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Queen of Liars

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  2. Queen of Liars
    So today, roughly two weeks after we handed in our final coursework, he asks us to make sure that the question combinations we picked are allowed by the exam board, because the coursework is being sent off for moderation on Friday.
    Wonder what would have happened if someone actually didn't check that when they first picked their questions and only found out today that they're not allowed to do the two they chose.
  3. Queen of Liars
    Time for an updated Ghost in the Shell collection post, now that I have all the new Arise stuff.
     

     
    We have the DVDs:
     
    Ghost in the Shell / Innocence / Ghost in the Shell 2.0 boxset
    Stand Alone Complex 1st GIG boxset
    Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG boxset
    Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man
    Stand Alone Complex - Individual Eleven
    Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society
    Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Borders 1 & 2
    Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Borders 3 & 4
    Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie
     
    And the manga:
     
    Ghost in the Shell
    Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface
    Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor
     
    Good stuff right there.
  4. Queen of Liars

    Björk

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, here is my recently completed Björk collection:
     

    ^Click for a bigger picture
     
    Debut
    Post
    Homogenic
    Selmasongs: Music from Dancer in the Dark
    Vespertine
    Medúlla
    The Music from Drawing Restraint 9
    Volta
    Biophilia
    Vulnicura
     
    Got to say I'm not overly fond her newest album, but I love pretty much all of the other main albums, especially Post and Debut.
  5. Queen of Liars
    ...forever
     
    So today was my last day of sixth form. It's been an interesting couple of years and I will definitely miss these rather simple, but fun times. I've met some amazing people and had some great experiences and I'm sure that I'll look back with fondness on this time in the future. Ah, how quickly time passes, even when it seems slow in the moment.
     
    To celebrate/mourn, I'll be going to see Judas Priest and Saxon with a few friends tomorrow. This will probably be the last show I'll go to for a while, as I'm foreseeing that I'll neither have the time nor the money once I'm in university. But hey, what better last show than two of the most legendary British Heavy Metal bands of all time?
     
    High school, check; sixth form/college, check; university, here I come.
  6. Queen of Liars
    Well, university starts soon and I visited today to collect my keys and check out the place where I'll spend the next three years of studying. It's actually pretty nice, about the same size as my room now, so that's great. No wi-fi though, and the internet provided is probably going to be fairly slow, so I'll have to look into getting better internet for myself.
    I came to the conclusion that I am the second to visit my floor/hall, as there was some milk in one of the fridges, however I did not come into contact with its owner.
     
    Now I just have until Sunday to figure out what I need that I don't have and buy it, and then I'll be moving in. Actually can't wait, although I'll miss this summer of not doing anything.
  7. Queen of Liars
    Been a while since one of these music collection updates. Received the new Paradise Lost live album on vinyl + DVD today, and it's quite nice:
     

     

     
    Really looking forward to giving it a listen/watch later. The first half of it is done with an orchestra and seems fantastic from the teasers.
  8. Queen of Liars
    Note that the friend in question is the guitar, not the cat. Cat's been here for a few years already. She does love the guitar bag though.
     
    But yes, I have this guitar now. Which is exciting. I've still got a couple pieces of equipment to arrive in the post in the next couple of days, but then I'll be all good to go and start failing at playing it.
     
    Here's a slightly better picture as well. As it turns out, black guitars are not great for taking pictures of in the night with a phone.
     

  9. Queen of Liars
    It's time for the bit of history coursework that I've been working on for the past three or so months.
     
    "Assess the view that the policy of National Prohibition created more problems than it solved".
    It may sound like tons of fun, but I assure you that it is not.
     
    I'm gonna need some coffee for this one.
     
     
    ...Someone save me
  12. Queen of Liars
    Well, as I was looking forward to perhaps picking up some albums today, I was greeted by the rather unpleasant news that my local independent record store has closed.
    It's a real shame, as it was a fantastic store and I only found it a few months ago. It always sucks to see a good record store go out of business and hopefully the staff manage to find new jobs.
     
