Music Review - Creature With The Atom Brain - The Birds Fly Low

I actually had Spotify recommend this album to me after listening to my last few MDM picks. The most accurate thing I've seen so far in relation to Belgian Alt. Rock band Creature With The Atom Brain is that they're the Belgian equivalent of Queens of the Stone Age. Things never get as heavy as a QOTSA record, but the same stylistic ideas and fuzziness are there.  The Birds Fly Low is the bands third album, continuing in their tradition of "fuzzy stripped-back Rock 'N' Roll noise with a generous helping of weird." It's just good ol' Rock 'n' Roll, bringing some great new riffs, vocal melodies and interesting beats into the fold from a place you wouldn't expect to rock so hard.

It's definitely weird, and dips into Stoner Rock and Psychedelic territory all over this record, like on Slide. Things get real weird on the bonus track R-Frequency, doesn't stop it from being fun. Tracks like the album openers Hit The Sky and Wolf Eye are reminiscent of 70's-era hard rockers, and follow similar themes. Lead singer/guitarist/keys player Aldo Struyf's vocals have a really nice grit to them. He sings pretty clean, but that layer of grit riding underneath is something I've come to really dig in hard rock. Black Rider Run features a guest vocal from Screaming Trees frontman/QOTSA collaborator Mark Lanegan, and the track is just...perfect Stoner Rock, with Lanegan bringing his haunting, barely there vocals to what would otherwise be a fun romp. The track Nightlife is definitely my favorite on the album, with a driving beat that just sticks with me, and that riff I find myself humming all day, and right after that, the raucous Red River.

This album is just a weird, fun, rockin' good time.





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Web Spotlight #7 - Black Prism

I found these guys through some clicks through the related videos section on Youtube.

Black Prism are an L.A. outfit that aren't trying to sound new. In fact, if you said they sounded like anything from the last 20 years they'd probably hit you. Black Prism are instead going for that Doom-y/Acid Rock-like vibe from mid-to-late 70's Black Sabbath. The guitars are fuzzy as all hell, the singer is howling in a not-unpleasant way reminiscent of 70's Ozzy, and it's wonderful. Hell, even their video for this debut single Satan's Country is made to look like some cheap 70's horror movie. The only thing that detracts from that image is the record label Easy Rider's Twitter and Facebook hashtag suggestions being in the bottom left corner.

It seems we're currently in a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal revolution that takes us back to the 70's, and I'm certainly okay with that. Black Prism aren't here to break any new boundaries, but instead explore a side of music we haven't heard from in a while. Check out the video, and if you like it, you can buy it for $7-8

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Movie Review - 12 Years A Slave

I know I'm pretty late to this one, but I could only see so many movies in theaters so this one ended up at a local independent theater and then I jumped on it. I heard nothing but great things about this movie. Directed by Steve McQueen and produced largely by Brad Pitt, 12 Years A Slave is based off of a book of the same name about a free black man in 1841 New York being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south, where he spends, as you might imagine, 12 years as a slave.

The movie is brutal, physically and emotionally. It's exhausting to watch, as you do nothing but feel bad for Solomon Northup, our unfortunate main character. Normally I don't mind and can even joy violence and gore in movies, but in this one it was excruciating, and I believe that to be because in our minds we can generally separate in film was is real and not real. In this movie, sure, the violence and gore was not real, but it happened. That's the real pain of this film, it all happened. Everything feels that much worse because we know that that was how black people were treated in those times. As a white male, I left the movie feeling guilty about my ancestors, for things they did 170+ years ago. For how society as a whole treated a whole race of people. As a society, we now accept that people of all races are equal human beings, which for me made me cringe every time a black person was treated as inferior. It made me sad that there was a time in our cultural history, that didn't even really end until about 40 years ago, that people of a different skin color were treated so inhumanely.

The cinematography of the film is absolutely beautiful, and McQueen does a terrific job directing, as do all the actors, specifically Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o as Solomon Northup and Patsey. Michael Fassbender does a terrific job of being a despicable villain, as well as Benedict Cumberbatch for being the decent guy who is a part of a bad time in history. There were scenes in this film that will linger with me for years to come. One particuarly devastating shot in particular which was a long, continuous shot that went for at least 3-4 minutes had Solomon being partially hung from a tree after picking a fight with one of the plantation hands. They string him up in the tree and are just about to hang him when they get chased off by another plantation hand. But he decides that it's the owner who has to cut him down, so they go off to fetch him. In this time, Solomon is just left hanging there, with the tips of his toes just barely touching the ground as he chokes from the noose. If his toes leave the ground he will die, so it's just one long shot of Solomon swaying back and forth trying as hard as he can to keep his toes on the ground while the other slaves go about their business and the wife of the owner just standing there watching him. It's truly devastating to watch.

As brutal as this film is, I'm incredibly happy that it's already being chosen to be aired in schools as a part of US history. While we often learn about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman in school, we don't learn about the story of Solomon Northup. While Douglass and Tubman achieved many a great thing in their time, they present just one side of the slavery injustice. They were born into slavery and escaped it to provide the world with great accomplishments. Solomon Northup however was born a free man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Twelve years later he escapes and writes the memoir this book is based on and tries to take the people who kidnapped him to court. However, since black people were not allowed to testify in court he lost his cases. Over the years, I think it's safe to say that the way we're taught about slavery, we forget that there were free people living at the same time as slaves. The idea that someone could be born free and then sold into slavery is a truly haunting tale that we don't hear as often as we should.

Overall I loved the film, however, I don't plan on watching it again. It was beautiful and tragic, an amazing film with a powerful story, but I have no desire to ever revisit the film. It's one you should watch, it's one you should remember. Remember how far we've come in nearly 200 years, and don't let anything drag us back down that path.

Music Review - Stone Titan - Scratch 'N' Sniff

This one's a heavy sumbitch, I tell you what. Stone Titan are a heavy, sludgy, doom-inspired Metal band that combine everything from Punk to Psychedelic music. Last month, Stone Titan put out a small album (8 songs) of just pure sludge-laden Metal, named Scratch 'N' Sniff. I've found it both entirely different and off-puting, but I keep coming back for more, and I'm finding myself enjoying the madness a little more each time.

Scratch 'N' Sniff certainly isn't for everyone. It's abrasive and offensive. The album cover has a man using a toilet and slitting his wrists, with rainbows and all sorts of brightly colored objects flowing outward. And with song titles like "I Wish I Was Fucking Dead" and "Alaskan Thunderfuck" they certainly aren't looking for anyone else's approval.

