Bear

Best split release ever? It features five bands and five early EPs. Emperor's As the Shadows Rise, Immortal's Immortal, Dimmu Borgir's Inn i evighetens mørke, Ancient's Det glemte riket and Arcturus's My Angel. I love all these EPs, and collecting them onto one single compilation was a work of genius and while they all play very different types of black metal, they fir so well together. Amazing release!

Deepwater Horizon - The first half is fantastic with good, ol' Kurt Russell stealing the show. Like, completely stealing the show. It's a one-man show until he's hit in the shower. But when ut turns into a standard, CGI-driven action fest it turns into a very standard and generic catastrophe film. Such a waste. The scene with the american flag hanging in front of the flames are absolutely ridiculous. L O L! The Queen of Hollywood Blvd - From the very beginning of the film I can easily see what first-time director Orson Oblowitz is trying to do. He's clearly inspired by Grindhouse cinema and perhaps a few, older noir movies. It's all style over substance, but the style simply isn't good enough. The pacing is off for most part of the film, and while it does look pretty good for most part, every now and then it turns into some cheap-lookin' trash out of nowhere. It's not awful, but could and should've been so much better. I can see this become a cult film with the years, tho. Phone Booth - Realized I had to re-watch this, and I am glad I did because this is even better than I remembered. The film stars a young, inexperienced Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, who only appears in one scene but is talking throughout and Forest Whitaker, all whom deliver amazing performances. Phone Booth is a neo-noir inspired thriller which is intense as fuck, even though it's mostly filmed in one location with Colin Farrell's character spending most of the time inside a phone booth. Really damn good film! Black '47 - Dark and gritty Irish western-drama set during the great famine in 1847. Doesn't offer much new, but stellar performances by the likes of Hugo Weaving and James Frecheville and beautiful cinematography makes it very interesting and good. Very much worth a look. Hell or High Water - Neo-western crime that stars Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham on one side of the law, and Chris Pine and Ben Foster on the other side. Superb atmosphere, well-acted (with Jeff Bridges stealing the show) and well-directed. But the highlight is the script, but none other than Taylor Sheridan who wrote Sicario and this, before he went on to write and direct the excellent Wind River. Obviously a man with great talent. Not quite as good as Sicario or Wind River, but different type of films where this obviously aims at more social criticism, especially towards the american banks and shit. Anyway, good stuff!

lolwat is that? The vocalist looks like he's proper mentally challenged on the picture.

Thoroughbreds - Slightly absurd black comedy which is dark and sleek, with beautifully crafted dialogue, great characters and a simple, yet superb story. It's a film about two quite different teenage girls re-connecting. One is an smart, upper-class girl, the other is an emotionless girl with an eye for great wit. Never hilarious, but always witty and it'll keep you smiling throughout, despite the dark themes depicted. Wind River - The type of film that, if you've seen 50+ murder-mysteries, will offer nothing new in term of story or characters. You've seen it all before. But it's amazingly crafted in every way tbh. The setting on an indian reservation, the dialogue, the characters, the suspense of it all. Really damn fine handwork, and it's all led on by a stellar performance by Jeremy Renner who is turning out to become a proper fine actor, as well as a fantastic Elizabeth Olsen. Shootout scene was INTENSE as fuck. Holy crap! The Nice Guys - With The Nice Guys director-writer Shane Black movies into buddy cop territory with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling playing an enforcer and p.i. Both doing incredibly well throughout, and they're both funny as fuck and the chemistry is spot on. Face-paced, funny, edgy without trying to hard and just classy. The film is set in the late 70's, but it feels like a proper 80's film. Think films like Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, The Last Boy Scout, Running Scared and so on. It's that type of a film. Excellent!

Howard Lovecraft & the Undersea Kingdom - Didn't even bother finishing this. The visual style and cheap animation is just too much. Looks so fucking bad. Toddler shit!

Not heard the new one yet, but was listening to an older album yesterday. Great band. Harsh and, raw Ildjarn-esque black metal. Superb! The whole Canadian scene has been on a roll the last ten years. The amount of fantastic bands, man. So good!

