Bear

I totally recommend Woods of Desolation. Both old and new, if you're into this kind of music. For the two first albums the music itself and the melodies aren't too different, but difference in the production makes them into two very different beasts. I prefer the older, more lo-fi and hazy material myself, but I am one of few as far as I know. The last album, As the Stars, was a bit more in the direction of post-black metal with a stronger shoegaze and post-rock feeling. A bit more Alcest-esque.

 

 

 

He also played bass on Austere's masterpiece "To Lay like Old Ashes".

 

 

I'll glady recommend Forest Mysticism and Grey Waters too. Forest Mysticism is very similar to Woods of Desolation and Grey Waters is more depressive rock, influenced by Katatonia's later albums and Amesoeurs.

 

Woods of Desolation's "Toward the Depths" and "Sorh" have been my go-to albums for foggy days alongside Negură Bunget's "'n crugu bradului" and "Om". I always play these albums when I'm walking around in the fog. No exception.

Yesterday I found out D. of Woods of Desolation/Forest Mysticism/Grey Waters recently released two new demos under new band names. I thought he'd been quiet for awfully long as he's not released anything new with Woods of Desolation since 2014's As the Stars. 

 

First is a band called Remete. Atmospheric black metal, but it's instrumental. I'd love some vocals on these tracks, but they're amazing nonetheless. The atmosphere and melodies reminds me of older Woods of Desolation releases such as Toward the Depths and Sorh, but without the hazy/foggy production of mentioned albums. Melancholic and sorrowful black metal.

 

 

Second demo is released under the name Unfelled. Again, very similar to Woods of Desolation and very, very good. A bit on the rawer side with a hazier production. I really like both.

 

https://coldwaysmusic.bandcamp.com

Those looks fresh as fuck.

Bed of the Dead - A beautiful poster made me download this film, but I wasn't expecting all that to be honest. It's not too bad actually, but I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential here. The story is interesting enough, albeit very, very silly, and it looks really nice throughout. It tries to be smart, but really isn't. And that's where it fails. It spends too much time building a plot that's not very interesting. They should've made it into a special effects movie where the focus were creative, bloody and gory death scenes.

 

Cool enough for a watch, but I'll not re-watch it.

The Lost City of Z - Good, but slightly disappointing bio-adventure about Percival Fawcett starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson who both turn in excellent performances. It's fun and all, but it's way too short for the amount it tries to tell. With all it's trying to tell, this should've been made into a 180-240 minute long film. Not 140. And where the film truly excels is when it lets us take a part of the adventures, be it in the jungle as explorers or in the WWI. But it does not spend nearly enough time on these things, instead it rushes from A to B to C to D and so on without taking time to truly give us an adventure. So yeah, disappointing. Good enough for a watch, but I won't re-watch it anytime soon.

Damn! That's a surprise. Only 48 years old as well. Way, way too early to die.

 

What a man, though. Leaves the world as one of the founders of death metal with lots of good music to his name. People will mainly remember him from Necrophagia, but he released some truly amazing stuff with Cabal, The Ravenous and Enoch.

 

Season of the Dead, Ready for Death and the demos are as legendary as they get to be honest. Brilliant stuff! But everything up until and including The Divine Art of Torture are top notch!

 

 

 

 

 

Summoning meets Ennio Morricone's western soundtracks. Sounds very, very good and super unique.

I thought Annihilation was a masterpiece, and as good as Ex Machina was, this movie was so good Ex Machina looks like crap in compassion.  And the reason I compare them is because Alex Garland directed and wrote(?) both. They're both sci-fi films, albeit very different. But both works just as well as pure entertainment, as it does as thought-provoking works of art. While both are really tought-provoking and has a lot of depth, I felt like Annihilation had a lot more of entertainment value to it. A work of art!

 

 

I've also watched a few other sci-fi/space opera flicks these week. And two out of three really surprised me.

 

Star Trek: Beyond - I love the two first films in the reboot, but I heard so much negative stuff about this that I decided to wait until my expectations lowered. And while it's hard to say, that might have been why I liked it as much as I did. Sure it's a step down from the previous two films, but this is great, silly entertainment nonetheless. But I am not gonna lie, it's not much of a Star Trek film. It lacks that sci-fi feel. But I liked it. It was fun.

 

The Cloverfield Paradox - This was never supposed to be a Cloverfield film to begin with, and it's quite obvious already from the start. The film has great potential, but it wastes it all. It just dumbs it all down a bit too much, and doesn't give neither the plot nor the characters time to grow. It's so flat. And it's boring. And Aksel Hennie is one of the worst actors I've ever seen. Kill it with fire!

 

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi - A Huge step down from Rogue One and a smaller one from The Force Awakens, but I really fucking liked this film. While it's not as good as the old ones and misses the point of what made the old trilogy so good, it captures the Star Wars-feeling I grew up with. Which is a great, entertaining adventure.