The album opens with "I Wish I Was Fucking Dead" and it just slams you right in the face, with a heavy riff and screamed vocals. Then it goes into "Groovy Warhead Commander" where the vocals are mostly growled...until the last minute or so where it just becomes weird guttural screams and noises. After that is my favorite song, "Alaskan Thunderfuck" and instrumental. The riffing and groove on this song have me going back to it the most, it's a fun, noisy raucous. If there is one song you listen to, it's this one. Next is "Faul", and it hits like a kick in the teeth with it's growled vocals and immediate, hard as nails riff. Are you starting to see a trend here? The next song up is "Can O Worms" and it brings in some Hardcore like blastbeats before settling down into a noisy groove. Feedback as part of the riffs in these tracks I think is ingenious, and is a nice technique borrowed from Noise Rock. As soon as "Can O Worms" starts, you have just enough time to headbang a couple dozen times and then it's over, coming in at only 2:18, and then it bursts right into the next selection of aggression, "Miles Away From Sober", which is all of 1:19. It's pure noisy goodness, right up until the end, which is all just...fart sounds. After that display we get "A Brief Overview of Overweight Men", which returns back to the sounds earlier on the album of combining screaming and growling with real doom-y, fuzzed out riffs, and a heavy ass beat. Then we round out the album with the self-titled track, "Scratch 'N' Sniff", which at 6:23 is the longest song on the album. It runs through all the previously explored concepts and just lets them flow through until they've explored them all they could, which turns out to be about 6 1/2 minutes, give or take the 2 minutes of silence before a blast of nothing but noise that finishes out the track.

I've found reviewing this album to be a bit difficult because I'm having a hard time figuring out why I've been connecting with this album so much when usually something like this wouldn't be my style. Truthfully, if you hear one song you've heard them all, all 8 songs on Scratch 'N' Sniff sound roughly the same. Some have different riffs, some have different drum beats, some have more or less feedback, but they mostly sound the same. And I think that's kind of why I like it. Since it's coming in at approximately 27 minutes in length, it's not long enough for me to get annoyed at the same-ness. Instead, Stone Titan come in and just blast pure testosterone at you for just under a half hour and then they're done. Another thing that stands out to me is that the vocals are never in the fore-front. The vocals are 99% of the time screamed or growled, but they aren't mixed in the front of the tracks, they're mixed more like another instrument, while the super fuzzy and distorted guitar takes more of a front seat. A lot of the times with Hardcore music where all they do is growl or scream, my ears will get tired of it real quick because it's all I can focus on. But with Scratch 'N' Sniff, I can focus more on just the experience of the song, blasting me in the goddamn face like a bag of bricks. This isn't something I would recommend for everyone. In fact, even I don't want to listen to the individual tracks, save "Alaskan Thunderfuck", unless I listen to the whole thing and just soak it in.

I looked Stone Titan up, and they're about as Indie as can be. Up to this point, they've released everything themselves. I decided that for an experience like this that is so unique to me, I had to support them, so I went to their website and ordered Scratch 'N' Sniff on vinyl, of which they've only pressed 300 copies. What I did find interesting is that they didn't press a cd. You can either buy the vinyl or you can go to their Bandcamp and buy the digital copy for $10. At any rate, if you're into Doom Metal, Noise Rock/Metal, or just want a new experience, check out Scratch 'N' Sniff.




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Web Spotlight #6 - Limalo

I found this artist through Reddit's electronic music sub.

Limalo is interesting. They're a music duo from Texas that specialize in atmospheric, ambient,  beat-driven music. In my mind, the strongest comparison is to Boards of Canada. Yesterday, Limalo released their first ever album, Human Bloom, on Bandcamp, and hot damn do I like it. 14 tracks, but it's about quality, not quantity, the longest song is 3:25. Human Bloom was recorded with all analog instruments, and that's a quality I can't praise highly enough, but you can hear the difference. The synths sound earthy and dream-like. The beats behind the synths never get too intense, but their is glitching abound, and that's something I can get behind.

Human Bloom has this great lo-fi sound to it that doesn't sound like a mastering effect. It's not so lo-fi that you lose a lot of detail in the tracks, in fact you can clearly make out everything that's going on, but it's a kind of fuzzy/blurriness that lets you just enjoy it in the background. It doesn't require your full attention, you can just let it roll out and envelop you. It's an action I support, because that means I can let the music be the soundtrack for an experience in my mind. I can just let it take me places. Hell, this is the kind of music I could see getting tied to memories of this summer when I think back in later years. I cannot stress enough how the entirety of Human Bloom is something to experience, but there are tracks that stand out. Clouds In My Puddle, Gamogy's Creek, Magic Lantern, Blurry Mood and Tiwa are all great pieces by themselves that really stood out to me.

Right now the entire album is on Bandcamp, and it's set at a Pay What You Want model, meaning it's donation based. You can enter $0 and get the album for free, or you can choose to pay however much you like. I'll be supporting Limalo and I hope you will too.

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Music Review - Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

Dark Tranquillity are one of the most influential Death Metal bands around. Their style is generally classified as Melodic Death Metal, a sub-genre that attaches sensibilities from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal to the rough and tumble genre of Death Metal. Dark Tranquillity, along with At The Gates and In Flames, helped launch a whole style of music, named Gothenburg Metal, after the city in which they're from.This specific offshoot of Metal would later influence would be called the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, that was prevalent in the late 90's and early 00's, with notable bands being Killswitch Engage, Otep, Mudvayne, As I Lay Dying and Avenged Sevenfold.

Fiction is Dark Tranquillity's 8th album, and marks their 18th year as a band. With each release, DT seem to open up their sound more and more, bringing in different elements into the fold that you wouldn't think fit, but are executed so elegantly and effortlessly that it just flows right on through, showing off the versatility of these Swedes. Fiction is 10 tracks of heavy riffage. the riffs in tracks like Nothing to No One, Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive) and Blind at Heart are as heavy as they come, really showing off that Neo-Classical influenced NWOBHM style. One of the things that first attracted me to DT is that lead singer Mikael Stanne's vocals are understandable, even though he's all over the place, going from guttural growls to raspy screaming, to even clean singing on Misery's Crown. You might have difficulty understanding everything he's saying, but you can tell there is some real depth to the lyrics, and understandable enough to be able to sing (or growl) along with him, which is something that has always distanced me from the Death Metal and Black Metal genres. I might enjoy a song technically, but if I can't understand what the singer is saying then I just can't get into it, and Stanne avoids that in his work with DT.