    This also means that now my only way of buying albums is online, which I've been doing a lot anyway, but I'll still miss my weekly trips to the record store.
  13. Queen of Liars
    Just finished my last exam, and so my first year at university comes to an end.
    It's been a fun year and I enjoyed it. Met lots of new people and made some new friends, although with us all being from different parts of the country, I probably won't see many of them over the summer.
    Not sure when I'll go back home to London, but I'll probably stay here for another week or so. My lease doesn't end until the 23rd, so might as well make some use of it.
     
    I'm not entirely sure if School's Out by Alice Cooper still fits, but I'll be listening to it today regardless. It's become somewhat of a habit now.
  14. Queen of Liars

    Cryptic Clues?

    By Queen of Liars,

    So, I mentioned yesterday that I got a used copy of the limited edition of Paradise Lost's album One Second. As I was looking through the booklet, this piece of paper fell out:
     

     
    What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all? Has it been there for the whole 15 years that this copy of the album existed?
    It kinda makes me sad that I will never know.
  15. Queen of Liars
    I tend to make playlists of horror themed songs for Halloween, and here is this year's. Just gonna leave it playing in the background throughout the day ^^
    Always a struggle to not just fill it up with Alice Cooper But it does always have to start with Dada.
     
    Anyway, happy Halloween everyone!
  16. Queen of Liars

    Paradise Lost

    By Queen of Liars,

    So, I got myself a copy of Paradise Lost's album Believe In Nothing, which has finally completed my collection of their studio releases. Thirteen albums and one set of demos. And you know, it's worth every penny. They are a fantastic band.
    This is, and will likely remain, my only complete collection of a band with a discography of this size, as I can't really think of any other band with 10+ albums, all of which I'm interested in having a copy of.
     
    Also, I'm really loving Century Media's Metal for the Masses campaign. Picked up the reissue of One For Sorrow by Insomnium today for £7. It's pretty rare to find albums at a record store cheaper than online these days, so this is pretty nice.
  17. Queen of Liars

    Happy Halloween

    By Queen of Liars,

    Oh look, an excuse to use my blog.
     
    I do hope everyone's having a nice and appropriately themed Halloween though. It's always a fun time.
     
    I'm enjoying a Halloween playlist, but I've been busy lately so it's a bit more hastily put together than usual. Still, it'll do the job. Might follow it up with some appropriate gaming and/or movie watching later tonight.
  18. Queen of Liars

    Dronevil

    By Queen of Liars,

    Finally managed to get my hands on a physical copy of my second favourite Boris album, and it is beautiful.
     

     

     

     
    Boris CDs are always really neat. Makes me feel a lot better about the prices of these Japanese-only ones.
  19. Queen of Liars
    Well, I got my results for my first year of university today and I am very happy because I passed, with a B in each module. Not that I thought I was going to fail, but it's a massive relief nonetheless to know that I'll definitely be coming back next year.
    I guess now I can truly relax for the rest of summer.
  20. Queen of Liars
    So, I went to see three Canadian comedians - Stewart Francis, Craig Campbell and Glenn Wool - on their The Lumberjacks tour tonight.
    Stewart Francis has been one of my favourite comedians for quite some time now, so it was great to finally see him live, and the other two were brilliant as well. Haven't laughed that much in a long time.
    It was just their second show of the tour, which meant that there were still some imperfections and they were still trying some new stuff out, which only made the show all the better. Also, as it was a fairly small venue, it felt more personal which is always great
     
     
    On another note, I've started buying more albums than I should again. I can't help it, something about a music CD just draws me in and doesn't let go until I've bought it. Especially those fancy limited/special/deluxe/whatever editions...
  21. Queen of Liars
    I left this off a bit late as I've been pretty busy, but I thought I might as well still do my yearly music list.
    Before we get to the actually good stuff, why not have a look and maybe laugh at some of the albums that have been less than excellent?
    These are the albums of 2014 that I have been considerably disappointed by, for one reason or another.
     