 

My biggest issue with the film thou:

 

There's not enough Luke Skywalker in it. Luke should've been given a lot more screentime, and his story with Rey should've been cut a lot less. They should've kept it more intact with fewer cuts.

 

It doesn't quite answer the questions asked in The Force Awakens, not does it continue to build its characters. It kinda stopped?

 

But anyway, I love Star Wars (not I-III of course) and I found this massively entertaining. Flawed as fuck, but I can look past that.

Dir en grey

The Gazette

Mucc

 

I don't know tho. Don't care either.

 

 

 

Cool track. Starts off really rocking before it turns into something that sounds quite inspired by Ved Buens Ende. Sounds great!

Checked out the band based on the cover not too long ago, but I was not impressed at all. Not too impressed by the riffs or production, and I found the vocals to be annoying as fuck. Which is a shame, because I would have loved to own a vinyl of that album based on the cover.

 

But what is up with the mixing? It's like they've integrated every instrument into the same mix, but just put the vocals on top later. It doesn't sound like a natural part of the overall sound at all. It's so weird.

 

But that cover art though. Fabulous!

Wolf Warrior 2 - A huge step up from the first one, but not a very good film at all. I praise the patriotic plot and some of the action scenes, but it's too long, too messy and got CGI that, while miles ahead of what they produced for the first film, is unimpressive as hell. Cheap and fake. Also, the villain, played by a good Frank Grillo, is called Big Daddy. Big fucking Daddy? What the hell is that? Anyway, if you don't got anything to see sure you could see this. But it should not be on top of your watchlist.

 

By the way, it only had a budget of $30m but actually grossed well over $870m, which made it the 54th highest-grossing film ever. That is probably the best part of the film. We need films like this, which isn't made on a huge budget in Hollywood, to do well.  We really do. 

Went to a Laibach gig yesterday and it was beyond amazing. Started of with a handful of tracks off the new album accompanied by nice visuals in the background. But it was when they were finished with the newest album and started playing off Spectre and older albums things went straight to the skies. Tracks like The Whistleblowers, Bossanova and Tanz mit Laibach are like made for being played live, as they get a lot harder and harsher live. At one moment your gazing upon the stage without moving a limb before you start stomp the rhythm before you're half-banging and then out of nowhere you're dancing alongside plenty others. Such a weird experience.

 

The gig was short (90 minutes) and the ticket was expensive as fuck ($65), but at the end it was more than worth it as the band gave an amazing performance and there were no photos allowed, so you could actually watch the gig through your own eyes and not through the phone of the person in front of you. Amazing! I'll gladly pay $10-15 for every single gig as long as they add a "no photos allowed" to the gig. Brilliant!

Les affamés / Ravenous - A nice, slow-burning reinvention of the zombie genre. A breath of fresh air. What it does so really well is that it takes the good elements of many classic zombie films and mash 'em up together, along with a huge slice of social commentary. In many ways it feels like a mix of The Night of the Living Dead and The Road. Dark and grim. Totally recommended!

Stargate - Stargate is a film that reeks of director Roland Emmerich, and there's nothing wrong with that. Albeit incredibly flawed, Stargate is actually a really fun film. Far from perfect, but it's good entertainment. Biggest problem of the film for me is Jaye Davidson who is godawful as Ra, and the mid 90's CGI. Especially the transformation scenes are bad. But totally recommended if you want a decent sci-fi film for the evening.

 

Tour de Pharmacy / Pharmacy Road - A mocumentary about Tour de France with a star ensemble. Andy Samberg, Jeff Goldblum, Orlando Bloom, Danny Glover, John Cena, Dolph Lundgren, Kevin Bacon, J. J. Abrams, Lance Armstrong and Mike Tyson to name a few. Pharmacy Road is 40 minutes of absurd humour that'll make any sane human laugh out loud. Hilarious! I was really impressed with Orlando Bloom and John Cena. Did not recognize the former who gives his best performance ever, and John Cena actually did really well. Fun as fuck! Need to watch 7 Days in Hell asap!

 

Bright - Flawed as fuck, but not nearly as bad as the critics have made it out to be. It's a bit too much action, it tries to cover a few subject too many at the same time and stuff, but it's fun and the universe and setting itself is beyond fucking amazing. There's a shot of the city where a dragon flies over and it's brilliant. Sums it up. But it's flawed. But I do hope we get more Bright films, because I would love to see more of this universe. Also, Noomi Rapace is shit.

 

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - Again a flawed film, but really damn entertaining. A great cast and a fun story. Really liked it. I thought especially Jack Black did really damn good. However, I was really let down by the CGI. Why use so much CGI if you're not gonna do it properly? Doesn't make sense. But fun, and a worthy sequel for sure,e ven though it's very different.

I prefer the debut album too, but the EP is fantastic nonetheless. 

Yeah. Sad Legend and Searching for the Hope in Utter Darkness... are two overlooked gems who know one really seems to remember or have heard. Top class melodic black metal. Always thought they sounded like a mix of Kvist and Dimmu Borgir's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. Classics as far as second rate black metal goes.

