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Queen of Liars

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  1. Queen of Liars

    Results Day

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, tomorrow is A-Level results day and for the first time, I'm genuinely terrified of results, as these will determine whether I get into university or not. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now.
     
    Not really sure where the summer went. Hardly did anything, and did pretty much nothing of what I was planning to do. Why does that always happen?
  2. Queen of Liars
    So, I went into the kitchen intending to get myself a cup of mint green tea, daydreaming as I did so, and everything seemed fine in the moment. However, it was only upon returning to my room and taking a sip of said tea when I noticed that it tasted a bit odd, at which point I came to the realisation that what I have actually made was, in fact, a cup of coffee.
    I am not sure how I went through the whole process without it even occurring to me that I was making an entirely different drink, which I keep on an entirely different shelf and consume from an entirely different mug.
    It seems that I either have a caffeine problem or really need to get some sleep for once. Probably both.
     
    And yes, I have nothing else noteworthy to blog about, in case you're wondering.
    Mostly just trying to finish off my coursework and prepare for the two exams at the end of the month, which have me a bit worried.
    It's hard to believe that my first year of university is already almost over.
  3. Queen of Liars

    Moving Out

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, tomorrow morning I'll be moving out of my university accommodation and back home to London for the summer.
    I guess I'll kinda miss this room, even if it's not all that great, and thus I decided to take a few pictures of it before I started packing my things: [1] [2] [3] [4]
  4. Queen of Liars

    Emilie Autumn

    By Queen of Liars,

    Received my copy of Emilie Autumn's first album today, which means that I've completed my collection of her stuff:
     

     
    Here we have:
     
    Enchant
    Opheliac (The Deluxe Edition)
    Laced/Unlaced
    Fight Like a Girl
     
    All sitting on top of a signed copy of her book.
     
    There's a few EPs that I don't have which I may one day want to hunt down, but these are all four of the actual albums.
    Well, technically I suppose she had an album before Enchant, called On a Day, which contained her performances of several classical pieces, but a remastered version of that album is included as the first half of Laced/Unlaced, so it's all good.
  5. Queen of Liars
    Getting the notification "you have been given a warning" is a bit unsettling when you have forgotten that you renewed your premier membership.
     
    And other than that, I still don't have much to blog about. My first coursework was set on Monday, and it involves 3000 words about the European Convention on Human Rights... done in a website FAQ format. I really hate doing writing that is supposed to be done like a website or magazine article, especially when it's just not something that you would actually see in an article. I'd much rather just do a 6000 word dissertation on it. But oh well, I'll have to live with it.
     
    Tomorrow I'll be going to see Devin Townsend, so that should be fun. Would love to go see his London show, The Retinal Circus, on Saturday as that is going to be his biggest show yet, but it's sold out an I don't really have money to spend on it anyway. Admittedly, that probably wouldn't stop me, so it's good that it's sold out.
  6. Queen of Liars

    Deus Ex

    By Queen of Liars,

    I simply can't wait for this.
     
    I usually try really hard not to buy into hype or get too excited when there's very little information available, but sometimes even I can't help it. This is probably the most excited I've ever been for a video game.
     
    It's been known for a while that Eidos have been working on the next Deus Ex game, but now we finally have actual information and it's all getting me psyched.
     
    This is the first time in the series that we'll have a returning protagonist, but I am more than happy with more Adam Jensen. Elias Toufexis' voice acting work as him is just excellent. Michael McCann will also be composing the soundtrack again, which is great to hear as well.
     
    What they've said about the story thus far definitely has my interest, and I have total faith in Eidos that the writing will be just as good as it was in Human Revolution. Gameplay so far sounds like it's going to build on the previous game, with stuff like more fluid use of augmentations and even more open levels, which is just fine by me.
     
    So yeah, I am very excited. Human Revolution is my second favourite game of all time, and the original of course also has a spot in my top ten, so I have extremely high hopes for the new game. The only thing I'm not fond of is the title which just sounds cheesy, but that can be easily ignored if the game ends up as good as HR.
  7. Queen of Liars
    Having done my last exam a couple of days ago, I have now finished my second year of university, which feels pretty good.
    The exam in question was really nasty, and I don't think I did very well on it. Still, I doubt it was bad enough to not even pass, and my assignments were good, so that will bump the grade up.
    This year hasn't been anywhere near as good as the last. It's been really stressful and I'm glad it's finally over. It feels really nice to be able to relax guilt-free for a while and I can finally start catching up on all the movies and games I've bought.
     