One of the things that keeps me interested in DT is that they are never content with finding one formula and sticking with it, they expand their sound while still making solid entries in the genre. On Fiction, you'll find an uncommonly large amount of synth and piano work, plunging along these beautiful melodies with the riffs and blast beats hitting hard,  and I think it does nothing but add wonderful texture to the songs. On Misery's Crown, Stanne does most of the song in a pretty nice sounding clean singing voice. In a genre like Death Metal that can easily get stagnant, it's really nice to see these guys playing around with these ideas. Opening up their sound without selling out. Just because Icipher has a really prominent piano doesn't mean you can call it anything other than a solid Death Metal track.

I really, really like Dark Tranquillity, and it was hard for me to pick which album of theirs I wanted to recommend the most, but Fiction has been with me the longest, and I find it one of theirs that I return to more often than others. If you've never stepped foot in the Death Metal genre or you're a die hard fan and are looking for something new and different, you'd be hard pressed to find a better gateway than Fiction.

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Web Spotlight #5 - The Blue Van

I found today's Web Spotlight digging through Youtube bookmarks.

The beauty of the internet, and sites like Youtube, as that you can discover anything that has ever been posted, and it can hit you as if it's brand new to you. So today I dug about my Youtube bookmarks and found this song I couldn't remember bookmarking years ago. Uploaded in November 2008, today's spotlight is The Blue Van's Silly Boy.

The video description reveals that The Blue Van is a Danish band and they particularly enjoy putting their own spin on Britpop. Silly Boy is a nice, quick, fun song. The riff is catchy and the vocals are definitely in the Britpop spirit. Check it out.

The Blue Van on Spotify

Movie Review - Knights of Badassdom

This is a little movie I figured I'd plug because it's fun. In the summer of 2010 a bunch of people who are in pretty popular tv shows all got joined up and filmed a movie in my backyard. The trailer hit the internet the next year and got a lot of coverage and excitement and then...nothing happened. Something happened within the company who made the movie and they ended up re-cutting the film and finishing it, looking for a distributor in spring 2013. They then started showing the movie in a few movie screens here and there in the summer of 2013. Last month the movie came to our independent movie theater and this last week it hit VOD. That movie is called Knights of Badassdom.

The basic plot is that a bunch of Live Action Role Players, (LARP for short) which is essentially live acting Dungeons and Dragons accidentally summon a succubus from hell and must actually kill a real monster to save the world. That's really all you have to know to know if you're going to like the movie. A more detailed synopsis however is that our main character Joe (played by True Blood's Ryan Kwanten) is a man who works a crummy job, loves Metal and lives in a Castle-house with his two nerdy friends. His high school girlfriend breaks up with him and his two best friends, played by Steve Zahn and Peter Dinklage (Game of Throne's Tyrion), take him to their weekend LARP-ing event, where they'll force him to get his mind off of his ex-girlfriend by re-igniting his love for the game. Zahn's character is a wizard and he has an ancient book in a different language that he reads to cast a spell, and through some unfortunate circumstances, the book actually has real power and summons a succubus that looks like Joe's ex-girlfriend. They must band together to destroy the evil hellspawn and save everyone.

Let's get this out of the way right here. The movie isn't good. It's bad. But it's so bad it's good. They knew when they were making this that they weren't going to be nominated for an Academy Award, they just went in to make a goofy, nerdy movie and everyone in it looks like they're having fun. The writing is often times dumb as bricks, but some of it is pretty funny, and quotable. The movie is pretty damn short too, an hour and 25 minutes if I'm not mistaken. It feels too short. As much as I like what we got, the pacing feels way off in the film. By the time we're done with our character introductions and into the actual LARP-ing event we're already a half hour into the film, which is a little more than a third of the way through the movie. The final setpiece of the film takes up roughly 20 minutes and the book-ending and credits take 4-5 minutes. That means that the middle of the movie, where we just live and breath the world and set-up for the end is just a half hour, and then we're into the final battle.

I remember reading that with the re-cutting in 2012-13 they took out 20 minutes, and you can definitely tell. It sucks because I have a strong feeling that 20 minutes came from the middle of the movie, and that's the section I wanted most of. The film starts off as a low-rent comedy and once the characters summon the succubus it's supposed to start incorporating horror into the comedy. While I think it works, I really wish we had more time just hanging out in the world of the movie before our heroes find the creature, because really the difference is only about 15 minutes.

Another problem I had with the movie, which was pointed out by my good friend who showed me the film was the sound mix. The sound editing and mixing are odd and at points plain bad. Early on I think there's a tendency to score every scene with something, when it would have been better for certain ones to have no score. It's true that music accompanying a scene can make you believe and invest in the scene more than you would have, but it can also take you out of it too. My biggest gripe with the sound is actually the final battle. A song that within the movie is supposed to be of the utmost importance is playing, but anytime the monster is hit the song gets dropped way down in the mix and you hear the sound effects at maximum volume. It really sucks that they did that, because at that moment you're getting a fucking awesome track by composer Bear Mcreary (the guy who did the Walking Dead theme song) and it keeps getting relegated to the background so you can hear sword clangs and hurt monster growls. Still a great scene, but it's sad that you know it could be way more awesome if they essentially just switched the volume of the sound effects and the song.

The score is awesome. Bear Mcreary did a great job both with the Ren-Faire music for the LARP-ing event and the Metal music. If Bear and his brother (who did the vocals) ever wanted to just do a Metal album I would be first in line to buy it. The cinematography is also pretty damn good. The only time I think it fails is when it comes to post-production editing choices, like using slow-mo where it's not necessary, and some poorly composited shots towards the end. The monster suit however looks great and all the blood is cool. Our main cast has of course Zahn, Kwanten and Dinklage, but Danny Pudi, (Community) Jimmi Simpson,(House of Cards, It's Always Sunny) and Summer Glau (a million cancelled shows) are also in it and they all do a fantastic job. It was pretty comical seeing Jimmi Simpson especially, because during the second season of House of Cards he plays a clever and conniving badass hacker, and here he's equally convincing as a LARP Game Master. It feels like everyone just got to come out and film during their time off in the summer and have fun making a stupid movie. I plan on showing this to all my friends and I would not be surprised if it became a part of themed game nights where we bust out the D&D and Metal music and just have a blast with it.

Knights of Badassdom is available now on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play's Video On Demand services and is scheduled for a DVD/Blu-Ray release on April 1st. I'm hoping it gets to Netflix soon, because that's the only way this surefire cult classic will ever reach the people it was made to please.