     
    A World Lit Only by Fire by Godflesh
    I'm not really a big Godflesh fan, but I like Streetcleaner well enough and respect their influence in industrial metal, so I thought I would give the new album a try.
    Unfortunately, this turned out to be just a really bland and boring album. Ten heavy and crushing tracks with pretty much nothing going on in them. There's no texture, no subtle melodies to break up the repetitiveness, nothing. Just ten songs which all sound practically the same.
    Some of the riffs are pretty nice admittedly, but no matter how nice a riff, if you loop it for five minutes and then end the song without it progressing into anything I'm probably going to stop appreciating it at some point.
     
    1000hp by Godsmack
    Ok yeah, the title, the awful cover and it being Godsmack should be enough to deduce that the album isn't going to be very good. Thing is, I actually thought that their 2010 album, The Oracle, was really solid, and both Sully Erna and Shannon Larkin are very talented musicians who have the capacity to make something great if they actually used their talent (just look at Sully's solo album), so I had hopes that perhaps they would continue improving.
    Nope. Why bother with that when you can just make some lazy generic radio rock?
    I mean if the other clues weren't enough to glean what this album is like, it opens with the line "time to rewind back to 1995"...
    Yeah, I'd really rather you didn't to be honest with you, Sully.
     
    Triumph and Power by Grand Magus
    I wasn't a big fan of their last album, The Hunt, which I thought just lacked the punch of their previous albums, but was hoping they would pick back up after that slight low point.
    Unfortunately this ended up being just a generic heavy metal album with a bit of a power metal influence. Pretty much indistinguishable from the hundreds of other bands that do it.
    Don't really have anything else to say about it. It's completely unremarkable.
     
    Black Widow by In This Moment
    Largely generic metalcore/alternative metal is not something I usually listen to, so you might wonder why I even had any expectations for the new In This Moment album in the first place. Well, while I really don't care for their first three albums, I was surprised to learn that their last one, Blood, was actually quite good. It was probably the biggest surprise of 2012 for me as far as albums I initially had no interest in are concerned.
    Two of the band members left, which I guess made Blood more of a Maria Brink solo album, and it was actually much better for it. Thus, I was hoping that she would use her new found creative freedom to continue improving.
    Instead, what we get is a return to the mediocrity of previous albums, with lyrics and themes that feel like a second rate Alice Cooper knock off. The best songs on this feel like they could have been cut from Blood for not being good enough. Who knows, maybe they were.
     
    Redeemer of Souls by Judas Priest
    The best thing I can say about this album is that it's mostly not nearly as bad as the two singles from it. Seriously, March of the *Danged* is just straight up awful. The production on it makes Rob Halford, one of the greatest voices in all of metal, sound like Ozzy Osbourne did on Black Sabbatth's 13. Except even worse if you can imagine such a thing.
    As for the actual album, it feels like a cheap and tired imitation of Painkiller with none of the energy they had on that classic.
     
     
    And now, for my biggest disappointment of the year:
     

     
    The Undoing by Skold
    This is the only album on this list which is not here because of it's musical content being subpar. I'm sure that the album is actually of high quality. No, the reason this album is on the list is because it doesn't exist.
     
    Tim Skold announced this follow up to 2011's Anomie on the 17th of March, but only a week later made an announcement that "due to unforeseen developments [he has] chosen to cancel the scheduled release of the new Skold album".
    I have no idea what happened, and I'm sure that he has very good reasons for the cancellation, but I am still extremely disappointed.
    Tim is one of my favourite musicians and I adore both his solo work and his work with many other bands, such as KMFDM, so I'm always excited for something new by him. Anomie was his first solo album in over 15 years and an excellent display of all he has learned during that time, and I'm really hoping that he doesn't take another huge break from that project.
     
    This also isn't the first time he canceled an album. Back in the early 2000's he was working on what was to be his second solo album, Disrupting the Orderly Routine of the Institution (great title). He made demos of six songs that were pretty much finished, and gave them to a handful of people he trusted looking for some feedback. Unfortunately the demos ended up getting leaked, and being understandably furious and disheartened, Tim scrapped the whole project. All that is left of it are the six songs which are now floating around on the internet, known as the Dead God EP.
    A real shame that one person's total lack of respect for an artist's work deprived the rest of us of what would have likely been a great album.
     
    Hopefully whatever problems arose will be resolved and The Undoing will see a release this year.
     
