Sheol

You'd figure growing up on a pacific island she'd be more used to whole, grilled fish? Or maybe that's just my predjudice talking.

One thing I hate living in the north of Sweden is the shortage of fresh fish. Most things that arent salmon is very expensive or usually very frozen once it gets here. The west coast like Gothenburg has all the fresh fish and seafood 😋 Unfortunately it's filled with Gothenburgians.

I remember the last Goats of Doom being quite enjoyable!

Noctule  - Wretched Abyss

Solo project from Serena Cherry of Svalbard. Really good modern black metal.

Home made sushi.

4 hours ago, markm said:

On the drive to and from Harper's Ferry to do some paddling-Eagle Twin/The Thundering Herd and Bolt Thrower/To Those Once Loyal. When I got to the take out, I had Bolt Thrower blasting. In the group I was paddling, there was a cute  young college grad Asian girl one of my friends brought that he's crushing on-I started to turn it down and she was head banging to my tunes. She gave me that "fuck yeah" look. I thought, yeah, this girl is aight.  Don't judge a book by it's cove as they say- Haha.

In deed. You never know who's a metal head these days. In that sense metal has become mainstream and part of the zeitgeist of the western world. Even if it's kind of niche, it's still something that most people have a relation to (even if it's "Eww").

Type O Negative - October Rust.

While there's other TON albums I prefer there's no denying that this is some grade A stuff.

20 hours ago, BMB said:

…next up…

Varde - Fedraminne

Nice! That was my AOTY in 2020. Came out of nowhere and blew me away.

Amon Amarth - Masters of war (re-recording)

**incomplete link removed**

5 hours ago, Destructhor81 said:

Covenant (or Kovenant as they are known now) released an excellent demo which showed so much promise. They could have probably been up there with Emperor and Dimmu if they had played their cards right. Their first two albums were excellent as well, but after that they just turned to utter shit in my opinion.

 

I recently did a revisit of Covenant in order to decide if Nexus Polaris deserved a vinyl purchase (Cosmic Key Creations have done some beautiful represses), and man I could feel my interest vane for every year I moved up. Animatronik was laughable but SETI was even worse! Even on NP they were kind of going overboard with the piano tinkling.

Like, how do you go from this:

Covenant - From the storm of the shadows

To THIS!

Kovenant - Star by star

Welcome!

This was fucking cool

Darkthrone - Translivanian hunger - Synthwave cover

5 hours ago, navybsn said:

Bowie could basically do whatever the fuck he put his mind to. He owned an ISP in the 90's (bowienet) and even was one of the first to open an online bank.

Haha what? That's crazy. The Bank of David.

I think I just have this suspicion that I'd love the man if I just could find the right songs. I listened to Lazarus and Blackstar and they were wonderful tbh. Chilling to know that he was writing his epitaph, that's enough to paralyze most people.

Kittens

David Bowie is one of those artist I WANT to like, but I so far haven't found a good point of entry so to speak. The 70's singles (Life on mars, Space oddity etc) are good, but I don't really know where to go from there. The 80's sound (Ashes to ashes) sounded a bit too sterile for me. The 90's drum n bass thing I have no recollection of. I liked his collaboration with Trent Reznor. Is Blackstar worth diving into?

And this song, where ever it's from, really highlight his best feature; his voice.

David Bowie - Bring me the disco king

Sacred Reich

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Don't you Swedes ever have traffic over there? Or is that only around Stockholm, or just near the bridge to Copenhagen or what? Is this album cover what your daily commute looks like?

Perennial Isolation - Portraits

 

This is exactly what it's like in all parts of Sweden that is not Stockholm. At least if you ask someone from Stockholm😄

I think most people have like 15-30 min commute to work here, though I know that in the bigger cities taking public transport can take up to an hour to get to work 😝 But from your description it sounds like US isn't that much worse than here, really.

At my old job I could get there in 7 min by car and 15 on bike, hard to get close than that really. Currently I work from home but my new job is located 600 km from here so I realistically will be wokring 95% from home even when the pandemic eases up.

NP:

Fellwarden - Wreathed in Mourncloud

This was bloody awesome.

Skyfall was a lot better then I would've guessed. Cautiously interested in how the full album will sound.

Iron Maiden did a godawful game in the late 90's called Ed Hunter. It was just as bad as you'd suspect.

