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Bear

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Posts posted by Bear

  1. Posted

    Maze Runner: The Death Cure - A step up from The Scorch Trials, but another very disappointing sequel to a surprisingly good and entertaining first film. It offers nothing at all, and like The Scorch Trials it doesn't feel like it has anything to do with the first at all. The first had a good concept and all, this has nothing. Boring as fuck. And way, way, way too long.

     

    Land of the Lost - Watched this late last night, drunk out of my mind with a friend. Damn, it was so bad. I expected it to be bad, but it was godawful. It had me laughing a few times, but I would not have laughed at it had I been alone. So yeah, poor stuff.

     

    CHIPS - A good cast can't save this abysmal crapfest of a film. It's based off an older TV-series, but it captures nothing of that series at all. Crap!

  4. Posted

    On 12.2.2018 at 3:07 AM, Axius said:

    26999-andltahrefhttpwwwjpo-cs41.jpg

     

    Good single bad album cover >.<

     

    This looks pretty good tbh. Would love to see a scan in higher quality.

     

    But dear god, no genre or scene has as many cover art atrocities as the "jrock"/visual kei scene. Could easily end up blind after watching some of these covers.

  5. Posted

    2 hours ago, Jigsaw9 said:

    I haven't listened to Aura Noir before but the advance tracks from the new album sound pretty kickass, so I'll give it a shot.

     

    Wow! That is actually a huge surprise. Expected you to already be fully into it. Aura Noir is a band that is at the worst, Hades Rise, a very good band. At their best, Dreams Like Deserts, Black Thrash Attack, Deep Tracts of Hell and The Merciless, fucking classic.

     

    Dreams Like Deserts - A bit thrashy, but their most black metal influenced album by a long shot. 

    Black Thrash Attack - This is hands down one of the most fitting album titles ever. A pure black/thrash metal assault.

    Deep Tracts of Hell - Their most violent and chaotic album to date. A lot more challenging and complex than previous album. Less Sodom and Destruction and more...Aura Noir?

    The Merciless - Their best album if you ask me, and maybe their filthiest album as well. It's the perfect balance between Teutonic thrash ala Sodom and Destruction, Norwegian black metal ala Darkthrone and 1st wave black metal ala Bathory and Tormentor. Check out Sordid and enjoy the homage to Possessed and their "March to Die". Fantastic stuff! And check Nattefrost's verse on Funeral Thrash. 

    Hades Rise - Hades Rise is their most groovy album so far.  Overall a lot slower and less thrashy than previous efforts. A tad disappointing as a whole, but it's not bad at all. Just not as good as their other stuff. 

    Out to Die - Out to Die sees Aura Noir pick up the pace again, and it's problably the closest they've been to traditional thrash metal, but without completely ditching the black metal vibes. Good shit!

     

     

    A must-love band for any fan of good black and thrash metal.

    Jigsaw9 reacted to this

  6. Posted

    High-Rise - High-Rise is  Ben Wheatley's dystopian drama adaption of a novel by the same name from the mid 70's. The film is about a luxury apartment building and its breakdown. The entire film is about class warfare, and the separation of the classes. So it's a very political film. But it's much more. It's also damn good entertainment with a cast consisting of the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans and Jeremy Irons leading the way through this ice cold, insane dystopian drama. It's a slow-burner and it'll divide the audience, but I liked it very much.

     

    It does not reach up to Kill List, A Field in England, Free Fire or Down Terrace, but Ben Wheatley hit the nail on its head once again.

  10. Posted

    Free Fire - I don't exactly try to hide my love for Ben Wheatley and his two masterpieces Kill List and A Field in England, as well as Down Terrace, and with Free Fire his back at making top, top, top class films. Free Fire is a Quentin Tarantino-esque gangster comedy and a chamber play with great characters, cool, witty dialogue, a fantastic 70's setting and an awesome visual style. In no way, shape or form does Ben Wheatley try to hide his influences, but nor does he copy them. He turns and twist everything he does into his own with his own character added to the films, and Free Fire is no different. It wears its influences proudly on its sleeve, but does more than enough to add his own twist, turns and character to the film.

     

    It's basically one long acting scene, but it works so fucking good. I will have to re-watch it before I call it a masterpiece, but after seeing it one time I gave it a 9/10. Ben Wheatley proves why again why I rank him as one of the most interesting directors of the last 18 years. Daring, bold and original.

