Bear

As most of you know, I'm quite a fan of punk and its subgenres, and the Japanese punk scene sure deserves its own thread on the forum. I guess everybody on the forum knows bands like The Stalin, Anti-Feminism, Balzac, The Piass and so on, so I won't make a big deal about those, even though I am a fan of several of those. But feel free to talk about all kinds of punk from hardcore to d-beat to crust to horror punk to grindcore to skate punk to street punk to thrashcore to psychobilly and so on, but keep it to the bands that are on the punk side. Take grindcore as an example: please do talk about grindcore, but keep it to the bands rooted in punk. Bands like S.O.B., Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror played a type of grindcore that belongs in this thread. These guys basically played hard, brutal punk with metal influences, unlike grindcore bands such as Impetigo, Terrorizer and Repulsion who were more on the metallic side and played and more death metal influenced grindcore. Same goes with metalcore and whatnot too. You get the point. I'll start and post some of my favourites from the Japanese scene throughout the time: Gauze Formed in 1981, Gauze turned out to be one of the most influential Japanese punk bands of all time, if not THE most influential band from the punk scene in Japan. The band is recognized throughout the underground punk scene in the whole world to have released two of the best hardcore albums of all time with 1984's Fuckheads and 1986's Equalizing Distort, and the band proved to have a massive influence of the scene in Japan, as well as underground scene all over the world. So the band did get lots of recognition, but far from what they had deserved IMO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR1f17xEzSo S.O.B. Another highly influential band, but unlike Gauze this band had more influence on the grindcore scene throughout the world, and grindcore legends Napalm Death, Brutal Truth and Carcass have all told lots about the influence S.O.B. had on them, Lee Dorian, vocalist on Napalm Death's two first albums, have always been open to how the band borrowed a shitload of S.O.B. riffs for their 1988 masterpiece From Enslavement to Obliteration. Lee Dorian and Shane Embury even went on to play on 1989's Thrash Night EP. The band started out as a brutal and fast hardcore band, before evolving into a pure gindcore band with 1990's What's the Truth?. Their debut EP Leave Me Alone consists of 9 songs, clocking in on 09,16 minutes, and their debut album consists of 18 songs, clocking in on 19:42 minutes. Too short? Nah. With the intensity of the bands music the lenght are more or less perfect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Eib9a4GM5M G.I.S.M. G.I.S.M. are robably best known for their strange live shows where Sakevi did plenty of strange things, like running into the crowd with a chainsaw, attacking front rows with a lit flamethrower, beating random concertgoers with a club, and firing gun shots on stage with a revolver, as well as attacking journalists and photographers who try to approach him. But beneath this, we find one of the early metapunk bands, blending hardcore and heavy metal into one raw, dirt mix. Their second album saw the band leaning more towards heavy meta, though, with close to no hardcore left in their sound. It's a great album, but not close to as good as their debut, Detestation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twFu0ZABwvk Disclose Disclose are one of the hundreds and hundreds of Discharge clones, but unlike all the other clones, this band is actually more or less just as good as the original. Disclose plays d-beat and sounds like a fuzzy and distorted version of Discharge, and for someone who worships the altar of Discharge it's impossible not to love this band. There's not really more to say. Fantastic band! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7-ziKfbIQ Framtid This band here, is one of my all time favourite hardcore bands. Framtid isn't a very productive band, and during their 20+/- year long career they've only released two full lenghts (16 and 21 minutes long), a few demos and a few split releases. So yeah, not very productive and it took them 11 years from their first to their second full lenght. But who gives a fuck when the quality of what they're releasing is as high as it is? Two genius albums and two of the best in the genre. Raw, dirty and brutal hardcore. This band is hardcore hell! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJ07f4V6q8 Zouo There's not too much info on this band around, but what I do know is that this band played top notch hardcore. Dark and dirty, with obvious G.I.S.M. influences, though the hardcore side of G.I.S.M. Fantastic band! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bavbNYSA8_s Death Side Pure hardcore with fantastic leads and great riffs and vocals. Not as raw or ugly as some of the other mentioned here, but just as good as most of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gJHPGoPS8 Other great bands to check out: Unholy Grave Deathpeed Kriegshög Outo Gudon Electric Funeral Crow Paintbox D.B.S. Ghoul Kuro Nurse Disarray The Rustler Swindle Bitch Kyah Mental D-Clone Forward Confuse and so on All these are well worth checking out IMO. Great bands, al of them.