    Also, got my hands on this:
     

     
    Steelbook DVDs are pretty awesome.
    Now I just have to wait for Ghost in the Shell: Arise to finish and hopefully get an actual release over here. I'd very much like to have a complete GitS collection.
  8. Queen of Liars
    My copy of the new Devin Townsend album finally arrived and it's pretty awesome.
     

     

     
    It's the reward for the £19 tier of the PledgeMusic campaign, which I backed pretty much as soon as it went live. That included a digital download of the album as soon as it was released, but it's really nice to actually have a physical copy now. Also, there's the bonus disc, which as usual is about as good as the actual album.
     
    The campaign was actually something like 600% of the target by the end of it, with most of the excess going to fund Devin's next Ziltoid album, along with donations to charity, so that's really cool too. Devin has great fans, and he deserves to.
  9. Queen of Liars

    Birthday

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, I'm officially 20 years old as of about an hour ago.
     
    20 is a nice number and all, but obviously it just goes downhill after 18 because this song doesn't fit anymore:
     
    http://youtu.be/vMCyX0P_dGE
  10. Queen of Liars
    I've spoken enough about how much I hate those barcode stickers that get put on new CDs from the US, so here's another pet peeve I was reminded of today:
     

     
    It's rare, but every once in a while when I order a used CD online I'll get something like this.
    I don't know if I even want to commit the effort to trying to remove that cleanly.
     
    I takes a bit of the joy out of the purchase. I know it's not the seller's fault. It's the fault of some record store employee who decided to put a sticker straight on the case back in 1992 for some reason. Maybe they had a grudge against the latest KMFDM album for going in a slightly more rock direction. Who knows, but it's still annoying me 23 years later.
     
    The worst part is that it's only the remains of a sticker, so I can't even get any interesting information about the history of this particular copy of the CD.
     
    Like that one time I got a Pitchshifter album, and upon examining the stickers I found that it was not in its original case, and that the new case it was occupying in fact once belonged to a Coldplay album. Kinda felt tainted after that, being tricked into touching something to do with Coldplay.
  11. 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.
  12. Queen of Liars
    So, some drunk students in my accommodation apparently thought it would be funny to activate the fire alarm at 4 AM, thus waking everyone up and making them go stand outside in the cold for 20 minutes.
     
    It's fine really, not like I was planning to get a decent amount of sleep for once before a day at university or anything >.>
  14. 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.
  15. Queen of Liars
    At last, the unbearable heat has ended and it is raining. The best kind of weather. Well, second best. Nothing beats snow.
     
    Maybe now my brain will function well enough to get some work done
  16. Queen of Liars
    So, my cat swallowed a sewing needle that my mum left lying around in her room. Fortunately, it got stuck in the cat's throat and didn't enter the digestive system, so it should be alright as the vet removes it overnight. Close call though, hope my mum learns a lesson from that. It's not cool to leave needles lying around whether there are pets or not >.>
     
    On the upside, my book, The New Criminology, arrived today. It's supposed to be an approach towards crime and deviance that combines Marxist and Interactionist approaches, which sounds close to what I think about it, although I lean much more towards Marxism.. Hopefully I can finish it before my Sociology exam so that I can quote it there, as it was a cutting edge piece of work on criminology when it was first published
  17. Queen of Liars
    Before I do my top albums list, I thought I'd give a quick mention to some albums that didn't quite make it, but still deserve to be recognised:
     
     
    Kveikur by Sigur Rós - A beautiful post-rock album with hints of dream-pop and a rather dark and foreboding atmosphere which makes for a pretty interesting listen.
     
    Sunbather by Deafheaven - A fantastic cross between shoegaze and black metal that pulls you in and doesn't let go until the album ends.
     
    Seesaw by Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa - The second collaboration by these two, and between Hart's soulful voice and Bonamassa's fantastic guitar playing, it makes for a great blues rock album.
     