     

     

    Will watch High-Rise after I get home from work today. It's another recent Ben Wheatley flick that seem to have been well received by the same type of people who enjoy Kill List, A Field in England Free Fire, Down Terrace and Sightseers. He's one of those that does his own thing, and the majority of his films won't please a big audience. But it'll please a small core of people into the types of films he makes.

  11. Posted

    I don't expect there to be any fans of Mysifier here, but I'll post some new anyway:

     

    Quote

    "Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of Mystifier. The Brazilian black metal underground stalwarts will release their long anticipated next album through the label. 
    MYSTIFIER comment: "We have spend 29 years on the road and 17 years without releasing an album. Finally, we have signed a deal for a new record with one of the biggest labels of extreme music. We were introduced to Season of Mist boss Michael Berberian during our European tour, 'Bloodshed Rituals 2016' with ROTTING CHRIST, but we never imagined becoming a part on such a select roster. We expect our alliance will prove beneficial for all parties involved and we extend our gratitude to every fan, producer, photographer, sound and light engineer, fanzines, record label, tour manager, and everybody else, who took part of our long underground history. Towards infinity!"

     

    The band released two albums in the early 90's the soon reached status as cult albums, and with time they've also turned into milestones of the genre. I loved both Wicca and Göetia, and I feel like The World Is So Good That Who Made It Doesn't Live Here isn't much worse. But a lot of people have problems with the vocals of that album. They took an operatic and theatrical approach and I love it. The demo compilation 25 Years of Blasphemy and War is also damn good!

     

    They are also one of the best live bands I've ever seen.

     

    Profanus is a decent album too, but I hope a new album is superior to that one.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Oh heeeell yeaz!

  12. Posted

    Insidious: The Last Key -Insidious 3 was very disappointing and mediocre at best, topped with the most ridiculous kung fun scene ever placed in a horror film. So I wasn't looking forward to a sequel, until I found out Adam Robitel was directing it. He did really well with, and totally caught me off guard, with The Taking of Deborah Logan which I thought was really good. Like with Insidious 3 the script is lackluster, but it's closer to the two first Insidious in atmosphere and feeling, and Adam Robitel showcases a much better understanding of the horror genre as a whole. There's jump scares, but it's based more around atmosphere, which is what I prefer.

     

    The climax is a huge letdown and I did not like the monster much at all. Looked stupid.

     

    Not a great film, but it was alright and a big step up from Insidious 3. Both Lin Shaye and Angus Sampson does really well, and the latter is really funny throughout the film. Great character!

  13. Posted

    Kill List - Re-watched this modern folk-horror masterpiece a week or so ago. The film starts out like a very traditional thriller but slowly twists and turns until it's full on folk-horror with clean influences from The Wicker Man among others. The grey, modern day suburban setting, the characters, the atmosphere. Ben Wheatley, whom I personally consider a god of modern day horror and cinema in general, knows exactly what is scary and he knows exactly how to work with those elements. Everything is a bit messy, a bit twisted and a bit unclear, but that just adds to the greatness of the film.

     

    Masterpiece!

  14. Posted

    Logan Lucky - In many ways this is just Steven Soderbergh repeating himself, as Logan Lucky is just Ocean's Eleven with a different setting, mood and type of characters. The plot, the stylish execution and the nice visual style is the same. But I love Ocean's Eleven so I won't complain. Logan Lucky is a smart, stylish and fun heist film with an ensemble cast lead on by  Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough and Daniel Craig, and all gets lots of room to play around and do their own thing.

     

    Channing Tatum proves that he is a lot more than a pretty face and a good body, and Daniel Craig is super cool and good as the IN-CAR-CER-ATED Joe Bang. While his accent might not be perfect, especially when he has to deliver a lot of lines, he does real good with it. I was really surprised by it.

     

    Overall a real nice and good film. Really enjoyed myself throughout its two hour running time.

     

    Now You See Me 2 - I wasn't too impressed by the first one, but since I watched it I just had to see this too. And while not a very good film, it's a lot better than the first. It looks and sounds very good, it's well-acted throughout and the chemestry between the "four horsemen", included the hidden fifth, is very good and more or less what drives the film. The thing that really lets me down is the "magic tricks" and how they reveal everything at the end. Like a magic trick it would've been so much better if they had left us wondering about how they did all this and all that. Because the last trick is so far-fetched when you know how they did it, but if they had not told us anything it would've seemed plausible at least. So that's a huge problem.

     

    But I'll watch the third one whenever it gets here.

