. Hammer Horror are known for it's amazing sets and great casts with plenty of Horror icons, but this series lacks both. The budget was small, but still, they should've managed to get more out of it. If I were to recommend you you anything Hammer Horror, I'd recommend you some films instead. On a while different level than this series. Not even compareable. I started on another horror anthology series as well, and I am finding this much more enjoyable till now. Just finished season 1 and I've enjoyed the shit out of it. Brilliant! Most of the episodes are based on EC Comics from the 50's and are taken from The Crypt of Terror, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories and Two-Fisted Tales. Since HBO was a premium cable TV channel the show had full freedom from censorship, which means they could have graphic violence, gore, nudity and profanity without any problems whatsoever. The episodes' runtime range from 22-30 minutes, and they all begin and end with the Crypt Keeper introducing the episodes and saying goodbye, with lots of silly but fun puns. I'll come back with an episode by episode "review" later today.

Episode 7, The Silent Scream - When I saw that Alan Gibson (Dracula A.D. 1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula) had the direction for this I got very excited, and when I saw that Peter Cushing had a leading role I got even more excited, and while good, I must admit I was a bit disappointed. Again the episode lacked atmosphere. But it was a fun episode, so I am not dissatisfied or anything. Very enjoyable, but not as good as it should have been with those names attached to it.

Fair enough, and I prefer Sigh myself as it is the best band ever, but they aren't exactly compareable though. Both bands are rooted in black metal and played around with an avant-garde black metal sound, but that's pretty much all they've got in common as well. Vulture Industries however are pretty compareable to Arcturus and La Masquerade Infernale, especially their debut album The Dystopia Journals is more or less a La Masquerade Infernale clone. A bit less theatrical and carnivalesque and a bit blacker, but still very much La Masquerade Infernale from A to Å. The two other sounds more like the lovechild of Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale and Devil Doll, and both are fantastic. Great band.

What? None of their albums? That can't be true. Aspera Hiems Symfonia are one of the best black metal albums ever made. Garm's amazing vocals, Carl August Tidemann guitar work (those god damn leads and solos!), Hellhammer's simple, yet brilliant drumming and Sverd's soothing keyboard work makes this into a harsh, yet majestic and beautifully atmospheric album unlike anything else ever recorded. Perfection! Also, the title, which translates to Harsh Winter Symphony, are one of the most fitting album titles ever. Spot on! La Masquerade Infernale is also a must. This avant-garde masepiece is the perfect soundtrack to a dark, crazy circus led by Satan himself. An absolute madhouse. The elements of black metal are still present, and I'd say that band still had one foot in black metal at the time of the release, but it's something completely different and unique. Dark, fun and challenging. Perfection 2! The Sham Mirrors? Well, like the previous one it's a must. One of the finest prog albums ever made, and while not as dark as previous albums, I just love the spacey sound and feeling of the album. Garm is God, and he really shines on this album. Powerfull stuff! You don't like any of this? I refuse to believe that. It shouldn't be possible for anyone into metal not to love at least one of those albums. Brilliance!

No love for Arcturus here? The production is off, and especially the drums as usual by Hellhammer, but the song itself is amazing IMO. Love it. Also, Immortal is officially done and Abbath will continue under Abbath. looking forward to what he can do with a new "crew", but I do not have any big expectations at the moment. Hopefully he'll go in a different direction than what Immortal did. Something new and fresh. But don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of most Immortal albums and wouldn't mind that either. But still, something new would be cool. I am glad I got to see the band live a few times too. The last concert was amazing. 1. Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism (10/10) 2. Battles in the North (10/10) 3. Pure Holocaust (10/10) 4. At the Heart of Winter (9/10) 5. Blizzard Beasts (9/10) 6. Sons of Northern Darkness (810) 7. Damned In Black (8/10) 8. All Shall Fall (6/10) I never really gave this a proper chance, though. I was too disappointed. But I shall revisit it one day. I also enjoy I's Between Two Worlds (8/10) a lot. Recent Immortal goes Motorhead. A nice, rocking album.

Plane crashes usually don't come as a big shock on anybody (at least not over here), but it's still tragic as fuck and deserves plenty of media attention because of all the lives that got lost. But this time it was in fact shocking, as some guy most likely decided to crash the plane and kill 150+ people. How on earth could that not shocking?