Bear

In Japan, this supergroup of young ladies. Rie, Shinri Kawaguchi, Miyuki and Shoko Nagasaki on keys. It's like a female Return to Forever (legendary 70s jazz fusion band). I wish it was a permanent thing and not a one-off, and really wish a full length DVD would be released.
 
 
Non-Japan: Hell. That's the name of the band. Equal parts Judas Priest and Mercyful Fate. Very distinctive old school British metal sound. They formed in 1982, broke up in 88, and got back together in 2008. I may be off by a year here or there. One of their guitarists is a very popular metal album producer named Andy Sneap. And the singer is an actor, hence the headset and excessive use of his hands.
 

I'm not familiar with every single Blazebirth Hall band, but the few I know is excellent. Forest's four first albums are nothing short of brilliant, Branikald's albums of the 90's are amazing, and the debut albums of both Nitberg and Raven Dark are very good and Rundagor's demo is brilliant.
 
These are easily my most played Blazebirth Hall albums, though:
 
Forest - Заревом над прахом
Forest - Обрекая надежду на вечность
Forest - Песнью в жатве горя
Branikald - Kveldulv
Branikald - Хладавзор
 
I wouldn't be shy of giving any of them 6/6 to be honest. They're just fantastic albums.

Cheesecake is one of the best things in the world. Jesus, can't get enough of it.

Cheesecake is one of the best things in the world. Jesus, can't get enough of it.

Cheesecake is one of the best things in the world. Jesus, can't get enough of it.

Awwwww damn! Laudata Nex Magicka II was good. As good as the first one I Dare say. Blæst is a fantastic place for concerts as well. The sound is always top notch.
 
Slagmaur kicked off day one, and I was quite surprised. Saw them at Inferno last year or the year before and they were awful. While not fantastic this time around, they did a lot better and the chick they had on stage for a couple of songs had one hell of a powerful voice. Shame about the playback and the masks which looks like cheap masks from a Halloween store, but I was entertained and the playback is excusted as the previous vocalist died only a couple of weeks ago. 6/10
Mgla was next band up, and they were once again beyond brilliant. What a fantastic live band they are. Their delivery is as tight as it gets, and their attitude is amazing. 10/10
One Tail, One Head was the last band of day one and it was amazing. Last time I saw them I was quite disappointed, but this time around they impressed me hella lot. Intense, destructive and ugly. Great grig! 8/10
Execration kicked off day two, and despite playing death metal on a black metal festival they felt like they fitted right in and what a gig it was. Superb from begining to end! Best gig I've seen from them. 9/10
The Ruins of Beverast was massive. Heavy as fuck, and I never noticed that they lacked a guitarist. Due a double booking I was told they lacked one member, but from the sound and performance itself I never noticed anything. Superb! 8/10
Dark Sonority was given the honor of ending the festival, and what an ending it was. I'm not too familiar with Dark Sonority, but I am familiar with Kaosritual as they were called when Steingrim Torson was still alive. As with Mare who played last year and share some members, this is more like an occult ritual than a traditional gig. They looked fantastic, the delivery was spot on, the atmosphere was thick as vocalist Blix (Vemod, Mare, Black Majesty) led on with his magick. He's one hell of a frontman, as seen in Mare and Vemod last year, Not in a traditional sense, because he doesn't do much out of himself. He just stands there and do some signs with his arms, turns his back to the crowd and just continue with his signs. But he's captivating and just knows exactly what he's doing. Fantastic gig! Seond best only to Mgla. 10/10
 
Slagmaur:
 

 
Mgla:

 
One Tail, One Head:

 
Execration:

 
The Ruins of Beverast:

 
Dark Sonority:

Not my pictures.
 
 
 
Already looking forward to next year, and this was a nice build up to the four day party that is Inferno festival. Had three people over for the weekend, and next week we travel to Oslo and to one of them to live there for four days. Jesus, I dno't know if my body can't take this. Heh.

Interesting. Why exactly? Just curious.

Cheap Thrills - Pitch black comedy-thriller that's as hilarious as it's thrilling, with a small but excellent cast, nice direction and a twisted plot. It takes some time going and is very slow, but it's very rewarding at the end of the day. The humor, pitch black as I said, is most excellent and the film just gets funnier and funnier as the film goes on and gets quite daring after a while, as well as unpredictable. You just never know where the film is going after this and that event. And because of the tone, setting and feeling it's almost so that you feel bad for laughing at some of the event sin this film, but at the same time you just can't hold it in you because it's too god damn funny.
 