Louder Than a Bomb - To put it in the creators own words; "Louder Than a Bomb is a film about passion, competition, teamwork, and trust. It’s about the joy of being young, and the pain of growing up. It’s about speaking out, making noise, and finding your voice." The film is about teenagers who compete in a yearly poetry slam event, and it's a very solid one. But to me, this just get a bit too sentimental. It comes off as a bit too forced, the way they try to touch the viewers, at least to me. But it's a well-made, interesting documentary with a pacing that is nothing short of perfect. So it is an entertaining watch. Double Indemnity - Fantastic noir by Billy Wilder, the man behind Sunsert Boulevard. This is one of the most classic noirs out there and it is just as good as Sunset Boulevard IMO, if not even better. Dark, thrilling and exceptionally well-made. Edward G. Robinson is fantastic in one of the supporting roles. Absolutely fantastic!

That sounds disgusting.

Good to see someone enjoying the good, old polish classics too. A few of them are a bit hard to get into, though. I didn't fall for some of the classics at first listen either. But patience pays off. I think there was something very special about some of the early black metal cires such as The Temple of Fullmoon (Poland), Les Legions Noires (France) and BlazeBith Hall (Russia). A small group of friends forming a shitload of bands and helping eachother out with the releases. SOme shit obviously, but there was some seriously great bands from these cirles, and some proper classics released as well. Good shiet, from the tie when black metal was still dangerous and filled with mysticism. I thought Peste Noire was a step back. It's a very good album, but instead of continuing what he started with Ballade... I thought he went back and played it out pretty safe. Was hoping for something crazier, something more fucked up. It's basically a mix of elements from all the previous albums, with very few new ideas. Very good, but not on par with La sanie..., Ballade... og L'ordure... Not even close. The song from the new split is kinda where I expected Peste Noire to continue with the self-titled one. That's a seriously great song. A bit fucked up, very weird but highly enjoyable. Jigsaw: Yeah, the album sounds really dirty and rotten. You just gotta love that. Happy you enjoy it too.

Cool. Looking forward to hearing your verdict on Dissection. I can't really decide on which one's my favourite of The Somberlain and Storm of the Light's Bane. In recent years I've used to lean a bit more toward The Somberlain, but before that I had Storm of the Light's Bane as my favourite for many, many years.

Good boy! Also, talking about Bloodbath - here's another recommendation: Bloodbath - Toxic Death No, this ain't a release by the Swedish death metallers, this is a thashing death metal release by a Serbian band from 1990. Boodbath plays raw, agressive death/thrash that sounds like a mixture of bands such as Merciless, Possessed, Necrovore and Morbid Saint. It's not original, not even for its time, but it's got plenty of character and it's a exhibition in brutality and agression. Do yourself a favour and check out this masterpiece!

Go for their two first albums and first EP. I don't care for their second EP and third album. They were huge meeeeh's IMO.