Check out the trailer below

TV Review - House of Cards - Season Two

In two days I watched all of Season Two of House of Cards, I was enthralled. Just when you think the scope can't get any bigger, it does. After all the excitement I gathered during the first season, despite my problems with it, I was excited to be proven correct; that this season would be better in pretty much every way.

This season is all about shifts of power, and the damage caused by making those shifts. Between Underwood and President Walker, between Raymond Tusk and Walker, between Underwood and Tusk, and even between Stamper and Rachel. Pretty much everything this season felt like an improvement over the last, though I still had a few issues with political policies and strategies, particularly because a few choices here and there I didn't follow how certain decisions effected others. However, I don't know whether that's a failing of the show or an inability on my part to understand the conflict. The addition of Jackie Sharp as the new political whip is a great change up, and Raymond Tusk proves to be an excellent foil to our main character. Once again, Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright do an amazing job as Frank and Claire Underwood, proving to be possibly the most powerful couple on current tv. If you liked the first season, you'll love the second one even more. Now I wait, along with everyone else for next February, when the third season will premiere.

Beyond this point I will have my thoughts and opinions regarding spoiler-worthy content of the season, you've been warned.

Reading reviews of the first season, a lot of people were worried that with Frank's acension to Vice President he no longer had anyone to challenge him and his authority, but they seemed to get around that pretty damn well. Primarily we have Raymond Tusk, who provides all the political grandstanding and backstabbing without being in office, an issue that comes into play pretty strongly in the back half of the season. Just when you think he's pulled all his strings, he has another one waiting in the wings to create more havoc. So Tusk creates all the political problems at and above Frank's power level, and Jackie Sharp helps to provide dissension in the ranks of congress below him.

Everything in this season is either a power play or a recovery tactic from someone else's power play. In 13 episodes I saw more power plays than I thought I would ever see, though I shouldn't be surprised, this is a show about the highest levels of government. I liked how they re-introduced Frank's bi-sexual leanings again since the first season. It was short, but said everything it needed to.

Most of the subplots I thought were excellently handled, especially Freddie's and Stamper's. The death of Zoe was shocking to me, I literally did not see it coming. Only in shows like The Wire can you see a character who was so integral to the plot of the previous season get killed and tossed aside in the first episode of the next. I also like that at the end of the episode Frank addresses the audience for the first time in the new season and says everything you need to know about how they treat characters. They serve their purpose, then they must be removed from the equation, don't bother mourning them because another will be in their place shortly. That was it for poor Zoe Barnes. Integral to the plot in season one, and killed in the first episode of season two, with a subplot about her death only being a minor detail to something greater in the first half of the season. By the second half we have another journalist who writes exposing articles about the White House and a half-dozen more important matters at hand.

One thing I noticed, since I watched both seasons in a matter of a week, was Frank's opening speech in the first episode. He talks about how you can tell how much power a person holds by where they are on the screen. In it, he points out that he is just barely in frame, but he's there. When he becomes Vice President, he references that opening and then makes mention of how close to center he has gotten to. And then of course, the final shot of the second season, He doesn't even need to say anything. Frank stands in the center of the screen, behind the desk in the oval office, looks at the camera and does his two-knock knuckle tap. He has gone from just barely in frame to being the most powerful man in America. I honestly have no idea how they'll continue in the third season, but Frank has to come down. In media, no one ever ascends the latter of power without then falling later on. Plus, as President of the US now, Frank has nowhere else to go, so I assume the next season will be about him fighting to retain his seat of power. But who knows, anything could happen, and I can't wait to see what it will be.

TV Review - House of Cards - Season One

Until recently I did not have access to Netflix, and had put House of Cards off from watching regardless, because as much as I liked the new season of Arrested Development and Orange is the New Black, I had a million other things that I was watching before I figured I'd get around to House of Cards. But, with the second season dropping, and me being an avid Twitter and Tumblr user, I didn't want to end up getting spoiled on the second season before I'd even seen the first. So I spent the last three days plowing through Season One of House of Cards.

In short, I really, really enjoyed it. No surprise there, it won 3 Emmy's. I was bound to agree with the rest of the world on it. Though I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I really enjoyed the first 4-5 episodes, and just enjoyed the rest of the episode. What really gravitated me to the show and kept me watching was the combination of Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood breaking the fourth wall to tell you the meaning behind his actions and his plot antics, as well as Underwood's ability to exert his power to change politics to get what he wants. Unfortuantely for me he only gets to do that up until episodes 4-5, and then with few exceptions, he spends the rest of the season trying to keep his actions that he pulled in those first few episodes under wraps. While intriguing and fun, I really wanted to see more of that pushing and pulling political bargaining before making our main character scramble to cover his tracks for those actions.

In regards to the show itself, the writing is top-notch, especially for Underwood. The southern drawl and utter and masterful control of words (except for one episode where they play off of the opposite of this) make for a compelling watch every second he is on screen. Robin Wright also does excellent work, as well as Kate Mara and the majority of the other actors in the show. The cinematography is excellent, and the production value feels pretty high for a show from a streaming video service. That does come with a price however, as the product placement is pretty prominent. Claire uses a Mac, everyone uses iPhones, Frank prominently plays a PS3 and even drops some knowledge of the PSVita. Nothing wrong with any of that though, I just find it funny how clearly obvious it was, about as much as The Walking Dead's Hyundai, which stays nearly immaculate in a zombie apocalypse. Hey, if that's what it takes to get good programming out there, then I'm all for it.

I can see why everyone was raving about the first season, it was certainly a good watch. One of the best shows I've seen as of late, between the strength of the acting, the cinematography and the screenwriting. Which is something that makes me super excited for the future of television, because if a show created by a streaming service can be this damn good then that says anything goes for who can create awesome content in the future.

If you've had any reservations about seeing House of Cards (which by this point I highly doubt) I urge you to give it a watch. It's not perfect, but it's damn good. Now I'm off to marathon the brand new second season and I'm ready to be once again immersed in this world.

TV Classics Reviewed - Twin Peaks

I've heard for years about the beauty of Twin Peaks, and it's been on a million "Great Shows Cancelled Too Soon" lists, so I figured it was high time I watched this gem. Thanks to the power of Netflix and other instant streaming services, people are now flocking to the wonder that is this small Washington town. Why not join the bandwagon when it's already gathered it's second wind. I figured I'd give a basic overview and my thoughts and feelings on the show, now that I've gotten through it.





