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Laughing Man

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Blog Entries posted by Laughing Man

  2. Laughing Man

    M83

    By Laughing Man,

    from top to bottom:
     
    - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (US edition with bonus disc)
    - Before the Dawn Heals Us
    - Saturdays = Youth
    - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
    - Junk
     
    also owned digitally: the Oblivion original motion picture soundtrack. pretty dull soundtrack for a pretty dull movie, although the title track featuring Susanne Sundfør is still one of my favorite M83 songs.
     
    I'm currently missing Digital Shades Vol. 1, which is a short instrumental ambient album and not really a full-blown studio album, as well as the self-titled debut which is just kind of okay and probably the least interesting thing they've ever done.
     
    the new album Junk is easily the weakest M83 album yet from a songwriting standpoint, and it's getting extremely mixed reviews. while it's definitely a huge disappointment coming 5 years after the near-masterpiece Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, I personally enjoy it for what it is: a collection of schlocky, tongue-in-cheek pop songs that pay tribute to the cheesiest aspects of late-70s/early-80s music and culture.
  6. Laughing Man

    throne of games

    By Laughing Man,

    ..is a great song by Machinae Supremacy, the world's premier video game-themed SID metal band, which is who this entry is about.
     
    roughly 3 years since I got into MaSu, I finally ordered physical copies of all the albums they've released since signing to a label, after previously only owning them digitally. still hope to find copies of their first two independent albums someday, but that's looking unlikely since those are ultra-rare and highly sought-after.
     

     
    from top to bottom:
     
    - Redeemer
    - Overworld
    - A View from the End of the World
    - The Beat of Our Decay (UK-only promotional best-of album, I got this not long after I got into them and it's since become incredibly hard to find)
    - Rise of a Digital Nation
    - Phantom Shadow
     
    Overworld was a pain to get ahold of. it had been fairly widely available for a while, but by late last year virtually everywhere was sold out of it. I ordered a copy that I thought was in stock from one of their webstores and was told that it was backordered. a month later I got an email telling me they had stopped selling them completely and that it was out-of-print. this turned out to be false, as yet another month later the same webstore got several more copies, actually in stock this time. I ordered one about three weeks ago and it finally arrived today.
     
    I recently completed a few other collections so I'll probably be doing entries on those sometime soon.
  7. Laughing Man
    got my pre-order copy of The White Album in the mail yesterday (a day ahead of the actual release date), and it has easily dethroned Everything Will Be Alright in the End as my new third-favorite Weezer album. didn't disappoint at all and it feels like they've really recaptured the magic after a string of mediocre-to-awful albums throughout the 2000s.
     
    as such, I figured it was time to update the ol' Weezer collection post.
     

     
    from top to bottom:
     
    - Weezer (blue album)
    - Pinkerton
    - Weezer (green album)
    - Maladroit
    - Make Believe
    - Weezer (red album, deluxe edition)
    - Raditude
    - Hurley (deluxe edition)
    - Death to False Metal
    - Everything Will Be Alright in the End
    - Weezer (white album)
     
    also pictured below are my Weezer T-shirt and officially licensed Weezer Snuggie™:
     

  8. Laughing Man
    ..aaaaand that might just have been one of the best episodes of the entire series, old and new. we're off to an inconsistent start, to say the least.
     
    now that the two-night premiere event is over, we're back to a weekly schedule for the next four weeks. shame it'll all be over so soon.
  10. Laughing Man
    you can trust me I'm a professional critic
     
     

     
    10. That's the Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon
     
    best hardcore album since Meteora by Linkin Park
     
     

     
    9. Drones by Muse
     
    #OccupySesameStreet
     
     

     
    8. A Head Full of Dreams by Coldplay
     
    once again proving why they're bigger than The Beatles. without a doubt the definitive British feels-rock band
     
     

     
    7. Wilder Mind by Mumford & Sons
     
    a nurse once told me I look like Marcus Mumford. no joke. I'm not even a dude
     
     