Fullmoon - United Aryan Evil As you've already guessed by the title, Fullmoon were a NS band. That might put you off, and that's understandable I guess, but if you, like me, are capable of looking past all lyrics and ideologies that deals with subjects you're not too fond of and/or despise, and just enjoy the music for what it is, then you've got yourself a black metal gem here, and one of the finest demos ever made by man. In the early to mid 90's different countries had different sound, and you could more often than not hear if a band were Norwegian, Swedish, Greek, Polish, South-American or Finnish, and with Fullmoon being Polish they had a typical sound for the Polish scene at the time. Atmospheric, very epic, mystic and extremely unique, mostly mid-paced black metal with lots of focus on atmosphere, a huge battle-like atmosphere. It's not epic because it's filled with synthor anything, but because of the riffs itself, and of course Rob Darken's (Graveland) fantastic synth that works as a backdrop of the release. The synth itself never gets the main role on the album, it's just there as a backdrop to add to the atmosphere and it works really well. The album has got a lot in common with other Polish albums such as Graveland's Carpathian Wolves and Thousand Swords, Veles' The Triumph of Pagan Beliefs and Night on the Bare Mountain and Infernum's ...Taur-Nu-Fuin..., all fantastic albums, but without just copying any of them. It just has that Polish sound that was common within the polish black metal scene at the time. Look past the ideoligy here and you should be able to enjoy one of the best black metal releases of all time, you fail to do that and you miss out on something fantastic.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan - If you're just slightly interested in what goes on behind what you see on the screen when watching a film full of special effectis, either it is stop-motion animation or CGI, then this should be of interest to you, as it goes through the film-life of Ray Harryhausen, the greatest animator of all time. You geat an interview with the man himself as he talks about his films and work, and also with folks like Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, James Cameron, John Landis John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Joe Dante, Guillermo del Toro, Vincenzo Natali, Ray Bradbury and more, as they talk bout Ray Harryhausen's influence, not just on themself, but on the world of cinema itself. One of the most influential guys to work with film! This is a must-see IMO. Snitch - Mediocre, though decent enough actionthriller with The Rock. Nothing out of the ordinary, but OK entertainment on a thursday evening.

16 songs? Oh dear. To be honest I hope some of those are just interludes or just some very short tacks. Not too keen on a super long album.

I'm not too happy about the bass drums. Stands out way too much IMO.

New Bloodbath track: http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2014-09-24/premiere-bloodbath-unite-in-pain-stream Best they've done since Nightmares Made Flesh. At times it sounds very Swedish and gives off a Carnage and God Macabre feeling. Nick Holmes doesn't have much power in his growls anymore, but I'm really diggin' hearing him growling again. He sounds pretty damn awesome actually.

Oh dear. That picture gives me a danseband feeling.