    Pain Is Beauty by Chelsea Wolfe - A fitting title for this dark and atmospheric journey through quite a mixture of genres.
     
    Quartoze Pièces de Menace by Dale Cooper Quartet and the Dictaphones - A very interesting combination of dark jazz and drone. It is beautifully composed, but carries with it a sense of foreboding doom.
     
    Colored Sands by Gorguts - A fantastic technical death metal record that is crushingly heavy, but maintaining a powerful atmosphere. The instrumentation is wonderfully complex and sounds absolutely colossal.
     
    Echogenetic by Front Line Assembly - When this album was announced it seemed that a lot of fans were getting hyped over the band choosing to not use guitars on it, which seems like a strange thing to get hyped over to me. Besides, I actually thought that the sparing use of guitars greatly contributed to Artificial Soldier and Improvised Electronic Device being the best FLA albums since Implode. But coming back to Echogenetic, yes, the band ditched the guitars in favour of looking a bit into dubstep. They're not the first industrial act to do so, but I'd say that they pulled it off rather well. However, I do think that the album starts to feel like the band are trying to repeat their older stuff a bit, and it's definitely weaker than the previous two records (three if you count the AirMech soundtrack). Despite that, it's still a very solid and extremely enjoyable album by one of the greatest industrial bands.
     
    Old Mornings Dawn by Summoning - A fantastic atmospheric black metal album, thematically and lyrically inspired by Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Do I need to say more?
     
    One of Us Is the Killer by The Dillinger Escape Plan - A great chaotic and abrasive mathcore album. Perhaps a bit more accessible than the band's other work, this record is still a behemoth that beats you down without mercy. As usual, some excellent playing and vocals are to be found here.
     
    Marriage of Metals by Daniel Menche - One of two albums released by Menche this year, Marriage of Metals experiments with drone music by fusing it with Gamelan gong instruments, which results in a very atmospheric and mesmerising experience.
     
    IV by earthtone9 - earthtone9 return with their first album in 13 years, and they pick up right where they left off with arc'tan'gent. The band's unique blend of progressive metal, alternative metal and post-hardcore provides for a fantastic album with very tight playing and some great riffs.
  18. Queen of Liars
    Well, it's my second week of lectures and my third week at university overall. So far I'm enjoying it, but I can confirm that law does indeed require a lot of work and reading. Just looking at the pile of books I have to read is enough to rid me of any joy or energy I may have. Admittedly though, they are pretty interesting and it does remind me of Sociology, so that's good.
    Fresher's Fair was on Thursday, so I took the opportunity to sign up for the Alternative Music Society, the Poker Society and the Law Society. Hopefully those will be fun.
    Also as it turns out, there is an Extreme Ironing Society here.
     
     
    On a separate note, Epicloud by the Devin Townsend Project is a fantastic album. Been listening to it a lot since it arrived last week, and the bonus disk of demos, Epiclouder, might even be better than the actual album. Either way, the album lives up to its name, and although Devin was definitely telling the truth when he said that this would be a much simpler and more accessible and straightforward album than usual, it's still great.
     
    And now I'll go back to reading law books.
  19. 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.
  20. Queen of Liars

    Velcra

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, I thought I'd share an album I recently discovered and am loving: Hadal by Velcra.
    Velcra made some great industrial metal with their first two albums, but the fantastic third album Hadal is more of a combination of industrial rock, electronic and trip hop. I almost want to say that it's like a heavier, industrial version of Portishead.
     


     
    Unfortunately, I am completely unable to find a copy of the album for sale anywhere. The best I could find was the MP3 download on Amazon, but no sign of a CD copy.
  21. 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.
  22. Queen of Liars
    Well, here are albums 15-11 of my end of year list:
     
     
    15 - A Piece of Infinity by Wretched Excess
     

     
    A Piece of Infinity is a very nice fusion of dark ambient and jazz. Atmospheric and foreboding, it's a pleasant listen.
    Oh, and it's available for free on the Wretched Excess bandcamp page, so go pick it up.
     