The game Brütal Legend had a bunch of metal references throughout the game, with Jack Black, Lemmy, Ozzy, Lita Ford doing the voices, and a soundtrack full of notable bands like... well have a look yourself

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

In some of our larger cities there's so much traffic it can sometimes take you 2 or 3 hours just to get to or home from work if you live in the outer suburbs. The pandemic changed that briefly last year but it didn't last long, the traffic came back as bad as ever.  This is why Americans are so in love with our cars, we spend so much time in them.

NGL, that sounds absolutely nightmarish. That's a lot of hours per day you're never getting back.

This is probably one of my favorite acoustic albums, and definitely my favorite live album by Katatonia.

Well if I were to make a blueprint of how to break into the mainstream as a metal band without loosing (most of) my metal fans and still being radio friendly and melodic, TBA is what I would create. We don't have to like it to acknowledge that they and Bob Rock knew exactly what they were doing, every step on the way.

5 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

Wardruna - Kvitravn on vinyl, limited edition gatefold

Good?

5 hours ago, markm said:

That's right fellas, whitewater paddling is an addiction. The power of surging water, careening towards rocks, boulders and falls; the fear of danger,  adrenaline, surfing, drops, V-shaped holes, it scares the shit out of you, you survive and you go back for more punishment. It's a whitewater thang, (if you haven't experienced it), you wouldn't understand.

I can totally understand the thrill, even if it's not something I've ever felt drawn to myself. Probably because I'm a pretty lousy swimmer.

But to me 2.5 hrs of driving is still quite a lot. I can barely keep awake driving for 1 hr, don't know how you do it. Taking 2-3 hr day trips seem quite normal in USA, probably because the country is so fucking huge.

11 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I stopped after V - Halmstad (for no particular reason) but I do recall especially liking the third and fourth one. Maybe I should catch back up with them. Kvalforth is a ridiculous guy. Did you ever get into Skitliv?

VII is the last album I truly loved, IX was pretty good, but their schtick get kind of old after a while.

No I never liked it, it just felt halfassed. I've never been a huge fan of Maniac either, so that probably plays a part.

I've always been a Metallica guy, ever since first hearing Enter Sandman in high school. The first 5 albums are untouchable and all fill different roles (KEA=raw, mindless, youthful, RTL=blossoming songwriting skills, huge influence from Cliff, sharp chops, MOP=the GOAT, AJFA=technical, sophisticated, experimental, TBA=surgical precision songcrafting, incredibly strong individual songs, commercial in the best possible way).

Megadeth has never interested me. The vocals are awful, and the wank-factor was always too high for me, and when I got around to appreciate instrumental wizardry there were more interesting bands than Megadeth to listen to.

10 hours ago, Hungarino said:

Universities are corporations, first and foremost, and I want to throw up when I see the incessant and never ending mythology of Thomas Jefferson used as a promotional gimmick for the school. I mean, I do appreciate the history, but those weasels sending me solicitations for money don't give two shits. I don't just throw those letters away I tear them up. All that college donation club membership is the stupidest and lamest form of social ladder climbing. Fuck all of those people.

Wait, your universities want donations from you after you graduate and you're put on some sort of "Cool kids" list for it? That's pretty fucking shameless. I thank my lucky stars that Sweden so far hasn't gone private with it's higher education, though I'm sure some really wants it to happen. I took out about $48 000 in student loans for my 6 years at uni so I wouldn't have to work part time. I'm paying back about $150 a month, with the plan to be at 0 by retirement I think (it's an automated plan). Do you get paid to do PhDs in US? It's considered a job, right?

As for flawless albums, I have a real soft spot for Arjen Anthony Lucassen's earlier works. Past 10 years have been a bit hit n miss, but The universal migrator etc is amazing. But the one I've listened to the most is easily this one. A theatrical prog rock metal opera concept with the cream of metal vocalists (as usual) about a guy in a coma. Riveting, huh?

Ayreon - The Human Equation

4 hours ago, markm said:

 

360 mile round trip to a new river run for me-Stonycreek in PA (fun class III with some easy class II-lots of surf play spots) -

Are you telling me you drove 360 miles (580 km) in one day just to kayak a new river? That must've taken 6-7 hrs of just driving?

I bought Shining's albums 1-4 on CD a while back, so I've been revisiting them and they hold up surprisingly well, despite some unintentionally comedic vocal acrobatics from Kvarforth. Right now I'm enjoying VII - Född Förlorare.

Prozac