     
    That does it for this list. Next I'll probably do an honourable mentions type thing, followed by my actual best of the year list.
  22. Queen of Liars
    I sense an impending feeling of guilt tomorrow when I realise that I wasted my four-day weekend getting almost no work done and instead spent it listening to a bunch of albums and watching a couple of movies and some stand-up comedy DVDs. I really need to get my stuff together and get ready for my exams.
     
    But of course tomorrow will be wasted by going to see The Avengers. Can't wait. I made sure to avoid all the trailers, as I always do, so that nothing is spoiled for me.
  23. Queen of Liars
    5 - Exit! by Fire! Orchestra
     

     
    Exit! is an experimental big band free jazz record with a lot going on. There's over twenty musicians on this album, and you'll often be hearing many of them play at once in what builds up to a complete pandemonium.
    The album is chaotic and organised, both at once. There are times where you'll have stuff like a steady bass line and drum beat while at the same time saxophones, clarinets and pianos will be going insane, all synergising to create these incredible compositions. Compositions which twist and turn into completely unpredictable directions, always maintaining suspense.
    This is a truly great jazz album.
     
     
    4 - Weapon by Skinny Puppy
     

     
    I think it's fair to say that Skinny Puppy are the one of the most important bands in industrial music, and to many, myself included, they're also by far the best. So like many bands with such acclaim, whenever they release a new album, it will inevitably be met with an air of cynicism from certain fans and comparisons to their past masterpieces, which is rather unfortunate.
    Is Weapon another Last Rights or Too Dark Park? No, of course not, nor does it attempt to be. Like most of the post-reunion era of Skinny Puppy, Weapon is much more energetic and straight-forward electro-industrial as opposed to the dark and abrasive soundscapes that were the focus of albums like Last Rights. Which is not to say that they don't do experimentation anymore or that their current stuff is much more accessible (Weapon definitely took me a couple of listens to get into and recognise everything that is going on in the music), but the last four albums have been substantially different from what the band were doing before they broke up.
    A more apt point for comparison would be the 1984 EP Remission, especially since the new album contains a remake of the song Solvent. Weapon is very much a refinement of the style found on the EP with added elements of the modern Skinny Puppy, and it's something that ends up working very well.
    With Weapon I think Skinny Puppy have continued the trend of each post-reunion album being better than the last, which should say something as all of them are great. Weapon contains some very good song writing with a lot of subtle melodies over the great beats, all accompanied by the usual abstract and political lyrics.
    Something Skinny Puppy have always been great at is maintaining an atmosphere and theme throughout their albums, and this one really gives the sense of a cyberpunk dystopia to me, which is fantastic.
    While I wouldn't put Weapon up there with Last Rights, Too Dark Park and The Process, it is still a great album which makes me feel very happy that Skinny Puppy decided to reform ten years ago.

    3 - Earth Rocker by Clutch
     

     
    This is without a doubt the 2013 album I listened to the most this year. I suppose that's in part due to it coming out back in March, but mostly what I'm getting at is that it's an incredibly addicting album that I just can't get enough of.
    Earth Rocker is an absolutely fantastic hard rock album with a hint of blues rock that is overflowing with great riffs, vocals and songwriting. Every song is infectious, from the title track opener, to the slow and especially bluesy Gone Cold, to the loud and rocking closer The Wolf Man Kindly Requests.
    It is an incredibly fun album to listen to. As far as pure enjoyment goes, this was the most I've had of it this year.
     
    2 - Vertikal by Cult of Luna
     

     
    From the pure fun of Earth Rocker, we come to the bleak and miserable atmospheric sludge metal journey that is Cult of Luna's Vertikal.
    And a journey it is. Very thematically and atmospherically strong, Vertikal is an absolutely captivating piece of beautiful melancholy with incredible instrumentation and the incorporation of many influences from post-rock, electronic and ambient. Well over an hour long, the album never drags or gets boring and just continues to surprise the listener.
    Cult of Luna are clearly the masters of their craft, and with them announcing an indefinite hiatus, this coupled with the equally amazing EP Vertikal II is their final artistic statement.
    I'm sad to see them go, but what a note to end on.
     