Season One
Season One starts off strong, with a 90 minute episode that gives you a pretty good overview of the initial elements at play. Laura Palmer, high school prom queen/small town darling, has been found dead. We follow FBI Agent Cooper as he works his way through the case and falls in love with the small town of Twin Peaks.

There are numerous twists and turns in the case, as well as odd supernatural elements at play. At 8 episodes including the 90 minute pilot, it's a tight season that, while not having figured out who killed Laura Palmer, gives you a full look into the crazy seedy underbelly that seems nearly impossible to exist in such a small, nice town. Nothing is what it seems, there is a duality to everything. There are numerous moments from this season that bled into pop culture, including Agent Cooper's love of coffee ("Damn fine coffee!") and cherry pie, as well as the spectacular soundtrack and music cues, the allure and oddity of Audrey Horne and the uniqueness of the story that could only come through the mind of David Lynch. Before Twin Peaks, I have a hard time believing there was a show centered around the death of a character, starting in episode one. It spawned a lot of ideas and there are still shows around now that are working around similar premises (AMC's The Killing, for example."

Though as much as I enjoy the first season and understand how important it is culturally, it's not without faults. The show is a co-creation between David Lynch and Mark Frost. Lynch being...Lynch and Mark Frost being your award-winning drama show runner. The show is at it's best when it combines both elements, but sometimes too far one way or the other. When it's too David Lynch-like, it's still enjoyable, but leaves you with more questions than answers, whereas when it's too Mark Frost, it plays out more like a soap opera. The first season has a lot of time devoted to people crying over the death of Laura Palmer, or other problems. It seems a little forced at times, but still, the first season is excellent overall.



                                                                                            Season Two
Season two opens with another 90 minute episode, however, the season is ridiculously large, in comparison, clocking in at 22 episodes. The problem I have with the second season is already right in front of you. You go, "They can't possibly stretch out who killed Laura Palmer for two seasons, containing 30 episodes" and they didn't. The first 10 episodes of Season two pick up right where season one left off and fill in the remaining gaps into the question of "Who killed Laura Palmer?." The problem then becomes...what do you do with a show that has 12 remaining episodes when the main storyline has been resolved. And the result is...it's about half and half, quality-wise. Apparently at the time of Season 2 both David Lynch and Mark Frost were off promoting other shows and left Twin Peaks to the rest of the show's team to work on. It takes until episode 14-15 to really pick back up in the main plot, so that means episodes 11-13 are all just kind of meandering pieces that focus on the side-stories, some of which were good, some aren't. Then between episodes 17-22 we really get back on the boat with the main plot and it's great tv and is totally worth watching...but the season really drags.

After season two I totally understand both why the show was cancelled and also why everyone wanted more. The world of Twin Peaks is a fun and quirky weirdness that served as a great vehicle for odd stories. It has a lot of charm, totally not surprised it's such a cult classic. Agent Cooper and Audrey Horne are easily the best characters in the show, but Ray Wise's Leland Palmer really picks up in the second season too and ended up being super enjoyable.

Spoilers
In the end, I quite enjoyed where the show was going at the end of the second season, but the directions it took to get there weren't as such. The characters I didn't like the most were Nadine, Josie, Bobby and James. I never did enjoy Nadine's character, I was hoping at the end of season one that she would die. That would have been an interesting fold to Ed and Norma's relationship. However, in the second season they knock her memory back to high school and give her even more ridiculous strength. I hated the storyline every time it was on screen, and it was just too much. The resolve doesn't even make sense. In every scene teenage-brained Nadine has with Mike, the boy she is in love with, he rejects her over and time. Then one day she just says that they shared a magical night together and now they're in love and she leaves Ed so Ed can be with Norma. So he rejected her right up until they realized they needed to resolve the Ed and Norma relationship somehow.

Josie was another problem character for me because she has a ridiculous amount of plot twists that I don't think the character can handle. It was just revelation after revelation with her and they stopped being enjoyable in the second season, with the exception of her being the shooter of Cooper, as that was a mystery from the first season. Bobby was a character I didn't enjoy purely based on how insensitive he was at all times. They try and paint him as a jerk, but one that has good intentions, but he really just comes off as an ass. In the first episode when he finds out Laura is dead he's not sad or anything, just mad. When Leo becomes a vegetable he instead tries to collect the insurance money and essentially bails on it when they realize they'll get no money to take care of Leo. Even though Leo was a giant dickhole, it was still hard for me to see Bobby flagrantly abuse vegetable Leo. Though on the whole, I enjoyed the character of Leo because of how interesting of a turn it was. Dickhole character who you root for to die in the first season becomes a vegetable in the second season and you feel sorry for him based on how Bobby (and sometimes Shelly) treat him.

My last big character gripe was James Hurley. Everything he did was melodramatic to the max. For the first season it looked like he was about to cry at any second, and his relationship with Donna and every scene about it is laughable. His storyline with Evelyn also went nowhere and felt like just a reason to keep James involved in the show even though he no longer had any relevance, other than showing that none of these high school kids go to school other than Nadine, the 35 year old woman who thinks she's in high school.

Other than that, Ben Horne's civil war sub-plot felt like a show trying to figure out what to do when the guy who was a primary villain no longer has any real power...so they make him have a psychotic break and he comes out of it Wizard of Oz style. That storyline, James' with Evelyn and Lucy's My Two Dad's situation with Dick and Andy trying to figure out who would be a better dad just go nowhere and serve no purpose other than storyline filler while the writers buy time to figure out what to do next. In my opinion, the second season of Twin Peaks should have ended in the 11th episode. Leland Palmer has been convicted of Laura's death and has himself died, so the main mystery is solved, and Agent Cooper gets his badge revoked. The next season would then allow them to cut the fluff and start up around where episode 15 takes off and we could then get Cooper being Truman's right hand man and start the hunt for Windam Earle. Of course, this is hindsight you get after the show has been cancelled over 20 years.

Final Thoughts
In the end, I think the show is totally worth watching, but the middle episodes of season two are easily watched in the background, while doing something else. The first season is must-watch television, despite a few hang-ups here and there, and the first half of season two and the last 7-8 episodes are nearly as good as the first season, with just as many oddities and interesting storytelling ideas to give you. I'm definitely glad I finally caved and checked out Twin Peaks, I feel a little bit more cultured for it.

