I feel it would take a lot for the oligarchs to turn on Putin, he surely has a lot of dirt on them, and I think they care a whole lot more about public opinion on the world stage than him.

The whole russian strategy has been very puzzling, either Putin tries to control everything and does it badly, or those in charge of the practical application of military-ing are inept. In the long run, I'm sure they can win the battle and take over Ukraine. But I'm not so sure they can keep it. Ukraine is big, and the risk is the Russians will face a 10 year guerilla war. Shitty outcomes all around.

I used MusicBee and really liked it, but had to switch to Foobar2000 because I couldn't find any way in MusicBee to add ReplayGain and DR measurements. F2K is pretty awful in deign though. Very hard to customize, but infinitely better than iTunes.

My vinyl collection has grown considerably during covid, I probably have around 2-300 vinyl, and 5-600 CD (which are in the basement). I sadly dont have any server set up for my music, but since I often listen to digital on the computer or on the phone it doesn't really matter. I had a Seagate server setup but that interface was trash so I never really used it (you couldn't copy files to it via USB, only wifi, which was very inconveniant).

For some reason this showed up in my feed. The kid is from the town I grew up in and while his power metal isn't my cup of tea he's immensely talented both as a singer and guitarist. Saw that he plays with Sabaton now.

Tommy Johansson - You raise me up

On 2/22/2022 at 2:39 PM, navybsn said:

That's cruel and unusual. An EGD as we call it is pretty miserable. When I used to do sedation for those procedures, I was always a little heavy handed on the "forgetful juice". It was always the one procedure I never wanted to have myself. For my procedure yesterday (which was all clear btw), I had propofol (aka Milk of Amnesia, the shit that killed Michael Jackson). It's pretty great stuff. Just lights out until it's all over. I had heard over the years that there were places in Europe that didn't use any sort of sedation for gastroscopy or colonoscopies. I can't understand why. Sedation is safe and effective when provided in a monitored environment and makes the whole thing much less unpleasant.

Wait, you get sedation for *scopies? I've had gastroscopy, colonoscopy, Sigmoideoscopy, at the most I've gotten some paracetamol and something that was supposed to calm me down, but did shit. Some colonoscopies were fine, but some hurt like a motherfucker, especially when they inflated the colon with air. Ugh.

Anyway, glad to hear they didn't find anything significant Navy.

Colonoscopies are fine, but gastroscopy can fuck off. Probably the most unpleasant thing I've done at a hospital while awake. Turns out I have a very good gag reflex 🤮

Blood Countess - Storms over Carpathia

Pretty standard black metal with some slight Satyricon-n-roll vibes in the riffs. Not bad, let's see how the full-length holds up.

Listened to the music and it was very cool, and a lot! Had a very 90's - early 00 type feel to it. Like Mr Bungle-type weird.

That album art is gorgeous! I saw this pass by on IG and had to give it a listen due to the cover. Didn't know you were attached to it FA!

12 hours ago, Miss_Teala said:

There used to be one very successful artist in Sweden who was really popular throughout his life until 1997, who was called Ted Gärdestad, and he wrote a lot of really beautiful melodies (his brother Kenneth Gärdestad wrote the lyrics), and this is one of my favourite songs with him so far - it always makes a huge impact on me:
 

 

I was only aware of the usual songs played on the radio (Sol, vind och vatten, Satellit, Jag vill ha en egen måne), but after seeing the biopic I digged a little deeper and he had a lot of really wellwritten songs!

Seance - Saltrubbed eyes

Listening to Sorcery reminded me of this semi-forgotten band. Featured Jensen of The Haunted, Witchery.

4 hours ago, Megatokyo said:

I wouldn't say that. Bands like Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust have brought thrash to more modern fans. 

They're 00-bands for me. At least it feels like that's when they had their breakthrough. I might be misremembering.

I remember this album cover, never heard the music though! Reminds me a little bit of Seance and Grave.