 

 

South-Korea have had a fair share of good black metal bands, with my favourites being:

 

Sad Legend

Aek Gwi

Pyha

Shadows of Black Candlelight

Kalpa (amazing album if you can get past the awful drums)

Oathean (first couple of albums)

Thy Sepulchral Moon (2/3rd of the band are South-Korean. Vocalist is Canadian)

 

These are really, really good.

Some upcoming shit to look forward to:

 

 

Aura Noir - Aura Noire

 

 

Vomitor - Pestilent Death

https://vomitor-australia.bandcamp.com/

 

New track sounds superb as always from these crazy aussie death metallers. 

 

 

Glorior Belli - The Apostates

 

https://gloriorbelli.bandcamp.com/album/the-apostates

 

New track sounds pretty good. Great rocking solo. Less stoner/southern rock and blues influence and more straight black metal than their last four albums. Their previous four albums have had its ups and downs, but I think the whole southern rocking black metal approach have been really cool and interesting, even though they haven't been fully able to mix the genres properly. But there's been huge potential for sure.

 

 

Sworn - Dark Stars and Eternity

 

Sounds a bit disappointing to be quite honest. They've never been a brilliant band, but their two first albums have been good melodic black metal with great sense of melodies and brutality, without wussying out at all. This new sounds less brutal and more... pop-ish? Not nearly as good as Bastards and Conquerors, at least nofr after one listen.

 

 

Finally finished The Deuce and thought it was very good. Lots of fleshed out characters, a great story and a beautiful setting really makes it good. James Franco is SUPERB!

 

Also watched Ugly Delicious and found it really good. David Chang travels around the world, tastes different food, talk about food, talk about culture and much more. I really enjoyed it!

I decided I'll re-watch the classic horror/mystery/urban fantasy TV-series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a series that only laster one season but had a massive influence on later supernatural series like X-Files. So yesterday I re-watched the two films, before I start on the TV-series today.

 

The Night Stalker - Made for TV film from the mid-70's about a news reporter that uncovers supernatural shit going on, but isn't exactly believed. The story is there, and the mix of horror and mystery, with a subtle touch of comedy works really well. Never hilarious, but fun enough to make you giggle a few times. It's beautifully shot with a superior British 50's and 60's horror/mystery vibe to it. Really good film!

 

The Night Strangler - This made for TV film is the sequel and follows much of the same recipe as The Night Stalker, and it goes along just as the previous one. But it's 15 minutes longer, has a better and more interesting story and is in that sense a superior film. I do wish they had given our villain a bit more screen time and purpose, but it's not a big flaw. The reason I wish there was more time given to him is because he's really interesting and a great villain. Superb film!

 

Really looking forward to start on the TV-series again today. One of the best there is.

12 hours ago, ghost said:

That's a tall statement! I'm ready to be impressed too though. 

 

It is, but what Gost is doing right now is to push the boundaries for what's acceptable for a synthwave artist. And not only by a little. This is a HUGE change from what we've heard any synthwave artist do before him. The album will divide the fans of the darker synthwave and will be hated by as many as who'll like it, but it'll gain a cult status for sure and it'll be considered a classic with time. I've got no doubt about it whatsoever.

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Sigh's new album "Heir to Despair" is now in the mixing process. The one thing I can say about this album is that most of the lyrics are in Japanese this time. You all will be hating it for sure.

 

Daaaamn! Did not see that coming. Doesn't make me any less interested, that's for sure.

 

 

 

Old Tower can do no wrong. Magnificent once more.

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming - Why the hell do I put myself through shit like this? Holy cow! The fifth film in the Sharknado franchise keeps in line with the rest of the series and is a lot worse than the previous one. Damn, this is so fucking bad. Only good thing about the entire film is parts of the soundtrack, a short cameo by Dolph Lundgren and some of the girls who are hot as fuck. And that's it. And there's a new one on the way, It'll be shit, and stupid as I am I will watch it. Fuck my life.

 

Beware the Slenderman - It's supposed to be a documentary about the Slenderman stabbing, but it really isn't. It's not awful, but it's too long for its own good, and it feels so random. At times it seems like a documentary about Slender Man, at other times it feels like a documentary about modern-day folklore and at other times it feels like a documentary about the Slenderman stabbing. It's all over the place, it's unfocused and a bit weird. Also, there's close to being nothing dedicated to the victim here. Absolutely nothing. Which I think is odd, as it's supposed to be about the stabbing and shit.

 

A very disappointing affair.

The New Gost will become a modern classic, and in 5-10 years it'll be considered one of the very best synthwave albums ever. Mark my words!

That was not what I had hoped for at all. At an artwork and title that made me think of both The Red in the Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness I was hoping for something darker and more death metal-esque, with more death metal riffing ala their old stuff. But this is just more of the same they did with Slaughter of the Soul and At War with Reality, albeit a lot better than At War with Reality .

 

It's not bad, just not what I had hoped for.