Music Review - White Wizzard - The Devil's Cut

It's been a couple years since the last album, Flying Tigers, and a lot has changed for White Wizzard, but a lot has also stayed the same. New to the band (in studio anyway) are guitarists Jake Dreyer and Will Wallner, bringing both Neo-Classical leads and Blues based leads, trading off throughout each track. The biggest change up however is lead singer Joseph Michael. Michael is different than Wyatt Anderson, lead singer on the last two albums, but he is still great in his own way. His vocals have a much more "Power Metal-y" ring to them than Wyatt, but his range is impeccable. He can hit falsetto's whenever he needs to and can bring his voice down to a growl and will often switch it up through the songs so that he hits both of those and everything in between, which gives the tracks a nice diverse sound.

The Devil's Cut is a solid 9 track album. The songwriting by Jon Leon is at this point very predictable, but that doesn't mean it's bad. If you've heard the other two Wizzard albums you know what you're getting. Some of the tracks have lyrics that are even a little too cheesy for me, mostly Kings of the Highway and Lightning In My Hands, but they are also immensely enjoyable. I thought it was really interesting how Leon brought the guitar parts into the tracks. Dreyer is well versed in the Neo-Classical shredder style, and Wallner is rooted in the Classical and Blues styles. So Leon would write the tracks and then pick which guitarist would fit each part of the song the best, and it pays off. Each tracks feels like it was meticulously crafted to hit the best way possible. The drum work from Giovanni Dürst is excellent as always. He never really stands out on his own, but the drumming is solid and there is never a beat or a drum hit that sounds out of place or unnecessary. Leon's bass work is in my opinion, incredibly interesting. For the most part, he's not really going into the songs trying to stand out, instead, his bass is always doing something in the background. It's not prominent, but any time the songs get a little quiet you can hear him just noodling away back there. Little riffs and hooks filling up space and keeping the tracks from ever being stale.

Since the album is only 9 tracks, that let the band explore longer song forms and get a little more Prog-y on this release. Nothing spectacular, but they're able to explore songs and take them into directions you might not go if you're aiming for a three minute and thirty second time slot. We open the album with Forging The Steel, a two minute instrumental that serves as an intro to the first real song, the decidedly epic Strike The Iron, which comes in at nearly 7 minutes. It's catchy and full of memerable vocal and guitar riffs and hooks. Michael's voice take pretty much every twist and turn that it's going to go on this album, so it's a nice showcase for what he can do and what the new guitarist duo can bring to the table. Then we get Kings of the Highway, which isn't a favorite of mine, but is a shred-tastic song. It sounds similar to a mix between Turbo-era and Painkiller-era Judas Priest. Lightning in My Hands is a pure Wizzard classic. It has all the staples, killer riffs, epic, machismo-ridden lyrics (My finger's tapped to rocket fuel/ignite the fire in me and you) and it just rocks hard. It's a highlight of the album. Then we get into a sort of ballad that is full of warning and concern, Steal Your Mind, that clocks in at nearly 7 and a half minutes. It's full of lyrics telling you to stay true to yourself, and I can get behind that. Then we get to the title track, The Devil's Cut, which picks the tempo back up and it's full of more empowering lyrics, like "Music is the truth that sets me free." After that, we lead into the first song released from this album, and the song most reminiscent of the last two White Wizzard albums, Torpedo of Truth. If you've heard the other two Wizzard albums, you already know exactly what Torpedo is going to sound like, but that doesn't make it any less fun. It's a raucous. The next track, Storm Chaser, is a fun little jaunt that goes for a more Blues based Metal approach over the Neo-Classical, and sounds similar to L.A. Nights from the last album in tone. More about fun and partying than it is about devils or demons or magic. We close the album with the 9 and a half minute epic The Sun Also Rises, a wonderful exercise that brings the whole band together to shine. Everyone gets a little showcase. It's a song to close concerts with, with everyone pumping their fists in the air, chanting along with the band that the sun will surely rise.

Overall, I really enjoyed the album. The biggest problem I had with Flying Tigers was Leon playing all the guitar parts and having the second half sounding a little same-y for me. He disclosed in an interview with Metalsucks that he didn't enjoy doing that, and he mostly did it to get the songs done without having to spend the time finding new band members, because they had run out of time. At 9 tracks and with two guitarists with different but complimentary styles I think Leon avoids most of that this time around. He said that they mostly put out this album so people could get used to this incarnation of the band, and they're already working on a follow up. Unfortunately, On their European tour, singer Joseph Michael and Leon got in a huge fight, and the whole group disbanded, so White Wizzard is once again just Leon.

So if you enjoy cheesy, over the top Metal that also happens to be technically really well preformed and an exemplary release from this genre of "Retro" Metal, get The Devil's Cut. 




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Web Spotlight #4 - Witch Mountain

Not sure how I found this band, I just had the link to this track on Youtube bookmarked.

I am a man of the Pacific Northwest, which made me instantly happy to find out that today' Web Spotlight, Witch Mountain, is from Portland. I was however really mad with myself when I found out they played in my town two months ago. Nevertheless, he we are.

Witch Mountain are a among a growing breed in the Metal community, female fronted Doom Metal bands. It's something I greatly enjoy. Last year Witch Mountain released a 6 song EP named Cauldron of the Wild and I'm really digging it. The song I had found wading in a sea of Youtube bookmarks was Beekeeper, and it's the song I'm choosing to highlight today. It's good, gritty, slow Doom Metal with one Uta Plotkin bringing the dark, groovy lyrics and occasional shrieks to the fold. If you like modern Doom, this is one to check out.


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Web Spotlight #3 - Ratskull Rascal

I found the lovely artist that is Ratskull Rascal through Reddit's free music subreddit.

Now, I don't know much about this guy, but maybe in the future he could drop by and inform us himself. Ratskull Rascal has just recently released his first EP through Soundcloud, called Quantum Compression, and calls his music a mix between electronic and psychedelic, and that sounds about right.

There are guitars, organs, keyboards and various other fuzzy sounds and tones that blend the genre lines and leave us with a nice down-tempo EP that is great for chill out sessions. When you need something playing in the background, or when you want to just focus on the music and nothing else. There are six tracks and they are all nice, but my favorites seem to be the first and last tracks, Revelation and Genesis, probably because I really dig the fuzzy, distorted guitar sound.The melodies are tight, the songs are pretty short and the ideas within hit me just right.

So check out Quantum Compression, you can listen and download for free right through Ratskull's Soundcloud.