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

What happened to us Johan? Remember the days when we used to have so much black metal overlap? Now all we have left is Spectral Wound and Pan-Amerikan Native Front. 😢

I still love you though Johan, and thanks for posting your list a few weeks after mine, this lets me feel like much less of a lazy good for nothing slacker. 🥴

I think it comes and goes, we both tend to fall down different rabbit holes different years, this year I got stuck in a lot of atmo black. But mostly I think it is that I can't keep up with your listening pace. We're in different places in life and you have ALOT more alone time than me I think. Plus you have very distinct criteria when looking for black metal, I'm more all over the place.😘

Ynkleudherhenavogyon - Arvor Mysteri

7 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Cool, found a couple of new ones to try...

..but where did you see people hating on Saidan?...he's a bit Lamp of Murmuur-ish, but I've liked his stuff so far. I was surprised to see that in your comment

Well there's a huge group with pitchforks on Instagram that hate him. It's not 100% clear but it seems like it is a combination of him being a trendhopping poseur, cosplaying as Japanese (which for the record I have not seen), that he virtue signals as being anti-fasc while his drummer's sideproject has done splits with sus bands, etc. It's all very preschool and Gossip Girl-y tbh. I couldn't care less, so far he hasn't done anything I would disagree with.🤷‍♂️

18 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Mr Bean is cool

Rowan Atkinson himself is a great comedian and quite versatile given how many different characters he's done.

It's quite fantastic that he became world famous for his physical acting, and then it turned out that he was even more funny when he spoke! I still hold Blackadder as one of the very funniest, well-written comedy shows out of UK.

1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

I agree that music connects people across cultures etc, but it's also amazing how often it can have the complete opposite effect. I'm not sure if it's quite the same with the kiddies these days, but back in the 80's there was a definite divide between metalheads and other genres. It wasn't always a negative divide and there was often no rhyme or reason to which songs or bands did it, but just as soon as one song did divide another similar song connected. There is a reason why for years people has said music is a universal langauge.

When my sister went to middle school in the 80's there were two entrances, one for metal heads and one for synthesizers. Woe if you entered through the wrong one! 😄 It's kind of cute now, but they took it pretty serious then. As only middle schoolers can.

Well anything that makes us grow and feel positive about ourselves is a win I reckon. Music is funny in that way that it truly connects people all over the world and across cultures. Litterature and movies are pretty reliant on a common language. I have music where I have zero clue what they're saying, or even how to pronounce the songs but they make me feel things!

4 hours ago, Miss_Teala said:

For me, my newfound passion for thrash metal has a lot to do with a discovery of a new type of mood and attitude.

I am the kind of person who has always been considered really meek and shy, and I never get the least bit angry at anyone if it isn't something really really serious, and I am very easily moved to tears by things.
So thrash metal feels quite liberating in a way, since it has a lot of energy and intensity to it.

There's an old "common wisdom" that the reason most metal musicians and fans are pretty mellow and friendly IRL is because they get their aggression out via the music. And to an extent I think that it's true. Now the opposite may just as well be true too, that metal attracts people who are of a similar mental mindset, who knows? But for me growing up I can definitely say that metal helped me release emotions I didn't know how to process or express.

This makes me wonder just how many rare 70's and 80's vinyl GG got lying in his ice-blasted, uninsulated cabin home.

Maybe try Order ov The Black Arts? Sending it to some underground labels like Repose, Urtod, etc.

As for production, I think black metal don't have to have a raw production, but the clean Dark Funeral/Nerophobic sound is harder to pull off. it needs the right kind of BM to feel balanced and not loose too much chaos.

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Interesting that part II came out last year and now this year we'll get part I. Also interesting their name means Destroyed in Swedish but they're Finnish. I enjoy this band a lot but they've yet to top Ilmestykset imo. 

There's a large Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, mostly located in Österbotten, on the west coast facing Sweden. Some of them even grow up not really learning Finnish. And all Finns have to learn Swedish in school, which means a lot of Finns hate sweden 😂

On 2/9/2022 at 12:52 PM, Megatokyo said:

I wasn't really "pissed off" by this but Quorthon's change in style for Bathory pissed some fans off (Dead notably called him a "wimp").

Change from BM to viking metal? No problem. Anything past Twilight of the gods is 👎

I'd say there's not many thrash fans at all right now. Death metal and black metal reigns supreme. Thrash had a huge upsurge in the 00's but it's largely been replaced by death and black.

Holy fuck, 43 albums and I think I've heard of maybe 7, and actually heard 3. Thank you for your service, Sir General.