A Fistful of Dollars - One of my all time favourite westerns, and one of the best remakes ever made. Sergio Leone's direction are very stylish, atmospheric and bloody cool, the acting an characters is top notch and the soundtrack is fantastic. Ennio Morricone deserves lots of cred for his soundtrack, because that's one of the reasons why the film is so atmospheric. 9,5/10 For a Few Dollars More - Not as stylish, atmospheric or cool as A Fistful..., and the weakest in the trilogy. It's a film that just fees like a mix of A Fistful... and The Good..., and a good bridge between the films. The introduction of Lee Van Cleef is fantastic. Awesome actor! 9,5/10 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - This is, together with Django, the best western ever. There's absolutely nothing to put your finger on here, and it is one of the best directed films in the history of cinema. It's a perfect piece of film, this. 10/10 A Professional Gun/The Mercenary - Not close to the best in the genres, but it's a great films nonetheless and Franco Nero are fantastic as always. A good introduction to zapata western as well, even though I'd recommend starting elsewhere. Django, Prepare a Coffin - Very cool, (semi)-official prequel to Django with Terence Hill as Django. Franco Nero was meant to play Django here as well, but something came up and he had to drop it. I love Terence Hill, but he's no Franco Nero. The film ain't as good as Django either, but it's fantastic nonetheless. Also, the theme song is top notch! The majority of the best theme songs ever was written for westenr films. Weird to think about, that. But it's the truth. Homefront - Very standard Jason Statham flick where he gets to be himself. The film is written by Sly and was meant as a Rambo film, but I am happy it wasn't used as one. It's allright entertainment, but nowt more than that. It also feels like a Steven Seagal film, a man who's played this role fifty times or something by now. Heh... Bad Neighbors - Allright comedy with Seth Rogen and Zac Efron in the leads. At times hiiiiilarious, but it's very uneven which is a problem. Should've been a bit shorter. Zac Efron's really impressive here. The only thing left from the guy who played in HSM is the looks. Very impressive! Horrible Bosses - I rewatched this and once again I found mysef laughing hellalot through the film. Hysterically funny film! Charlie Day, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are just brilliant in this and I am lookign forward to the sequel. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - Enjoyable adventure-drama which had deserved a bigger amount of comedy. It lacks some, but it was still enjoyable for the two hours it lasted. Ben Stiller is very good! Resolution - This one I really liked. Meta-horror in the vein of The Cabin in the Woods, just without the comedy. Better in every way possible in and at times it's genuinly creepy. Solid stuff! High Plains Drifter - Fantastic western by and with Clint Eastwood. One of the better Eastwood-directed films I've seen, and it feels like a big homage to Leone. Love the mysticism of the film. Great! Day of Anger aka Gunlaw - Fantastic western with a übercool Lee Van Cleef in the lead and a superb soundtrack by Riz Ortolani. Loved the cinematography in this film. Red Sun - It's a long way up to the best film in the western genre, but with a cast consisting of Toshirô Mifune(!!!), Charles Bronson, Alain Delon and Ursula Andress you just gotta enjoy this. Some of the dialog is awful, but I don't care because everything else is so cool. Nice to see Toshirô Mifune in a western! Sunset Boulevard - Fantastic film in every way possible, and while not my favourite noir, surely the best one of them all. There's nothing to put your finger on here. Faaaantastic! Angel of Death - This was originally a webseries, but was released as a film later on. Decent enough action with Zoë Bell, but that's about it. Feels like a more violent Nikita, and it's too short. No originality or character here either. Det sjunde inseglet - This film is insanely good in every way possible. Ingmar Bergman was one of the best directors ever, and by far the best scandinavian director ever. Magnificent! Vem är du? Jag är Döden. (one of the best lines ever!!!) Vargtimmen - Lovely, surealistic drama with many hints of horror. At times really fucking creepy, and just really good. The atmosphere here and there just puts me off. It's so fantastic. Ingmar Berman, man! I have to admit that Liv Ullmann's mix of Norwegian and Swedish gets a bit tiresome, though. Zatoichi and the Fugitives - The 18. film and one of the best in the series till now. We get a darker plot, more explicit violence and more blood, and unlike most films till now it lacks the humour we've gotten used to with feels like a breath of fresh air. I mean, every single one of the first 18 films are fantastic, so this being one of the best says a lot. Shintaro Katsu's faaaaaaaantastic as always, and Takashi Shimura's as impressive as always. Fantastic film! From what I know this was just a begining as far as the violence goes, and it'l get even more violent, bloody and exploitation-like. In a couple of films I'll see Zatoichi meet Yojimbo (Toshirô Mifune), then a couple of films after that I'll see Zatoichi meet The One Armed Swordsman (Jimmy Wang Yu). Oh god, how I am looking forward to that. Gonna be immense!

As long as a band manage to keep up the quality there's nothing wrong with releasing a shitload of albums, EPs and singles in a short period of time. Njiqahdda released 8 albums and 4 EPs (all well over 30 miuntes long) from 2007 to 2009 and the majority of this material is of very, very high quality. And in this time the two members also released 4 albums and 1 EP with their band Oaks of Bethel and 1 EP with their band Funeral Eclipse. There's nothing wrong with releasing this much if you fully capable of keeping the quality up. The only problem with doing something like this is that it is hard to keep up with the releases, but I've got all the time in the world so it's nothing but joy IMO.

That's a good choice regarding both bands. I always thought Hypocrisy had a superb run from 92-97, releasing two fantastic death metal albums, one good, borderline melodic death metal album and two fantastic melodeath albums. The self-titled was a disappointment, but still a good album, and Into the Abyss is great. Contains one of their best songs (Fire in the Sky) as well as an insane vocal performance for Peter. With Catch 22 they actually went in a more nu-metal inspired direction being specially inspired by Slipknot. Underrated album IMO. The production is weak and the songs ain't as good as on all the albums before, but it's cool IMO. The two first songs on the abum are amazing.

The first album is a melodic black metal album, the second is a mixture of melodic black and melodic death metal and the last one is a melodic death metal album. The two first are pure 6/6 albums in my eyes. Fantastic albums in every way possible. Hypocrisy should also be mentioned. Abducted and The Final Chapter are both fantastic melodic death metal albums where they manage to mix death metal with melodies. Both are classics!

