Bear

Blood Red Throne last saturday, and Alcest a couple of nights ago. Both were great. Especially Alcest were amazing. Everythig was close to perfekt. Dat sound!

Brilliant band.

The Internship - I like both Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, but this didn't go very well. The fact that the whole film feels like a two hour long Google add doesn't bother me, but the lenght and the quality of the script did. This is something we've seen hella lot better many times before.

Insidious: Chapter 2 - I had massive expecations to this after the great Insidious and even better The Conjuring, but I have to admit I was a bit disappointed her. I liked this a lot, but it just isn't nearly as good as the first one. The atmosphere is great both in the real world and the darkness, but not as good as in the first one, and the story wasn't as good. But as I said, this was a very good film.

I just love James Wan. He's not Ti West, but these are the best western directors in the genre at the moment. Love 'em both to death.

My mistake, sorry. Maybe they don't feel like it's worth the trouble? I've got no problem with it whatsoever anyway, and I see no reason not to support these bands if I get the chance to do so.

You're Next - Great home invasion-slasher with a few elements that makes it a stand out film in this genre. Well done! Sharni Vinson were actually were good, and Ti West's cameo made me go "HNGH!!!". This did not disappoint, despite my high expectations.

Cujo - Pretty good Stephen King adaptation that's both enjoyable and entertaining, without being a masterpiece. People who claim there's no good Sthephen King adaptions must be braindamaged.

I buy music and merch for my myself, not to support anyone. However, if I help artists getting a bit more money that's great, no matter what they use the money on, be it to record music, go on tour, buy expensive clothes, pay prostitutes or buy drugs. That's none of my business and they are free to spend it on whatever they want without me complaining about it.

I think many vk bands don't deserve the support of the foreign fanbase, because they're totally closed towards anyone outside Japan. If they sell CDs in the shops that ship overseas, then it's good, but when they don't, they clearly don't want any money other than the money of Japanese fans.

Do you think most Japanese bands decides where their CDs and merch should be sold? I'm sure most bands would want their CDs to be sold anywhere in the world, but at the end of the day that's not up to them to decide, but the label they're signed to.

Yes but there are also unknown bands who don't want that their music will be around the interwebs.

Then they shouldn't release anything.

They've always been a shitty and uninteresting live band, but if I had to choose I'd go for the first one. It sucks, but at least it has some charm, unlike the newer one which is just boring. Ruki does absolutely nothing for me nowadays, except for annoying me.

I hate Ruki's vocals nowadays, but I love his vocals on the early Gazette releases. I think he started getting worse from NIL and on. Can't stand him now.

@Bear: Ah, thanks for reminding me of Coffin Joe!! I knew about the Necrophagia connection, but haven't seen any of his films yet. Seems like the one you wrote about might be a good introduction into his work tho, so gonna try to seek that one out.

Might not be your cup of tea of course, but if you, as me, are a fan of horror then it should be worth checking out, even if only because of its cult status.

Escape Plan - I've been wanting to watch this for quite some time and I finally got to watch it. Great "80's" action with Stallone and Schwarzenegger, who's both great in this film. I got a little Tango & Cash feeling by this one (a sadly underrated film), a film which saw Stallone team up with Kurt Russel. But this was a lot smarter and a lot less cheeky though.

It's good to not just have these guys back doing films (Stallone never left, but Arnold), and even better is that they both delivers the goods. Way to go!

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse - This is the second installment in the Coffin Joe-troligy, following At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. The budget must've been bigger, the nails are bigger and the amount of acid used must've been a lot bigger. This film starts off just where At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul ended, and Coffin Joe continues his search for a perfect woman to give him his perfect son.

This is a great horror film with a brilliant atmosphere that's far out there. It's really surrealistic and weird, and I just gotta love that. The film is in B&W, but there's some GENIUS scenes frmo hell that's in colour, and it works so well. And hell itself looks amazing here. Great stuff.

Embodiment of Evil - The third and last installment in the Coffin Joe trilogy. 40 years have gone (41 in real life), and Coffin Joe's been inprisoned in a mental ward. He's getting out, and he's going back to find the perfect girl, who can give him the perfect son.

