Bear

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.

I don't understand why CD artwork got bashed so hard when it's normally the same as on the LPs these days. I maybe understand your problem with it being smaller.... but wow that was kinda harsh. ^^;

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?

Battlelore - ...Where the Shadows Lie

With fantastic coverart by known J. R. R. Tolkien'-ullustrator Ted Nasmith it's easy to understan what kind of themes this band deals with. ...Where the Shadows Lie is Battlelore's debut album, and a fantastic album in my eyes. It's hard to say exactly what genre Battleloe belongs in, but they play a mix of power metal and goth metal with hints of melodic death metal and folk metal, topping it with "beauty and the beast" vocals. Neither of the two vocalists are very talented, but they supply eachother very well and there's plenty of memorable vocal lines (such as the female vocals in Fangorn!) without ever going over top with anything, though the growls are a bit special and certainly not for everyone. They also managed to get their own soun and there's not really any bands out there sounding like this, and that's positive. I'm enjoying their lyrics as well (more or less always baese on something Tolkien) and it really fits the atmosphere of the music.

Nao (ex-Kagrra)

Infant Death was cool, and the vocalist was happy as fuck as well as wearing the coolest mustache I've seen for a long time.

Diskord was fantastic. There's nothing for the eyes there, but they're god damn tight and it's impressive how three guys can make so much noise. Brutally great gig from these guys.

Blade Runner - Over 30 years old and still looks amazing! Can't say the same for many movies.

True! That's what you get for going with practical special effects and actual miniatures. It just doesn't get old the same way as CGI does. Same goes for Metropolis too IMO. Because they used miniatures it stil manage to look fresh even to this date. Or Godzilla fo that matter. When buildings are destroyed there, they get destroyed and therefore it still looks real as fuck. After all, it is real, and something real doesn't get old or dated. Awesome!

From Blade Runner

From the set of Metropolis. One of my all time favourite pictures.

If it's a buy it's a buy, so a digital purchase also belongs in the thread.

As for me, I don't get why people would pay for digital flacs, but it's still a purchase, so please comment in this thread.

Seeing Diskord and Infant Death tonight. Shouldbe fun. Diskord play ugly progressive death metal and Infant Death plaus ugly blacking thrash metal. Looking forward to see both. If Diskord's half as good as the last time I saw them it's gonna be good.

Blurred Lines is fantastic. It's catchy as fuck, which is all that matters to be honest.

Also, drugs? Who gives a fuck what he's doing. Could be snorting mountains of cocaine for all that I care, just like with every other artist out there.

There's nohing bad with being stuck in a loop as long as what you're doing are of high quaity. As long as the quality of the music (or your art in general, be it music, film, comics, books or whatever) doesn't drop there's not a single need of change to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind bands changing their sound, but I don't mind bands staying the same either.

Judging from the previews this might end up pretty good, but The Red sounds like it'll be thei worst song ever. Jesus, the preview of that song was awful.

Here's some famous and some lesser known film- and neo-noirs, some classic film-noirs, some classic neo-noirs and some tech(sci-fi)-noir, od and new. Sunsent Blvd., The Naked City, Night and the City (1950), Blade Runner, Stray Dog, Brute Force, Detour, Dark City, Minority Report, The Stranger, The Third Man, Following (Christopher Nolan), Dressed to Kill, Body Double and Thief to mention a few.

All these are highly recommended by me. I think all of them are very, very good or just plain fantastic. Lots of different types of films to choose from there as well.

As for me, I've got a very weak spot for tech-noirs like Blade Runner, Dark City, Minority Report and some more, but there's not enough films in this sub-genre. There's something very special about films like that.

L.A. Confidential - Quite good and stylish neo-noir film in which the characters are the best thing. All 3 main characters played by Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey were great.

Masterpiece! I cannot describe how much I love that film and how bloody amazing it is.

Also, you've probably seen this film, but Chinatown is recommended and if you've not seen it you should watch it asap. It's another fantastic noir-flick.

I cannot be the only one who's looking forward to this film? As usual I don't know shit about what it's about, but I know that the poster is fucking awesome and reeks of 80's neo-noir, so I've got huge expectations for this film.

I'm surprised by the amount of death metal found in that song. I'm not impressed, but judging from that song they seem to have gone in a bit different direction this time around instead of doing the same they did on the last album. Good for them and their fans.

That was pretty bad and the video was awful, but god damn she's a fine girl.

Long time no see. I've been awfully alone here lately so I am happy to see a couple of other posters.

I'm surprised to see people wanting Christopher Nolan for a project like this. If there's one director in the whole wide world I would not see involved in a project like this it's him, Chistopher Nolan. He'd bring his pseudo-dark and and "deep", shitty style to the film and make yet another film with no identity or feeling, just like everything else he's done for the past 6-8 years. He's just another promising director who turned shit as soon as he got the chance to work with big budgets and even bigger stars. Just another director happy to compromise the hell out of a project just so that he can make something big and throw lots of $$$ right and left.

Anyway, I doubt anyone could make a good GitS film. I think GitS as a project would demand way too much from the director and the others behind the film. SUre, someone might make a good action/sci-fi film from it, but not a good GitS film.

Heeeellz yeah! Man, that looks amazing. I mean, those two concerts would probably have been worth every single penny you'd have to pay to witness it. Chist!

Also, Inferno is starting to look good. The line up so far:

BEHEMOTH

ENSLAVED

BLOODBATH

MY DYING BRIDE

SEPTICFLESH

1349

MORTUARY DRAPE

ANTICHRIST

SAGMAUR

I am especially happy to finally getting the chance to see Mortuary Drape. Faaaantastic band, and one of the most unique black metal bands of all time. Gonna see My Dying Bride and Slagmaur for sure too.

Fuck, next years Roadburn looks interesting. Well, there you've got the understatement of the year.

Fields of the Nephilim, Salem's Pot, Monolord and Svartidaudi to mention a few, but the most interesting? This:

Oh! My! Fucking! God!

Great concert last night. The 15 minutes I saw of Haraball was good, Haust delivered some awfully ugly blackened hardcore with conviction and Okkultokrati was heavy as fuck. Great gigs from al of them, especially Haust and Okkultokrati.

Good for them. No hatin'. As long as they're both old enough to know what they're doing and no one innocent gets hurt I don't really give a fuck.