Music Review - Dio - The Last In Live

As some of you might know, or might have gathered from my music choices, I'm a big Dio fan. The man's a legend. He started his music career in the end of the 50's, doing Doo-Wop (no seriously, look up Ronnie and the Prophets) and made musical contributions to the next five, count 'em, five decades. He rose up the ranks, going through a good 4-5 band re-brandings until his band Elf became acquainted with famed Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. They essentially adopted him in and became Rainbow, his first big band. After 3 albums with Rainbow he left the band and joined up to be the second lead singer of Black Sabbath, becoming an even bigger force to be reckoned with. After two phenomenal albums, he left Sabbath and created his own band, named Dio, which had a long successful career in it's own right.

Why do I lead this post with such a long intro? Because to fully appreciate the scope of Inferno, you need to know the history of the man behind it. Since tomorrow would have been Dio's 70's birthday, I figured I'd celebrate by recommending the best non-greatest hits greatest hits that has ever been put out, Inferno: Last In Live. I've actually just seen it re-released with the title Dio's Inferno, as listed on Spotify, but it's the same album track for track.

Inferno was recorded in the time of Dio's 97-98 Angry Machines tour, which I always find a little funny. The best live recording comes from the tour of one of the well, lesser albums. Inferno is a two-disc masterpiece, covering everything from Rainbow to two tracks off Angry Machines, 20-ish years of material. Throughout the album, Ronnie sounds as alive as ever, which is great for someone in their late 50's at the time of recording. One thing Dio had a penchant for is engaging and talking to the audience, including them in the concert. Usually this means he would point to the audience and tell them that they were something, aka they were all rainbows in the dark, or they were all the man on the silver mountain or some such thing. Not innovative by any means, but cheesy and endearing. And when I said this was the best non-greatest hits greatest hits, I meant it.

Disc one opens with Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost, a track off of Strange Highways. Not a perfect album, but standard fare for later Dio albums. The next three tracks usher us right into his debut solo album, Holy Diver, with Straight Through The Heart, Don't Talk To Strangers, and of course, Holy Diver. Three perfect tracks from the beginning of his solo career. Then we get a drum solo from Sabbath and Dio alum Vinny Appice, which leads right into Sabbath classic Heaven and Hell. From there we get Double Monday, an Angry Machines track, then the classic Stand Up and Shout, and closing out the disc is Hunter of the Heart, another Angry Machines track. By itself, this would be a pretty great later Dio live album. But that's just half way. The second disc is where it really opens up.

Disc two is the the disc I live for. The first disc is great, but the second is essentially a treat for all the long term fans. Dio runs through Rainbow, Sabbath and his own material in a manner that comes with having spent so many years figuring out what fans want. Disc two opens with a medley of the Rainbow tracks Mistreated and Catch The Rainbow, coming out to about 10 minutes. Then there is a guitar solo from guitarist Tracy G, who does a great job on this album. Then we get The Last In Line and then Rainbow in the Dark, two classic Dio tracks. Then it gets interesting. Dio explains to the crowd that instead of going backstage and waiting for them to come back out and do an encore, they were just going to do it right then. And so, he does. He rips right into Sabbath classic The Mob Rules, and from there runs through two classic Rainbow tracks, Man on the Silver Mountain and Long Live Rock and Roll and then for the grand finale slams into Dio classic We Rock.

It hits every base a fan could hope for. Disc One adds in tracks from some later Dio albums and mixes them with some Sabbath and a large chunk of Holy Diver, and then Disc Two plays through essentially the rest of the classic Dio hits with a large dose of Rainbow and another Sabbath track. While Dio wasn't a perfect songwriter and most of his solo albums had some filler to them, this double disc set mostly eliminates that. I'm not too big on Strange Highways or Angry Machines, but what can you do, they only account for 3 out of 18 tracks. Holy Diver and The Last In Line are classic albums for a reason, and it's because the tracks were straightforward, inspired and had little filler on them. On this release, We get the majority of Holy Diver and a couple tracks from The Last In Line so you get the best of Dio's solo career, you get a lot of Rainbow's strongest songs, and you get two of the best Dio-era Sabbath tracks that had some speed to them. It plays like a love letter to his fans, and that's what Ronnie James Dio was all about, loving his fans. It's cheesy and cliched, sure, but without Dio the landscape of modern Metal wouldn't look the same. He sang about the mystical and fantastical, about the empowerment of the youth, about standing up for what you believed in. He is a large part of why the cliche exists, he was the originator.  He invented the devil horns, the sign Metal heads embraced and became a huge part of our culture. He opened up the doors for Power Metal, he gave life back to the band that almost single-handedly invented Heavy Metal. He lived a life well lived, but cut short. With this live album, you get the experience of what the man was all about. Happy birthday Dio, you were a hell of a man.

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Music Review - Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond

   I wouldn't have found the good Captain here if it wasn't for the podcast Tell 'Em Steve Dave, on Kevin Smith's Smodcast Network. Captain Beyond was a 70's Supergroup of sorts. Lead singer Rod Evans was the original lead singer of Deep Purple, and preformed their hit song Hush. After three albums with Deep Purple he was let go and they brought in Ian Gillan and they became the superstars they are today. Rod went on to form Captain Beyond with former members of Iron Butterfly and Johnny Winter's band. Captain Beyond is pure 70's Prog Rock. They dig into these large concepts of places and ideas and spread them out through the songs. It's trippy, and a rockin' good time.

   A lot of the songs on the album flow together, which adds to the experience of listening to this album as a whole. The first three tracks, Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air), Armworth and Myopic Void are all one related concept. As well as tracks 6-8, Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro), Frozen Over, and Thousand Days of Yesterdays 9Time Since Come and Gone), leaving tracks 9-13 to form their own concept, which you can get the idea of just from the song titles; I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 1, As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea), Astral Lady, As The Moon Speaks (Return) and I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 2. This With these three long form concepts taking hold of the album, the two stand-alone tracks 4-5, Mesmerization Eclipse and Raging River of Fear can get lost, and that's a shame because they're great catchy tracks. The album focuses on space, the concept of loneliness, the moon and the sea. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes for this 13 track album, Captain Beyond just sails on through and plunges forward, and before you know it, you've finished.

   It's a quick album, which is surprising for a 70's Prog Rock album. It explores all sorts of interesting concepts, but before it lingers anywhere too long it's onto the next subject. My favorite tracks have got to be the Thousand Days of Yesterdays section, aka songs 6-8, especially Frozen Over. That riff really just grooves with me. Sadly, original guitarist Larry Reinhardt and original bassist Lee Dorman, both from Iron Butterfly, died last year. Reinhardt had been trying to get Rod Evans to return so they could do an original band reunion. We'll only ever have this self-titled album that contained the original line-up of Captain Beyond that was on this record. Their next release had them replace drummer/songwriter Bobby Caldwell, and their third and final album had another 2 members of Iron Butterfly and Rod Evans was replaced. So here we have it, 35 minutes of a band that could never lock into one lineup and would never return to the magic that was captured in this recording ever again. It's a hidden gem I think fans of 70's Rock and Prog Rock should check out.