The budget is bigger, and it's really violent and fucked up. Not nearly as good as the two others, but still a solid film. Some of the torture scenes are real, which adds to the pleasure (heh). This is a violent and sadistic horror film with great violence, lots of tits and one scene that's from another world. My god, that scene was perfection. Brilliant!

Breaking Bad, season 5 - Good season of a good TV-series. Well done, guys. However, people mentioning this among the best of TV-series such as The Wire and The Sopranos is nothing but embarrassing. The only thing here that's getting close to those series are Bryan Cranston which is beyond amazing throughout the whole series. But no, this isn't a new The Wire or a new The Sopranos.

Yes.

I checked their debut album earlier today because people have been comparing them to the late 90's/early 00's VK bands like Madeth gray'll, Aliene Maφriage, La'Mule, old Dir en grey and so on and I can definitely hear what people are talking about. Not quite sure what I think ofthe production after one listen though, as I've used to like it a bit dirtier than that. I thought the production sounded a bit too modern for that kind of music. But it was promising, and it's an album I'll keep listening to. Hopefulyl I'll get used to the production.

I'm really looking foward to new releases from these guys.

It's obviously not as good as Rinkaku, but it sounds like it might be on par with The Unraveling, or just a bit weaker. Hard to say after just one listen.

Yes, he's not a very talented vocalist. But so what? You don't have to be very talented at what you do, be it singing, playing the guitar, bass, drums or whatever, as long as you're able to sound good and make good riffs/create good atmosphere, and you can do those things without being a very talented guitarist/bassist/drummer/vocalist. Being talented is so fucking overrated.

I don't hear any garage unk sound in Disorder, but I agree with you that it's Gazette's best, and it's their best by far. Brilliant album. Only thing that comes close in their discography are Cockayne Soup, which is also brilliant.

I'm not gonna argue with that as I don't know anything about their reasons for doing what they do. But a band can do something because they feel it's needed, while they do something else because they want money. I don't see why that couldn't be the case here. It's also possible they played two Uroboros themed concerts because they were really, really satisfied with it and felt more people should experience it. But why didn't they do it all in 2010? Because they wanted a break? That's also a possibility.

But as I said, I don't know. I don't read interviews with Dir en grey (or anyone who has anything to do with Dir en grey), so I wouldn't know much about this.

Maybe they remastered Uroboros because because they weren't satisfied with the end product? That wouldn't have been a unique case, you know. Things like that doesn't always have to have a deeper meaning or anything.

I understand. But metal is a huge genre though, and a lot of the sub genres doesn't take use of any harsh vocals.

I have a huge bias towards vocals. I guess I'm one of those that don't really see vocals as just another set of instruments (and maybe that's why I've never really been able to get into most metal bands). Lyrics have a semantic aspect to them that's in excess of what instrumentals can ever do. If I feel like just listening to instrumentals I'd happily switch to my classical playlist.

Would you care to elaborate this? I'm not quite sure I get you here. Is it because of the styles of the vocals you find in metal, or because of the lyrics you find in metal?

Jin has an unique voice, and most VK fans don't seem to like unique voices nowadays. 

Unique vocals isn't equal to good or listenable vocals. Unique vocals can be horrid and unlistenable as well.

I don't mind Jin's vocals at all. I'd love for this to be a throwback to old Nega or something, before they decided to swap their bass drums for a typewriter and all that shit and got bad. Something in the lines of early Nega would be very, very welcomed.

Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan - This is with no doubt one of Mario Bava's three best films, and one of the best horror films ever made. The set designs are amazing, it's beautifully shot and the way Bava plays wih colour, desite this being a B&W films, is great. The atmosphere's thick and bloody cold, and Barbara Steele was, hands down, a goddess! This is gothic horror at its very best.

Crash - Decent film about racism and stuff, but I remembered it as a lot better. The racism in this film feels overdone and very, very forced. The thought is good, but the excecution isn't. But we get served a couple of highlights in form of Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon, which both delivers the goods. Don Cheadle's story here is the best as well.

This is the End - Another very solid film from Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost, but this is the weakest one in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. Still hilarious though.