     
    6. Got Your Six by Five Finger Death Punch
     
    haven't heard black metal this kvlt since their last album
     
     

     
    5. Dale by Pitbull
     
    liked him better when he was playing Rufus on Kim Possible but his music stuff is pretty good too. can't wait for the prequel album, Chip
     
     

     
    4. Purpose by Justin Bieber
     
    shhhh Justin bb it's ok. I forgive you
     
     

     
    3. Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz by Miley Cyrus (and presumably her dead petz)
     
    it's, like, art and stuff. and if you don't like it you're probably just a misogynist or something
     
     

     
    2. Wake Up! by Pope Francis
     
    pop-rock more like pope-rock
     
     

     
    1. The New Calassic by Cal Chuchesta
     
    pure fire
  11. Laughing Man
    was gonna do a top 10 but I haven't actually gotten to listen to all of the albums I wanted to from last year, so I'm just gonna do the top 5 instead which I'm pretty sure of at this point. even if I did listen to the rest, the top 5 isn't likely to change.
     
     

     
    5. Sorni Nai by Kauan
     
    This one took me completely by surprise this year, not having been familiar with this band prior and only hearing about the album through some positive buzz and word-of-mouth. Sorni Nai is a concept album based upon the Dyatlov Pass Incident in which a group of hikers perished under mysterious and bizarre circumstances on the mountain of Kholat Syakhl - some of you may be familiar with this story as the basis of the indie survival horror game KHOLAT that was released last year.
     
    The lyrics are almost entirely in Finnish, but even without understanding the words, the subject matter really sets the tone for this album: a blend of post-rock, doom metal, and folk that is cold and bleak, yet also extremely cinematic in its approach to atmosphere. It's pretty much the soundtrack to dying slowly on a mountain, and it's absolutely beautiful.
     
     

     
    4. The Plague Within by Paradise Lost
     
    Not much to be said about this one - after over 20 years, the gothic/doom metal stalwarts in Paradise Lost have returned to the sound they pioneered, fusing the melancholy dirge of doom metal with the raw intensity of death metal once again to fantastic results. Vocalist Nick Holmes is utilizing his death growls for the first time on a Paradise Lost album since 1992's Shades of God, and it's never sounded better. Paired with some of the heaviest riffs of their career (along with some of the most mesmerizing melodies) the resulting album stands up against their early classics as one of the best in their long and storied career.
     
     

     
    3. Holographic Violence by Grave Babies
     
    Another left field album for me, Holographic Violence is the sound of a former noise-punk outfit fully embracing 80s gothic rock with some industrial, shoegaze, and even grunge influences thrown in. This may sound like an unusual mixture, but against all odds the band makes it work incredibly well. icy post-punk basslines clash with distorted riffs and skittering electronics to create an album that is simultaneously dark, catchy, and at times unsettling - as I've described it to numerous people already, this sounds like if The Cure and My Bloody Valentine had a baby, gave it up for adoption, and it was raised by Nine Inch Nails and Alice in Chains. It's weird, atmospheric, kind of scary, and just plain fun.
     
     

     
    2. The Ride Majestic by Soilwork
     
    Anyone who knows me would know that this would be on here. Soilwork are one of my all-time favorite bands, and The Ride Majestic is without a doubt one of the best and most focused records they've ever released. After a string of albums of declining quality during the mid-2000s, the band rebounded hard with 2013's fantastic double album The Living Infinite, seeing them refine their melodic death metal sound whilst pitting the old against the new and throwing in some newfound progressive elements to boot. The Ride Majestic largely expands on this, focusing it even more while upping the heaviness, intensity, and atmosphere perhaps farther than they ever have before. All in all, The Ride Majestic is the newest peak on their continued upswing and a potential new classic for the melodic death metal genre as a whole.
     
     

     
    1. Abyss by Chelsea Wolfe
     
    Here it is - my favorite album of the year, and one of my new favorite albums of all-time. This album not only met my lofty expectations but blew them away. Although singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe's 2011 album Ἀποκάλυψις has been one of my all-time favorite albums for 4 years now, Abyss easily managed to surpass it in every possible way.
     