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Web Spotlight # 2 - Beliefs

This week I've got some Dream pop goodness to spotlight. I found this week's band, Canadian act Beliefs, through their US record label Manimal Vinyl's Tumblr. Beliefs are a Canadian duo who have been combining light, ethereal vocals with lush wispy audio soundscapes. Before the release of their self-titled album in March, they put out a video for a bonus track for the album, Violets, and it's what got me turned on to Beliefs.

It's light and airy, dreamy and sweet. A perfect song for summer.

Music Review - 13ghosts - Garland of Bottle Flies

   Dark, atmospheric bluesy rock from this Alabama based Indie band. Beautiful, yet haunting. The album has a lot of space and lets the songs just flow, letting them envelop you. Ten tracks that leave an impression of an experience.They're fine on their own, but wonderful together. There is definitely a Country influence on this album, which is refreshing. This album is a collection of Southern influences. Country is present, most definitely, but there's also strong overtones of the past Southern Rock acts and most certainly the Blues, with lyrics that are deeper than you might expect from a band that exemplifies so much of the South. 

   Garland of Bottle Flies opens with While You Were Bathing, a track that combines sentimental lyrics that ooze with emotion with a high pitched piano, a dark-underpinning guitar and haunting atmospherics to establish the mood of this album. Stella's overblown mic effect drive the lyrics forward, making for a quick, catchy rocking track that only goes for 2:30. I Have Brought Fire brings forth a fine Southern Rock-tinged ballad, complete with a trademark southern drawl. Wicked Drink picks up the pace and brings things into the modern day, but hangs onto these more complicated lyrics that keep these lighter sounding rock songs from being all that light. From those four tracks we can figure out what the rest of the album is going to sound like, different variations of these four combinations. Dr. Bill, a favorite of mine, is a story that goes through a couple different sonic changes, starting primarily acoustic and then just builds until it crescendos into this dark, loud tale that twists and turns, and then it builds up again, but never gets as loud as it did before and just rides it out right into the next track, The Last Time I Died, a beautiful acoustic-led duet. Stars flows right on through from The Last Time I Died, clocking in at a little over 2 minutes, providing a perfect segue into the highlight of the album, Billy Dee, a sprawling track clocking in at 9:32. A dark and twisted bluesy tale that surrounds our protagonist coming into contact with Billy Dee, a longtime rival, at a Motorhead show. Billy Dee steals the show, it is the center piece of this album and if you're going to listen to one song, make it this one. After that, we're onto Whitey Joe, a song with a strong Country feel that brings a tale of war front and center. Finally, we slip into Slyvianne, a slow ballad that encompasses a sad reflection of a man's life as he looks back.

   Combining the brains of an Indie Rock band with a strong knowledge and acceptance of the music past of their culture, 13ghosts' Garland of Bottle Flies is not one to miss.

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Web Spotlight # 1 - Zack Hemsey

Do you remember the score to Inception? Maybe. Maybe not. I do guarantee however you remember the music for the trailers of Inception. The Hans Zimmer-esque rhythm with the "BWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAM" sound that became synonymous with the movie. Well, that sound wasn't a creation of Hans Zimmer's, rather, it was of an independent New York musician named Zack Hemsey. He was the creator of "Mind Heist", the track used in the trailers for Inception. It turns out he does more than just make memorable movie scores. He also makes his own unique brand of hip-hop.

The track I'm spotlighting is "Slave" from his album, Ronin. His lyrics and flow are simple but effective, a song about the common people being slaves to, essentially, the system.  His production is really interesting because of that work in scoring he has, it's more elaborate and uses a wider variety of instruments than what would typically be used. The production has a lot of depth and texture and it's fascinating to hear.

The thing I find most intriguing about Hemsey is the making and distribution of this album. Hemsey did everything on this album himself, right up to mastering and the album art,  which are handled by other people. That means he wrote the songs, he produced the tracks, he preformed on them and he also mixed them before sending them off to be mastered. A one man show at it's finest. He also has made the album as widely available as possible, he uploaded every track from the album to Youtube. If you can access Youtube you can hear the whole thing, start to finish. He's also put up a Bandcamp page where you can purchase Ronin.

With his distinct production, his interest in different forms of delivering content to fans and his varied musical interests, Zack Hemsey is one to watch.

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Music Review - Royal Thunder - CVI

Female fronted Metal at it's finest. Royal Thunder are an Atlanta band digging into their record collection of Sabbath and Zeppelin for inspiration and creating something refreshingly new out of those influences. CVI indulges 70's hard rock enthusiasts. You've got your Blues, your Doom, and your Psychedelics all wrapped into modern Hard Rock ideas with female bassist and singer Mlny Parsonz wailing on the mic. While I absolutely adore the instrumentation on this album, it's Mlny that really does it for me. I'm a sucker for girls with grit in their vocals, and she gets down and dirty with the best of them.

The album opens with "Parsonz Cruz" a Blues heavy rocker that descends into madness about 4 minutes in before coming out with renewed vigor for the end, starting the album off with a slow burner that sets the tone for the album. Royal Thunder wear their influences on their sleeves, and I like them about them. You can tell where they found inspiration for certain songs, and you can see where they went with those ideas, never leaving a pure carbon copy. After the 7 minute opener, we lead into Whispering World, taking Parsonz to a screaming stomper. As much as I love this one, I know that it's true place is in concert, a studio recording could never capture the energy and atmosphere of this track. It's about 10 seconds shy of 4 minutes and just rips through with screaming vocals, a catchy as hell chorus and a blistering solo. That's about how the rest of the album goes, a slower track that feels dark and ominous is succeeded by a shorter, faster stomper of a track. My favorite of the shorter tracks is No Good, a song with a definite Zeppelin influence, and even a very active piano line, just for when you thought the songs might start sounding similar. My favorite of the longer dark and brooding tracks is Sleeping Witch, a Doom Metal inspired track that Sabbath would be proud of. It churns and prods and just makes you move your head with them.

I can't give this album enough praise. I'm a huge fan of these modern bands taking these influences from 30-40 years ago and taking their modern sensibilities to them and creating something that's both extremely reverential and it's own thing. It's not a cookie cutter copy of the influences, it's understanding the core elements of each influence and filtering them through their own perspective to create something brand new.





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