     
    14 - Burn The World by AC4
     

    Burn The World is a great album of fast-paced old-school hardcore punk, by a band fronted by Dennis Lyxzen from the legendary Refused.
    It's a bit of a throwback to the Swedish hardcore scene that Refused belonged to in their early days, before they went on their experimental path.
    However this is by no means a replication of Refused's sound. There is no experimentation or groundbreaking ideas here, but there are 16 tracks of loud and infectious hardcore which will make you feel like it's the early 90s again.
    This album is great at what it does and is a joy to listen to.
     
     
    13 - Abandon All Life by Nails
     

     
    Nails' powerviolence/grindcore piece Abandon All Life fills the same niche for me that Black Breath's Sentenced to Life did last year. It's a relentless, crushingly heavy assault on the ears.
    Allowing no time to rest, the album delivers 10 punches in quick succession and barely hits 17 minutes. Which is probably for the best, as it can be a pretty exhausting listen.
     
     
    12 - VILKÉ by Daniel Menche
     

     
    Inspired by the wolves he saw on his travels, Menche's VILKÉ incorporates the howls of wolves into an atmospheric and haunting drone journey through a downward spiral of decay, providing for a very eerie and gripping album.
     
     
    11 - Shadow Music: A Soundtrack to Contrast by Nicolas Marquis
     

     
    An absolutely fantastic piece of 1920s style jazz and cabaret with a surreal atmosphere, this album emulates the decadent noir setting of the game very well.
    The two tracks which feature Laura Ellis on vocals are especially great and truly feel like they could be straight out of a cabaret performance. The instrumentals are an absolute joy to listen to as well, making this album a great throwback to the era it's inspired by, with enough modern touches to keep it sounding fresh.
  23. Queen of Liars

    Exams Done

    By Queen of Liars,

    Well, I had my last exam on Friday, which went about as poorly as expected. I guess that at least means I haven't had any expectations crushed =P
    Either way, it's a relief to finally have it out of the way and not have to think about it anymore. I was approaching breaking point with stress and anxiety, and it's good to at least have that source of it removed.
     
    And so that's it. My three years of university have passed, and hopefully so have I. Quite the three years, these were. It's interesting to reflect on them and see both how much and how little I've changed. It's definitely going to feel very strange not having university anymore.
     
    For now, I can relax for while, which is really nice. I'll be trying to focus on music this summer, specifically honing my guitar skills, as well as messing around with FL Studio and other software, while I try to set up a good opportunity to move to either Japan or Norway for a while. We'll see how that goes.
  24. Queen of Liars
    2012 recently ended and it has been a great year for music, so here are albums 10-6 of my top 10 albums of the year. I was intending to do reviews or something detailed for each one, but I guess I can't be bothered
    Anyway...
     
    10 - Sentenced To Life by Black Breath
     

     
    A remarkably heavy combination of death metal and hard rock with crust punk undertones, full of great riffs and drumming.
     
     
    9 - Dead End Kings by Katatonia
     

     
    A brilliant melancholic atmosphere with enchanting melodies. Perhaps one of Katatonia's best records, it gets better with each listen.
     
     
    8 - Honor Found In Decay by Neurosis
     

     
    A more straightforward and accessible Neurosis album than usual, it still is a great heavy and atmospheric sludge metal journey.
     
    7 - A Map Of All Our Failures by My Dying Bride
     

     
    As the sticker on the limited edition of the albums says, "a new voyage into the darkest depths of humanity, religion, love and death from the UK masters of doom".
    This album is a blanket of bleakness and misery, and it's great at that.
     
     
    6 - De Vermis Mysteriis by High On Fire
     

     
    Filled with fantastic riffs and brilliant solos, sometimes incredibly heavy and sometimes mesmerisingly melodic, this is a great aggressive stoner metal album with leanings towards doom metal.
     
     
    And there you have it. I might write more detailed stuff for my top 5, but that's not very likely.
  25. Queen of Liars
    So I was just casually browsing the internet when my monitor decided that it had quite enough of me wasting my life away in front of the computer and went into what I believe is known as the 'white screen of death' mode. Well, I'm assuming it's my monitor, since it stays in a white screen even if disconnected from the computer.
    So there go my plans of saving up some money, as I'm gonna need a new monitor.
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