    While Ἀποκάλυψις dabbled in an experimental mixture of folk, noise rock, and doom metal and 2013's Pain Is Beauty was largely an industrial/electronic affair, Abyss seeks to unite all of it together into a work of art loosely based around the concept of sleep paralysis, something that Wolfe has had personal experience with throughout her life. The songs range from lush and gentle to dense and panicked with Wolfe's gorgeous vocals weaving through them like an ethereal fog, not only complimenting but enhancing the unique atmosphere created by each one. The result is an album that can be described variously as haunting, suffocating, terrifying, beautiful, dreamlike, nightmarish, otherworldly - truly a descent into the titular abyss that explores the emotions, worries, vulnerabilities, and darkness of the human mind.
     
     
    bonus: the names of some other albums I enjoyed last year, in no particular order
     
    - Permanence by No Devotion
    - Dreamcrash by Grave Pleasures
    - Opacities by Sikth
    - A Dream in Static by Earthside
    - Psychic Warfare by Clutch
    - The Children of the Night by Tribulation
    - Cold Inferno by Disarmonia Mundi
    - Untitled by The Armed
    - Beyond the Red Mirror by Blind Guardian
    - The Mindsweep by Enter Shikari
    - Feel the Misery by My Dying Bride
    - Purple by Baroness
    - Fugue by Rest Among Ruins
    - Under the Red Cloud by Amorphis
    - Luminiferous by High on Fire
    - Every Open Eye by Chvrches
    - Exhausting Fire by Kylesa
    - Extinct by Moonspell
    - Meliora by Ghost
    - Art Angels by Grimes
    - The Powers That B by Death Grips
    - Ours Is Chrome by Superheaven
    - Enki by Melechesh
    - Restarter by Torche
    - Better Nature by Silversun Pickups
    - VII: Sturm und Drang by Lamb of God
    - Time and Trauma by 36 Crazyfists
    - End vs. Beginning by Rise to Fall
  12. Laughing Man

    I'm feelin it

    By Laughing Man,

    the awakening, that is.
     
    just got back from The Force Awakens. instead of talking about how much I liked it, here's my ranking for the Star Wars film series from best to worst:
     
    1. The Empire Strikes Back
    2. The Force Awakens
    3. Star Wars (AKA A New Hope)
    4. Return of the Jedi
    5. Revenge of the Sith
    6. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
    7. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
    8. The Phantom Menace
    9. The Star Wars Holiday Special
    10. the Clone Wars theatrical movie
    11. the instructional VHS that came with the interactive Star Wars board game I had in the 90s
    12. Attack of the Clones
  14. Laughing Man

    Skyrim

    By Laughing Man,

    hey guys I found this great new game I bet nobody's ever heard of
     
     
     
    okay so I'm almost 5 years late to the party but I finally broke down and bought the Legendary Edition of Skyrim during the last Steam sale and it's slowly consuming my life
     
    also: mods make the game 1000x better
  15. Laughing Man

    RIP Scott Weiland

    By Laughing Man,

    was absolutely gutted when I heard the news last night, still finding it hard to accept even now.
     
    Stone Temple Pilots are one of my all-time favorite bands and at least half the reason why was Scott. talented as heck and when he had it together, he was truly one of the greatest frontmen in rock. it felt inevitable that it would end this way given his history, but it's still hitting me pretty hard.
     