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom - Didn't know what to expect out of this, but anything related to Lovecraft is of course of massive interest. HLatFK is an animated family film based on the universe and mythos made by H.P. Lovecraft. Howard Lovecraft visits his father in an asylum and after that opens a portal to a magical world, a world known as L'lyeh where there exist weird creatures and monsters of all kind. The film mixes lighthearted adventure with dark fantasy and horror, but the type of things that would work well for kids too. And while I am all for introducing kids to H.P. Lovecraft's writing and universe, this simply wasn't good enough. It feels disjointed, it feels all over the place and it just isn't very well-written or directed. Features voice acting from Doug Bradley, Ron Perlman, Jane Curtin and Scott McNeil among others. I understand that it was made on a limited budget, but if you don't have the money to make a really fucking good full-lenght, than either wait or make it shorter. The animation was sloppy as fuck. It's the kind of 3D animation you'll see on Disney shows for babies (0-4 years old). It's that bad, and that takes away a lot. This should've been 40-50 minutes long, instead of 80, which would've meant more money for decent animation. Another thing is that it spend to much time fucking around with super childish shit that doesn't make much sense. So much wasted potential. However, I'll watch the sequel today. From the little I saw it did look hella lot better.

Been spinning this a few times over the weekend and I must admit I am very disappointed. I find it rather mediocre, and it just lacks that melodic side that's always made Sargeist so good. This sounds more like Behexen, than Sargeist IMO. Title track is probably my favourite as it sounds a lot like classic Sargeist. Melodic and catchy, yet cold and grim. On another note: New Kriegsmaschine album just dropped. Not heard a single word about this until just now. It sounds like Kriegsmaschine alright, and is clearly a continuation of their previous album, Enemy of Man. Sounds good, and even better than Enemy of Man. Like I said when Mgla released Exercises in Futility, Darkside's drumming just gets better and better with every single release, and I wonder if this is the best drum performance on a black metal ever? Hell, fuck that. Best drum performance on an extreme metal album ever? Darkside just takes things to a whole new level of creativity, but without taking anything from the rest of the music. Truly impressive! Features M. and Darkside of Mgla btw. However, don't expect anything like Mgla. This is a very different band. Edit: the more I listen the more do I realize that the drum work is just out of this world. Holy crap! Mindblowing!

Really looking forward to The Night Comes for Us, but I'm planning on watching it with a friend so I have to wait until next weekend or so. That said, everything Timo Tjahjanto and his partner Kimo Stamboel touches turns to gold, including Headshot and Killers by both of them as The Mo Brothers. Kinda expect this to be among the best work from either too, tbh. It's just right up my alley. Looking forward to Timo Tjahjanto's May the Devil Take You (homage to the first two The Evil Dead movies?) and Kimo Stamboel's One Good Thing which I don't know nothing about, but being a Kimo Stamboel film it should turn out excellent.

The hightlight of a 90 minute long concert was one if the band members' "wawing hair"? Sounds like a terrific fucking concert indeed.

I think 2018 has been an amazing year for horror films with Apostle, Mandy, Summer of 84, Upgrade, Annihilation, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Constantine: City of Demons and Don't Leave Home being my favourites. Have a lot more to watch too which I believe will be amazing. And while this isn't a great amount of films, the quality of them are sky high.

Apostle - Gareth Evans is best known for his amazing martial arts films The Raid, The Raid 2: Berandal and Merantau, all starring the now cult hero Iko Uwais. But he also gained some praise for his segment Safe Haven in the horror movie V/H/S/2 as well, and with good reason as that was an amazing segment. With Apostle Gareth Evans moves far away from everything martial arts. Apostle sees Gareth Evans look toward the late 60's and the 70's and classic folk-horror, and he's not trying to hide his influences at all. Apostle wear movies like The Wicker Man, Blood on Satan’s Claw, Witchfinder General and more, with The Wicker Man being the most obvious one. But never does he try to rip any of them off or anything. Gareth Evans has made his own film, a unique film where light and darkness plays a huge role. The atmosphere is absolutely magnificent, the cast is fantastic and the cinematography and sets are close to perfect. One of the best films of the year. Amazing! Constantine: City of Demons - Originally released as a web-series with a shitload of 5-10 minutes episodes or something, but I waited for the series to be released as a film and watched it in its entirety. Thought this was an amazing, and very faithful animated adaption of the anti-hero Constantine. Dark and gruesome, atmospheric and fun. Very enjoyable!

Fuck me, the new Trevor Something sounds really good after a few spins last night, but this opening track is by far the highlight of the album. What a fucking banger of a track! Mmmmmh, yeah!

Watched the Uada video earlier today. Got serious Arcanum vibes from the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itrw3Rn5CkY

Nah. First you go out and buy the best, most expensive and most exclusive peanut butter you can find. Then you take a huge spoon, dig into the glass and just eat it straight off the spoon to get a feeling of what it's like. Then you make yourself a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich and just enjoy life for a moment. It's gotta be strawberry jelly. The real, natural stuff made of 98% strawberries with just a bit of added sugar. Preferable homemade, but you can get some good stuff in some stores too. Expensive as fuck tho, but worth it. Be sure to stay away from the awful, artificial shit you get in most stores with 60% strawberries and a lot of crap you don't need.