  17. Posted

    While not a band within the genres mentioned in the OP, I'm still gonna post this band as they're black metal.

     

    Wigrid! The debut album were highly influenced by Burzum, and I would guess especially Det som engang var and Burzum/Aske. Albeit with a more depressive twist to it all. The second album is also very Burzum influenced, but it's slower and contains much more traditional depressive black metal riffing similar to what you'd hear in Strid, Nidhoggr and Nyktalgia.

     

    I'll have to go with Hoffnungstod as the best of the two albums, but both are absolutely amazing. Hoffnungstod is a modern classic and one of the best black metal albums of the 2000's imo.

     

     

    The reason I had to post this is because I am a huge fan, and I am gonna get dressed and walk up to my local mail office and pick up Discography Box Part II, which is the second tape box that collects every Wigrid and Elfenblut (pre-Wigrid) material, with the exception of the two tracks from the latest split release. I liked the first one a lot, so I will be pleased about getting this too. Like the first box it also contains a 3" CD with a track.

    Mamo, Kaleidoscope and Manji 卍 reacted to this

  18. Posted

    Shining - I'm not the biggest fan of Shining, but I can appreciate the stuff released before The Eerie Cold and the move towards more progressive and rock-esque music quite a lot. But I've always felt like Niklas Kvarforth was a pathetic subhuman and this gig didn't change anything. The band sounds awful, they act pathetic and the entire gig was really embarrassing. My two friends who loves the band agrees, but they were even more negative than me. Says it all.

     

    Uada - This gig was just too good. The sound was amazing, the band looks cool and their brand of melodic black metal that sounds like a mix of Mgla and Dissection really does it for me. Superb gig!

     

     

    So my favourite gigs of Inferno: Uada, Grave, Electric Wizard, and to my huge surprise, Emperor.

    Jigsaw9 reacted to this

  23. Posted

    Dark Funeral - I was looking forward to Dark Funeral considering their latest album, Where Shadows Forever Reign, is by far their best release since Diabolis Interium, but this was one hell of a disappointing gig. They're known for poor, muddy sound live, but the overall sound wasn't really too bad. The setlist was disappointing with only three tracks off Dark Funeral, The Secrets of the Black Arts and Vobiscum Satanas (and album that should have been in the focus considering it's 20 years old this year), the new frontman, Heljarmadr of Domgård and Grá, was too slick, too boring. But the main problem was the sound of the bass drums. Made it unbearable really.

     

    Napalm Death - The band, with Mitch Harris in the front, made one hell of an energic and fun show . The sound was top notch, Mitch Harris moved around like he was on some strong, scary fucking drugs and the setlist was alright. Great gig! Covered fucking Anti Cimex as well. Top notch!

     

    Fleshgod Apocalypse - I've already written about these guys, but let me add that I've seen them two times and both gigs are among the 5 worst gigs I've ever seen. Maybe even among the 3 worst. Fans of these shitheads should be executed right away. Fuck off!

     

    Origin - I'm not fan of this kind of brutal and technical death metal, and I didn't like the music a lot. But it was a really fucking fascinating gig and I am glad I saw them. I was just standing there with my mouth open and watching their bassist for the entire gig really. Holy cow. The speed, technicality and precision, man. Wow! It was both fun and interesting watching him. The thing I did not like was the vocalist. Jason Keyser acted and sounded like he belonged in a shitty deathcore band, not a death metal band.

     

    Grave - Grave is among the classic death metal bands from sweden that helped form the classic swedish death metal sound, and I was looking forward to this gig. But I did expect to be let down by a setlist with too many new songs. They played one song from Out of Respect for the Dead and Dominion VIII, and the rest of the tracks, which was 10, was from 1993 and backwards. Six songs from Into the Grave, two songs from You'll Never See..., one song from ...and Here I Die...Satisfied and one song from their third demo Anatomia Corporis Humani. That is a truly amazing setlist. All respect to the band who seem smart enough to understand what their audience wants. Fantastic!

     

    Ahab - I'm not the biggest fan and when I want funeral doom I tend to go for something else, but this gig was so fucking good. Dark, heavy and crushing. It was like being taken on a trip over the seas in the boat of Captain Ahab. Superb!

     

    Earth Electric - Earth Electric is the new band of Rune "Blasphemer" Eriksen and his wife Carmen. We're talking 70's inspired prog rock meets heavy metal, and I was surprised. Had never heard the band, but the gig was really damn good. And Carmen Susana Simões, the female vocalist, brought something really special to the gig and she gave off a very traditional Louisiana Voodoo-feeling. It was really cool! Liked it a lot. So did my friend who isn't really into this type of music.