    I was just in the middle of finishing up my STP collection, too. I just got one of the last albums I needed on Monday. there were a couple others I was going to put off for a while longer, but maybe now I'll go ahead and pick those up in his honor.
  16. Laughing Man

    Sixth Metalversary

    By Laughing Man,

    on this day six years ago I made my first foray into the world of heavy metal music with the album As Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage.
     
    up to that point I'd really only listened to generic radio rock and alternative bands. I heard their rather misleading single “Starting Over” on the radio and really liked it, but the album that was from wasn’t out yet, so I picked up As Daylight Dies from Walmart one night instead. as soon as the first song started I was floored. I’d never heard anything like it before. wasn’t sure whether I loved or hated what I was hearing at first, but eventually it grew to be the former.
     
    my tastes have changed and diversified a lot since then, but that album really opened up a whole new musical world for me and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. gonna listen to it tonight to mark the occasion.
  18. Laughing Man
    like the title says. I used to update this pretty often but for the past couple years I've only really used it to post music collection updates that nobody reads, with the occasional random musing here or there. I've got a tumblr (which I so can't link here) where I do most of my actual blogging and updates and stuff, but it feels weird having a blog here and doing absolutely nothing with it. I just don't know what to do with it. I'm not exactly the picture of activity on this site (especially considering my interest in Lego/Bionicle is below 0% at this point, so I rarely if ever post in those subforums) but I'm still more active in COT and stuff than I am here in my own blog.
     
    I also used to have it pretty well decked out with graphics and stuff but now it's about as bare-bones as you can get.
     
    so yeah, suggest stuff I can post here, I guess. this blog used to be semi-active and fairly popular and now it's just dead.
  21. Laughing Man

    Paradise Lost

    By Laughing Man,

    over the past year these guys went from being a band I had a somewhat casual interest in to being a band I consider one of my all-time favorites. in the last few months I've worked to obtain all their essential albums and this is the result. I'm still missing their debut Lost Paradise, the more synthpop-oriented albums Host and Believe in Nothing, and the 2005 self-titled album, although most of those aren't as well-received as the ones I've got so they're not quite as high-priority. I would also like to get their recent rarities compilation Tragic Illusion 25 at some point, probably digitally.
     

     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Gothic (Icarus Argentina pressing)
    - Shades of God
    - Icon
    - Draconian Times
    - One Second
    - Reflection (best-of compilation)
    - Symbol of Life (US edition with bonus tracks)
    - In Requiem
    - Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
    - Tragic Idol
    - The Plague Within (US digipak edition with bonus track. currently my favorite album of 2015.)
  23. Laughing Man
    Xinlo already posted an entry about this, but hey, I figured that as an admin it's my duty to shamelessly plug it too.
     
    ..to tTH4!
     

     
    tTH4 is the newest incarnation of the long-running and successful Bionicle forum the Toa's Hideout, which was originally founded by a group of BZPower members back in the year 2007. since then it has gone through several revamped incarnations, and we've had a lot of familiar faces among us over the years, including BZP staff and members of The Three Virtues podcast. an offshoot of tTH also briefly acted as an off-topic sister forum to the website Mask of Destiny.
     
    while we're a primarily Bionicle-based forum similar to BZP, we pride ourselves in having a much more casual, laid-back atmosphere and a greater focus on off-topic discussion, of subjects ranging from music and movies to friendly debate and daily life. we also have features like customizable-by-request member titles and personal blogging subforums that are given to you once you reach 100 posts. we consider the site to be aimed more toward older members of the Bionicle fanbase, but younger members who want to join are certainly welcome as well. we invite you to visit us any time.
  24. Laughing Man
    okay so it's a few days late but that's the postal service's fault.
     




     
    I almost pre-ordered this from their UK webstore for about $40 USD when it was first announced. thankfully I didn't, because less than a month after it was released, I was able to get it from Amazon for $20.
     
    great set. I'm pretty sure the DVD is region-locked so it won't work for me, but I bought it for the CDs anyway. I'm a bit iffy on Judgement's remastering, but it's still great to finally own these albums, especially in a package as nice as this. the case is pretty much a hardcover book, and while I didn't get pictures of them, the actual pages inside are pretty cool. full lyrics, artwork, and credits for each of the albums plus some additional commentary and information.
     
    I also own a physical copy of their latest album Distant Satellites which I probably could've shown here, but maybe I'll save that for when I have more of their albums and I can do a collection post.
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