I don't see the problem with that at all. Seen Svartidauði several times myself, and they've always been excellent and always been able to give the audience a show that totally matches their music. Different type of bands require different type of stage personality and energy, and personally I don't feel like dissonant or (semi-)technical black/death metal bands like Svartidauði, Devouring Star, Portal and Dodecahedron has to give a high-octane performance on stage. Doesn't exactly fit the music. Same with bands like Cult of Fire and Batushka. I just don't think a really energetic show would fit them at all. Just standing up and down without doing anything but playing the music is just perfect. To me that's a bit like complaining about Slipknot giving a energetic performance. But to each their own of course.

They've said that the first half is rather straight-forward, while the second half is out there. I know MZ have said that one track is the most controversial song by a black metal band in a long time. I can see Famine going full black metal rap on it. Full on white traah, black metal rap. Hah

Ah, alright. Oh yeah! That fucking rules.

You familiar with their older stuff, from before they started the transition from black to death with Pandemonic Incantations? Back in the early-to-mid 90's they had a very classic polish black metal sound. It's not for everyone, but I always loved the polish sound. Old Behemoth, Graveland, Infernum, Veles, Fullmoon, Sunwheel and more. They really nailed the hateful, medieval atmosphere on these early-to-mid 90's albums, while still capturing something incredible epic and emotional. Everything up until the extremely underrated Grom are just top notch IMO. The way they captured that classic polish sound on all their albums, while also being fully able to capture both the mean and raw, as well as the big and epic sides of Bathory is just awesome. I mentioned Iceland and Svartidauði a page back, and they just announced they would release a new album. First track is stellar:

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - Lex Luthor has become president of the US and Batman and Superman has to team up to take down him and a Kryptonite meteor aiming for earth to save the planet. Not the smartest, most complex or well-made films out of the animated DC films, but immensely fun anyway with lots of cool action and cameos by other superheros, most of them working for Lex Luthor. Just real fun! Superman/Batman: Apocalypse - Sequel to Public Enemies, but it doesn't really have much to do with it at all. and it is as much a Supergirl film, as a Batman film. It's more a Superman/Supergirl, with Batman and Wonder Woman appearing as friends to them. So the title is a bit misleading, and while not as good as Public Enemies it's still a lot of fun. Silly, but very fun. Death Race - No, this is not the satirical action/sci-fi comedy Paul Bartel masterpiece with David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone and Simone Griffeth so on. That one is called Death Race 2000. This is Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil) remake from 2008, or as he calls it, a prequel. And that despite the fact that the original is set around 2000, while this is set in 2012/2013. That's just silly. I love the original, but was disappointed when I saw this some years back. But re-watching it now, this wasn't too shabby. It got nothing on the original and isn't too good, but it's fun enough and the cast with Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane and Joan Allen makes it even more fun. It was OK. Gonna watch the sequels from now on, as well as the proper sequel to the original one, called Death Race 2050. I am really looking forward to that one. Heard it's actually really awesome, and that the 3,5 or something on IMDB is one of way, way, way too many bad (and good scores) who show how fucking useless IMDB are. Death Duel - It's been a long time since I've watched any wuxia, so I just had to watch this the other day. Creative, colourful and complex wuxia with lots of depth and nice dialogue. Beautifully shot with amazing-looking sets and bright, beautiful colors (as expected from a 70's Shaw Brothers wuxia), superbly choreographed (as expected from a Chor Yuen film), and brilliantly acted throughout. The film stars a brilliant Derek Yee, but we also get Shaw Brothers regulars like i Lung, Lo Lieh, and David Chiang in bigger and smaller roles. At times, things might seem a bit random and shit, but everything gets knitted together as the film goes and you never really feel like there's any loose ends. It's just beautifully done. My type of film for sure!

Been listening a lot to the new Behemoth lately, but I am not feeling it tbh. Some of the songs are great, but as a whole it feels flat, safe, uninspired and sterile. And extremely straight-forward. When Nergal told us to expect some WTF-shit I thought they'd taken the sound of The Satanist and fucked it up even more. Gone wilder, crazier and more experimental/daring. But I Loved You At Your Darkest makes The Satanist sound like a wild, progressive avant-garde album that's just out there. Which it truly isn't. I enjoy the post-punk/goth rock influences, but the album falls flat on its ass IMO. Super disappointed. 4/10

This has to be a joke?

He did. He's got a very distinct style for sure. It's always easy to see if he made something or not.

Yeah. Majority of the album will be in Japanese. I think Mirai's said about 90% or something.