The cast is more or less Pat Healy and Sara Paxton who played the two leads in The Innkeepers, Ethan Embry who surely does the role of his life and David Koechner who is great. They're the main cast, and they're all fantastic!
 
I thought this entire film was god damn superb, and I'll even go as far as to call it a must-see. Brilliant!
 

http://sorrowplagues.bandcamp.com/album/sorrow-plagues
 
Check that out, guys. Atmospheric/depressive black metal drowned in synth in the vien of (newer) Woods of Desolation. Three tracks in it sounds very good.

Yes, you are right. There are similarities, but we're taking about prison films here and you can only do so much when the setting is a prison. Think of 98% of all prison based film, they all tend to have harsh wardens, (very often sexually fused) attacks by prison innmates and periods in solitary. These things are almost key ingredients in any films set to a prison setting. What you have to look at is the characters themself, as well as the story as a whole, in which they both differ greatly.
 
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure Stephen King borrowed/stole quite a lot from Escape from Alcatraz (book and film), like all great artists does, but these elements are small seen in the whole. The tone of the film, the way the characters both are and act. It's just very different in my eyes, making the films very different from eachother. The only similarity I find "weird" is the pet thing, the rest not so much at all.

This is what I wrote about it a year and half ago:
 
 
A 6/10 for me. Not awful, but it both could and should've been a lot better. It was like they went all random towards the end as they had went out of ideas and just choose going on for the hell of it.
 
 
Phenomena is fantastic and really underrated. Fantastic soundtrack too. Goblin, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Andi Sex Gang and more.

really? The characters in the two movies seemed pretty similar to me honestly, both main characters are rather similar (the clever sort), both wardens were alike (the dickhead), both movies had a character with a  pet mouse, both had the black guy character that made a bond with the white guy main character thus transcending race, both had a older male character who had something taken away from them by the dick warden and thus died as a result.... like I could go on for a while here. both had a fucked up character who was trying to anally rape the main character and both got what was coming to em. Both movies had a main guard who was pretty much a asshole.
 
if you ask me there are a lot of similarities between the two movies when it comes to character archetypes and certain plot setups....

Both are based on different books, but other than being about a prison escape neither films has much in common to be honest. Two very different films that focus on very different things. Both excellent too, but I prefer Escape from Alcatraz 10/10 times.

You know the drill. ;<
 
 
February was a pretty uneventful and lax month for me musically. There were some nice releases tho.
 

MeteoroiD - BULLETBOX / A pretty cool album, even if it's just a best of. I've listened to these guys on-and-off after they made a transition from boring pop-rock to kvlt kei-ish territory, and this release is pretty much a perfect treasure trove of that latter era. So it's essentially a darker-coloured affair but also quite melodic and catchy, with nice guitar play and some clever (albeit standard-ish) compositions. A nice surprise.
 

Gehennah - Too Loud to Live, Too Drunk to Die / With a title like that, this record already wins some bonus points! Thankfully the music is kickass too, with a dirty booze-filled punch to the ears. Gehennah do their usual brand of hellish, Motörhead-influenced black-thrash attack with even a bit more rock'n'roll flair than before, making the whole thing sound pleasantly groovy and also powerful as fvck. Hell yeah!
 

Venetian Snares - Traditional Synthesizer Music / Apparently Mr. Funk recorded the entirety of this album 'live' in his studio, which seems like quite a feat considering the towering mass of old-school equipment he has on hand. This album showcases a less chaotic and neurotic side of Venetian Snares, with awesome vintage-sounding synths coupled with some tasty breakbeats (but not overdone to insanity). A pleasant listen.
 
 
Honorable mentions
 
Fuath - I / A one-man black metal project sounding like a one-man black metal project. Awesome wintery atmosphere.
Seth Bogart - Seth Bogart / Quirky & queer pop with a nostalgic neon-glazed sound. Some real hooks in there!
Barren - Void / A progressive mixture of various aggressive metal and hardcore stylings. Not bad.

Fuck yeah, brah!
 
Other than that:
 
Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3
Rude (TBA)Ri
Ripper - Experiment of Existence
 
These four are the albums I can think of right now that I really look forward to.

You shouldn't drink to forget something or erase someone from your memory. It's never gonna work, And even if it helps, it's only for a few hours a time, and it's a poor solution. Time's the only thing that'll heal/help with those things.
 