    Jigsaw9 reacted to this

  24. Posted

    Went to Inferno last week like usual and like previous years I missed out on a lot of good bands because they played too early, John Dee was full or because I was hungry or something, but I got to see some very good bands too.Right now I can't really remember everything that played, so I might miss out on a few ones. But let's try anyway:

     

    Emperor - Emperor were, to my huge surprise, not a headliner, but they played Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk in its entirety, before they ended the gig with Curse You All Men!, The Majesty of the Nightsky, I Am The Black Wizards and Inno A Satana. I have never really been a big fan of the album but the concert was amazing and completely changed my view of the album. Been playing it several times since I got home and I am really enjoying it now. Like really, really diggin' it. The magic of live gigs, folks! They don't look very black metal and I do wish they'd done a bit more image-wise, but the sound was fantastic, they had superb stage pressence and was really good. By far the best I've ever seen them.

     

    Satyricon - My first time seeing them, and I will not be seeing them again. Awful setlist with only 5 tracks being off Volcano and the albums before it. But it just didn't sound good. Towards the end of the gig I told my friend they were gonna play Mother North soon, and then he just told me they had just played it. I was not able to recognize one of the most iconic black metal tracks ever. Was not able to recognize Walk the Path of Sorrow either. Which kinda sums up how bad this was.

     

    Obituary - Obituary played a mix of new and old tracks, but as they don't have a single bad album that's not a problem. Of course I would love more old, but it wasn't a problem. Great, groovy death metal gig. Was real good!

     

    Electric Wizard - With sleazy horror films with a lot of torture of naked girls, occultism and nudity playing in the background Electric played through a set mostly of newer songs, but also made sure to play a couple of classic tracks from their older albums. The sound was good with the vocals buried beneath the instruments which, unless you already knew the tracks, made it impossible to hear what he was actually singing. But there was nothing wrong with it. Made it even more hazy and smokey. I've heard much negative about ElWiz live, but this was great with The Chosen Few as the highlight. One of the best doom metal songs ever.

     

    Carpathian Forest - These guys were to my huge surprise headlines for one of the evenings. The reason I was surprised is because they hadn't released a full-lenght since 2006 and their upcoming EP is not yet released. But this was a great gig with tracks taken from all their albums (with the exception of the poor Fuck You All!!!! as far as I know), as well as a demo and old EP track and a few cover songs of Turbonegro and The Cure. Played a lot of good songs, but the highlight was when Nattefrost suddenly picked out a harmonica from his backpocket and played the worst piece of music I have ever heard. But it was bad and ugly in a beautiful and fun way. I also have to admit that he did a lot better than expected, and he delivered a very mature gig. Very good!

     

     

    Too be continued...

    Jigsaw9 reacted to this

  25. Posted

    3 hours ago, Mamo said:

    It's on Spotify, also is it supposed to be an ep or a full album because there's  only 6 tracks on Spotify or do you just call all releases album(I know plenty of people who do lol)? 

     

    They've released three albums, The Nightspectral Voyage, Colossal Christhunt and Whom the Fire Obeys, and an EP called The Vehemence. They also released two demos under the name The Gate. The two first albums, The Nightspectral Voyage, Colossal Christhunt, are complete classics as far as symphonic black metal goes. The keyboards are out of this world, but they also got amazing riffs and song structures to back it up.

     

    3 hours ago, Jigsaw9 said:

    Not sure if it fits here, but I've been relistening to lots of Arcturus. Great band. Even the last album (that came like a decade after the previous one) is solid.

     

    Not sure whether they can be classified as black metal, but at least the first album is pretty kickass symphonic / atmospheric / avantgarde black metal, and the rest are amazing avantgarde extreme metal works.

     

    ...that's all. :D 

     

    The debut album is atmospheric black metal, and the later are more in the vain of avant-garde and progressive metal.  You've also got the debut EP My Angel which is more in the line of death/doom and the EP Constellation which are more of a cross between the gloomy doom on My Angel and atmospheric black metal of their debut album.

     

    I haven't bothered with the latest album yet, but I love everything they've done before. Aspera Hiems Symfonia are among my very favourites no matter the genre. 

     

     

    And I think it fits here as this has been more of a general black metal thread. I mean, there's no old school (80's and very early 90's) and raw black metal yet, but there's been talked about a lot of different stuff.

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