Allright, fair enough. I'm not the biggest fan of meloic death metal myself, but I love a lot of the early bands within the genre, in the times before melodic death metal was synonymous with melodic extreme metal. The lack of death metal in melodic death metal is my main problem with the genre. Most bands fail to blend the melodic aspect of the music with the brutality and heaviness of death metal, and that's a problem. Dissection's Reinkaos is recommended. Completely different from their earlier stuff, and much more in common with mid 90's In Flames, just a lot darker, yet catchy as fuck.

Have you heard their earlier albums? They changed drastically with every album, but they always kept certain elements for the next one and kept building on those for the next album. Their two first albums are less melodic and filled with plenty of weird riffs. With Terminal Spirit Disease they got more melodic and more straight forward, but not without plenty of death metal to it, and with Slaughter of the Sound they kinda released an album that has become the trademark of what meodic death metal is today, and their weakest effort by far. It's very watered down with less death metal elements than their previous albums. I like it, but the three others are way better and also more unique. But the two first are proper death metal that just happens to be very melodic as well. Completely different from Slaughter of the Soul, In Flames, Soilwork and whatnot. The death metal is in the focus on those albums.

I am among those who love Withering to Death, though it's not as good as Macabre, Uroboros, Gauze and Missa. But it's a good album. Kodou are probably among my 5-6 favourite Dir en grey songs.

Full new At the Gates song Yeah, well, it's ok, but that's it. Sounds a lot like a huge deal of the bands that started immitating ATG after SotS. 3/6. Not too impressed.

Happy you liked it. I think the fist three albums are their best. Sword's Songs is a bit lighter and happier and Third Age of the Sun is a lot darker, but both are great IMO. Third Age of the Sun are usually regarded their worst, but I disagree. I think it is fantastic. On Evernight they turned more towards a darker form for goth metal, and while good, it's not nearly as good as the three first. They also failed to create the same Tolkien-ish atmosphere on this. Which is a bit fun since this was the first where they did not directly refer to names and direct references to Tolkien's universe. The Last Alliance is mroe of the same, and more or less the same quality wise. With Doombound the reutrned to their roots. Less gothic influences and more epic, extreme metal, creating a Tolkien-ish atmosphere. Not as goo as their three first IMO, but a good album for sure.

Macabre are by far my favourite Dir en grey album.

Yes, the design is often (though, far from always) the same, but the size ain't the same as you said. Great artwork, and especially artworks with lots of details, will always look better when bigger. It's the same as with posters or whatever. What's better and cooler to look at; a 20x30cm poster or a 60x90cm poster? I'd go with the 60x90cm every single day of the week, all year long. But as I said, a CD is more practical and it sounds good, but me, I buy more than the music whenever I buy something. I buy a whole package, which I why I have become very careful with what I buy.

The thread kinda says it all, doesn't it? What's your prefered format and why? As for me: 1. Vinyl To me, vinyl sounds warmer than tapes and CDs, and there's something very magical about flipping it over after you've heard the A-side. It's a format for when you're gonna focus soly on the music an pay a little extra attention to the music. Get yourself a glass of your finest whisky/wine/beer and enjoy the huge artwork, read the lyrics (if it has that) and just enjoy the music to the fullest without fuckign around with your computer or phone or anything else. It's the format which makes listening to music a bit more special. 2. Tapes A small, beautiful format which tts rough sound makes it perfect for demos and certain genres (black/death/thrash metal for instance), and it's a fantasticly charming format to me. It's a fun format, and a format that gives me a bit extra that the CDs lack. It's cheap too, which makes it possible to get three of these for the price of one CD. On the minus side it's a format that will get damaged over time no matter how well you take care of it. Time will fuck 'em up, even if you don't, and that sucks. But it's worth it. 3. CDs Sounds good, but gives me nothing more than the music, and for someone who pays for a lot more than just the music there's nothing to gain here really. Sounds good and is easy to deal with and take care of, but the artwork's small as fuck and there's nothing special about it. Nothing special at all, and a format I spend close to nowt on. I'll only spend money on CDs if it's something really special or a band I collect (Sigh). But that's it for me. Most of my CDs are laying in bags somewhere and I'm not using them other than in the car and whenever we're getting drunk. And you?