Save the alcohol for good times.

I'm seeing Ghost live again tomorrow and thought it was about time this brilliant band got their own thread on the forum. I've followed Ghost since the release of their debut single Elizabeth, and I've enjoyed every release since then. Ghost is a big fucking circus with great music, and live they're a force of their own. Few bands can match the live shows of Ghost in 2016. As far as their live shows goes the most natural comparison would be Rammstein, rather than bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Foo Fighters.
 
 
I think all three albums are top quality, but if I had to rate them:
 
1. Infestissumam
Ghost goes pop-rock. Infestissumam sounds like a mix of Abba, Roky Erickson and with very little hard rock and heavy metal. Catchy as fuck. Only flaw is the weak production. Too polished and over-produced, but the brilliance of everything else makes up for it. Hightlights: Year Zero, Ghuleh / Zombie Queen and Monstrance Clock.
 
2. Opus Eponymous
A hard rocking mix of Blue Öyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Mercyful Fate, though Mercyful Fate is named more or less only because of the atmosphere and feeling of the album. Highlights: Ritual, Elizabeth and Stand by Him.
 
3. Meliora
By far their heaviest album IMO. An adventurous dig into progressive rock, heavy metal and hard rock. Sounds like a mix of Genesis, The Beatles and Blak Sabbath. Highlights: From the Pinnacle to the Pit, He Is and Absolution.
 
 
I also think their covers of Abba's I'm a Marionette, Roky Erickson's If You Have Ghosts and The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun is as good, if not better, than the original songs.
 
I also really like their cover art, even though the execution of Infestissumam is poor. But the film refrences of their cover art is nice and a cool touch to it all.
 
Opus Eponymous - Salem's Lot
Infestissumam - Amadeus
If You Have Ghost - Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
Cirice - The Silence of the Lambs
Meliora - Metropolis
Year Zero - Paradise Lost (not a film, but still cool)
 
 
They also have two tour shirts refrencing A Clockwork Orange and Jaws. Both looks sweet as fuck.

You shouldn't drink to forget something or erase someone from your memory. It's never gonna work, And even if it helps, it's only for a few hours a time, and it's a poor solution. Time's the only thing that'll heal/help with those things.
 
Save the alcohol for good times.

Plan to see them for the first time in May (with Pinkish Black, fuck yes!), glad to hear a positive review of their live show.
 
And I'd probably rank their albums in the reverse order you did, but like you I can dig them all.

I'm seeing Ghost live again tomorrow and thought it was about time this brilliant band got their own thread on the forum. I've followed Ghost since the release of their debut single Elizabeth, and I've enjoyed every release since then. Ghost is a big fucking circus with great music, and live they're a force of their own. Few bands can match the live shows of Ghost in 2016. As far as their live shows goes the most natural comparison would be Rammstein, rather than bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Foo Fighters.
 
 
I think all three albums are top quality, but if I had to rate them:
 
1. Infestissumam
Ghost goes pop-rock. Infestissumam sounds like a mix of Abba, Roky Erickson and with very little hard rock and heavy metal. Catchy as fuck. Only flaw is the weak production. Too polished and over-produced, but the brilliance of everything else makes up for it. Hightlights: Year Zero, Ghuleh / Zombie Queen and Monstrance Clock.
 
2. Opus Eponymous
A hard rocking mix of Blue Öyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Mercyful Fate, though Mercyful Fate is named more or less only because of the atmosphere and feeling of the album. Highlights: Ritual, Elizabeth and Stand by Him.
 
3. Meliora
By far their heaviest album IMO. An adventurous dig into progressive rock, heavy metal and hard rock. Sounds like a mix of Genesis, The Beatles and Blak Sabbath. Highlights: From the Pinnacle to the Pit, He Is and Absolution.
 
 
I also think their covers of Abba's I'm a Marionette, Roky Erickson's If You Have Ghosts and The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun is as good, if not better, than the original songs.
 
I also really like their cover art, even though the execution of Infestissumam is poor. But the film refrences of their cover art is nice and a cool touch to it all.
 
Opus Eponymous - Salem's Lot
Infestissumam - Amadeus
If You Have Ghost - Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
Cirice - The Silence of the Lambs
Meliora - Metropolis
Year Zero - Paradise Lost (not a film, but still cool)
 
 
They also have two tour shirts refrencing A Clockwork Orange and Jaws. Both looks sweet as fuck.