    1 - Das Seelenbrechen by Ihsahn
     

     
    The Breaking of the Soul. Taken from Nietzcshe's writings on art, there could hardly be a more appropriate title for this masterpiece.
    Das Seelenbrechen is the fifth solo album from the mastermind behind the most influential and innovative black metal band Emperor, and is easily the best thing he has done. Considering how incredible his work with Emperor, Peccatum and his solo project is, for Ihsahn to outdo himself again is no small feat.
    Created in an entirely different manner than his previous four albums, Das Seelenbrechen is a largely improvised piece that gives us a deep personal look into Ihsahn's true psyche.
    It's very difficult to describe it. I suppose it's because of albums like this that we have terms like avant-garde. Stylistically, it's all over the place in the best possible way. You have the opener Hiber which deliberately reels you in with a false sense of familiarity to the progressive black metal of his previous albums, but that familiarity is shattered barely half-way through the song when it takes a completely different turn. Following this are tracks like the symphonic Regen, the electronic tinged beautiful and personal Pulse, the experimentation with time signatures in the terrifying recreation of black metal Tacit II, the atmospheric spoken-word piece M, the chilling experimental drone-influenced See, and five other tracks, all of which are very unique.
    Despite it's chaotic nature, the album still feels very coherent and all the tracks very much act as one continuous experience.
    Das Seelenbrechen is a display of incredible musicianship in every aspect. Beyond that, it is a display of creative genius.
    It's definitely not an album that will appeal to everyone, but to me this not only blows everything else from this year out of the water, but it ranks amongst the greatest albums I have ever heard.
  24. Queen of Liars
    So I'm just gonna jump in on the tide of YouTube posts and leave one of my favourite pieces of music here:
     

     
     
    Being able to do this certainly is nice. Should make the 'Rate The Song Above You' topic a lot easier too.
  25. Queen of Liars
    It's time for the albums that won't be making it to my top of the year list, but are still great albums which deserve attention.
     
    Casualties of Cool by Casualties of Cool
    This is a side project by Devin Townsend and Ché Aimee Dorval (who did the female vocals on Ki) which Devin made while wanting to take a break from all the heavy music he's been making. Indeed, very different from his usual music, this is a strange mix of country, ambient and blues rock with a very eerie and mysterious sound to it. Although extremely different from his other work, it is still unmistakably Devin Townsend.
    It's a concept album about a traveler who is lured to distant a planet by a beautiful voice. Once he lands on it, he discovers an old radio which was the origin of the voice, and finds out that the planet is in fact sentient and uses the radio to lure unaware travelers and trap them, feeding on their fear. His attempts at escape being futile, he finds solace in the music from the radio and explores the planet, finding clues about other people once trapped on it. Really neat stuff.
     
    The Serpent & the Sphere by Agalloch
    A fantastic atmospheric black metal album, with influences from doom metal and folk.
    Even if it doesn't necessarily live up to some of their previous albums, it's still excellent.
     
    Grand Morbid Funeral by Bloodbath
    With Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes taking over the vocals, Bloodbath make another great death metal album.
    It's crushingly heavy with some excellent instrumentation.
     
    The World We Left Behind by Nachtmystium
    The band's final album, it's a fitting progressive black metal swan song with great guitar parts and a very strong atmosphere.
     
    Esoteric Warfare by Mayhem
    One of black metal's most infamous bands returns with another album, delivering ten absolutely crushing songs.
     
    Run the Jewels 2 by Run the Jewels
    The second album by this hip-hop collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P starts off with an extremely strong first two thirds or so, but unfortunately loses some steam by the final third which I think suffers from too many guest artists, making it feel far less cohesive than their debut. Regardless, the first two thirds are fantastic enough to earn a spot on this list.
     
    Roads to the North by Panopticon
    An excellent atmospheric black metal journey, with influences from melodic death metal and bluegrass.
    It's also almost entirely created by the band's sole member Austin Lunn, with only the violin being performed by a guest, which is just incredible.
     
    Shogunate Macabre by Whispered
    Melodic death metal with influences from Japanese folk music. More or less as cool as it sounds.
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