Rear Window - Über classic Alfred Hitchcock film that everyone interested in film have seen at least once during their life time. The plot itself is rather straight forward and nothing too special to be honest. It's solid, but not over the top good, and doesn't really give you a lot to work with as a director. What makes this into such an amazing film is Hitchcock's ability to build suspense that makes you sweat on your balls, his way of shooting films and the cast, where James Stewart and Grace Kelly both are a-fuckin-mazing! Hitchcock was the master of suspense, and he still is, even 30+ years after his death. Special!

Rope - When this was made, it was not much beside a giant experiment to Alfred Hitchcock. The whole film, being 75-80 minutes long, consiss of 10 long shots ranging mostly from 7+ to 10 minutes long, and a couple of shorter under 5 minutes. It's really exciting to see how the camera moves around on the set, and how great he made this work. Solid as fuck! The plot is great, and the whole homosexual undertones are just great, considering this was released in the late 40's. Again, the suspense makes your balls sweaty. It's that fucking good. It is.

Dial M for Murder - Yes, Hitchcock! What a nerve! What a suspense! The plot is great, visually it's a pleasure to the eye (and I am not talking about the beautiful Grace Kelly, I'm actually talking about everything else now) and beautifully shot. Again, the key words here are suspense, suspense and suspense. Brilliant!

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - Solid film, but not on par with the Hitchcock films I mentioned before this. Unlike the three previous films, this isn't a crime film, but a pure thriller. It is, as I said already, a solid film, but not a great one. It's a bit too long, and the ending's very, very weak. It is in fact annoyingly weak. It lacks a bit of punch and never, this one. Beautifully shot, though.

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul - The first horrorfilm of  cult director José "Coffin Joe" Mojica Marins, a brazilian director/actor/screenwriter/a lot more, and the first brazilian horor film ever made. This film introduces José's cult character Coffin Joe, a character he would later reuse in several of his film, and a character that now is regarded a cult character.

At Mightnight I'll Take Your Soul is the first film in the infamous Coffin Joe trilogy, and a really, really, really solid and cool film. The story's solid, the character (Coffin Joe) is awesome, and the film is really mean and evil. José Mojica Marins wasn't a very good director, nor was he ever a good actor or screen writer. But is his something that kinda ruins the film? No, not at all, for what he lacked as a director, actor and screenwriter, he makes up for with his ability to create a brilliant and thick, evil-as-fuck atmosphere, and at the end of the day, that's what horror films are about.

I really can't wait to dig in into José Mojica Marins' filmography.

Also, this might be something of interest to @Jigsaw9, as he is a Necrophagia fan. "The Divine Art of Torture" is dedicated, and based around the works of José Mojica Marins, and contains samples by José Mojica Marins. The cover art is a drawing of Coffin Joe as well. Might be something worth checking out, even if it's just for the sake of hearing where they found the inspiration for this brilliant album.

This Island Earth - Cool sci-fi from the 50's. Great special effects, a solid plot that even feels a bit original to this day and some great characters and actors

Ripper Street, season 2 - I finally finished this. Solid, but not spectacular. The episodes are all watch worthy and ranges from 6-9 in my book, but the series didn't get a good enough ending. It's dark, brutal and gritty, and I love that, but it didn't get that ending I was hoping for. What a shame. What a waste.

I bought meself some new music for a change:

Tapes:

Cauldron Black Ram - Poisoner box set

Possession - His Best Deceit

Sabbat - Der Nukleare November Pakt

Assembly at Dusk - Summer Demo 2013

Vinyl:

Black Magic - Wizard's Spell

Vocals are just another instrument to my ears. I listen to plenty of bands both with and without vocals. And just as with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and whatnot, if it's done poorly it can ruin the whole song, but it doesn't necessary have to ruin it either. What's important is that it is interesting as a whole. If a song has nothing beside good vocals, good guitars, good bass, good drums OR good keyboards it won't be enough to keep me interesting. Not even close. If there's only one element in the music that's good, then it really isn't good. Ya? Ya.

So it's yet another extremely good song then? Both Rinkaku and The Unraveling were excellent songs, so if this is on par with those I'll be extremely happy.

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSFOR THELASTEPISODE OF SEASON 3

God damn, that was a great episode. So the sudden change in mood wasn't so much of a change after all. It just felt like it. You know what I'm saying? Great episode, and it had plenty of surprises. You just gotta love that!