I'm seeing Ghost live again tomorrow and thought it was about time this brilliant band got their own thread on the forum. I've followed Ghost since the release of their debut single Elizabeth, and I've enjoyed every release since then. Ghost is a big fucking circus with great music, and live they're a force of their own. Few bands can match the live shows of Ghost in 2016. As far as their live shows goes the most natural comparison would be Rammstein, rather than bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Foo Fighters.
 
 
I think all three albums are top quality, but if I had to rate them:
 
1. Infestissumam
Ghost goes pop-rock. Infestissumam sounds like a mix of Abba, Roky Erickson and with very little hard rock and heavy metal. Catchy as fuck. Only flaw is the weak production. Too polished and over-produced, but the brilliance of everything else makes up for it. Hightlights: Year Zero, Ghuleh / Zombie Queen and Monstrance Clock.
 
2. Opus Eponymous
A hard rocking mix of Blue Öyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Mercyful Fate, though Mercyful Fate is named more or less only because of the atmosphere and feeling of the album. Highlights: Ritual, Elizabeth and Stand by Him.
 
3. Meliora
By far their heaviest album IMO. An adventurous dig into progressive rock, heavy metal and hard rock. Sounds like a mix of Genesis, The Beatles and Blak Sabbath. Highlights: From the Pinnacle to the Pit, He Is and Absolution.
 
 
I also think their covers of Abba's I'm a Marionette, Roky Erickson's If You Have Ghosts and The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun is as good, if not better, than the original songs.
 
I also really like their cover art, even though the execution of Infestissumam is poor. But the film refrences of their cover art is nice and a cool touch to it all.
 
Opus Eponymous - Salem's Lot
Infestissumam - Amadeus
If You Have Ghost - Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
Cirice - The Silence of the Lambs
Meliora - Metropolis
Year Zero - Paradise Lost (not a film, but still cool)
 
 
They also have two tour shirts refrencing A Clockwork Orange and Jaws. Both looks sweet as fuck.

Shit, really looking forward to this film.

In the Mouth of Madness: How in the FUCK did it take me this long to finally watch this? I love everything about this movie, holy fuck, i'm a total sucker for that ''fucking with reality'' / Lovecraftian stuff. Seriously wouldn't have minded if this one was like.. an hour or two longer, and I don't say that often. Also, Sutter Cane somehow constantly reminded me of some sort of evil Neil Gaiman looks-wise lmao (i know he's basically supposed to be Bootleg Stephen King tho)

Straight Outta Compton - I was really looking forward to this film, but I was sceptic as it seemed like it was aimed more towards casual movie watchers rather than hip hop/N.W.A. fans. Which is understandable of course considering how movies are all about money. But it still made me sceptic. Looked too much like a standard hood-film. But I was pleasently surprised.I thought it was excellent actually. I'm sure there's plenty fiction in the film, like it is in 95% of films like this, but it felt real and it felt honest. Dramatic and touching, tough as fuck, witty. Got a lot! I really enjoyed this.
 
But there were things that bugged me throughout this film too. MC Ren is almost forgotten. Now I don't now N.W.A.'s history through and through, but he surely was a much more important figure in the group than what this film made him out to be, and why on earth is Arabian Prince almost completely left out? That's so weird. Shocking actually. Not too fan of the good guy image the members are given her either, but this is close to nitpicking as it was a very entertaining films.
 
And I wish there was more N.W.A. in the soundtrack too. Straight Outta Compton is one of the very best hip hop albums ever, and it should've been given more time. In my eyes at least.
 
But I really liked the film!
 

 
3:10 to Yuma - I'll just start off by saying that this film is excellent, even though it doesn't quite reach the original. A great cast where both Russell Crowe and Peter Fonda truly excels. It feels like an old school western in a modern production. I like it a lot, but I'll recommend the original 9/10 times. It's simply a better film IMO. But if you love westerns, like I do, then this it well worth your time.
 

Finished Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, and I am super impressed. What a mind fuck the entire game is. It's very identical to the first one, but they've managed to squeeze in a lot of new elements that makes it very fresh. And I love the difficulty level here. It's hard enough to fucking frustrate the living shit out of me, but not so hard that I ever thought of giving up. It's found a very fine balance here.
 
The last act was pretty amazing. A bit too easy to be honest, which was my only disappointment with the game, but a lot of fun. Fucked up shit!
 
Anyway, great game! 9/10