Iceni

'Soul Train of the Damned' by Moron Police. This is the most Louisianan-sounding metal song I've ever heard, which is funny as this band are Norwegian. The bluegrass fiddle, swing rhythm and cabaret bombast bring this whole thing together and it's my favorite from what turned out to be a delightful album.

'Utopia' by Distorted Harmony. This album has been good. Their second's nice as well. Thank God some bands are just trying to do solid, honest-to-goodness early-2000's school prog instead of trying to catch the 80's quicksilver of Queensryche or jumping on the shoegaze or djent or 'melodic prog' let's-imitate-DTP-and-fail-miserably bandwagons.

'Defenders of the Small Yard' by Moron Police. The vocals and occasional punk elements are not my favorite (not as endemic or painful as with Freak Kitchen though), but I do love me some goofy, eclectic metal with technical chops - so here we are.

Well, Being turned out to be about as ineffectual and forgettable as their name would suggest they would be. Thank you mods for moving my post! Thus - 'Misguided' by Distorted Harmony. This is nowhere near as clever as these guys think it is, but I still enjoy it.

Listening through the 'Anthropocene' album by Being. Some of this has been good, some of it has been kinda maddeningly forgettable and 'Story For a Muse' was a sincere if repulsively saccharine piece of work. At least this vocalist is good - nice! Step one, get a vocalist who doesn't sound like a 13-year-old on PCP - step two: try to make the electric guitar, the world's coolest instrument, not sound like the most boring thing ever to produce oscillating pressure! More on this as it develops - or stagnates, as the case may be.

Reminds me, the new Pyramaze (in addition to being generally disappointing) had one song which featured a note-for-note plaigarism of the opening to 'Celestine Prophecy' by Pagan's Mind, minus some of the stuff that made 'Enigmatic: Calling' an awesome album as opposed to a tired, whiny stand-in... Seriously, they had seven years since the reasonably good Immortal to produce something awesome (which they could have, they're good musicians) with Urban breed, whose energy and background with Tad Morose would have made him a good candidate for the eerie tone Pyramaze like to use, and they ended up a limp-wristed imitation of Anubis Gate - a band with their own energy problems. I was listening to Manticora the other day, I'm amazed they don't have many imitators. Maybe people understand they won't come close and/or realize that Andy Schmidt, Devin Townsend, Jens Carlsson, Jon Aldera, Matt Marinelli, Vladimir Lumi and Michael Andersson are busy doing other stuff... 'Rusted' by Katatonia.

There might be some nuance in what he's saying that you'll appreciate, but I'm drawing from his description of the lyrics and lyrical concept rather than the lyrics themselves, which are relatively straightforward atheism with mystical elements. Certainly some of my aversion stems from my own theological standpoint, but it goes beyond aversion to atheism; rather, distaste for the peculiar semi-occult worldview Morean's espousing. If you just want a wonderfully engaging, varied and superbly composed progressive DM release, definitely check it out. 'The Great Cold Distance' by Katatonia. Yes, I'm listening to the full album and it's Katatonia so that's twice the FA brownie points! 'The Itch' seems weak to me but I like pretty much everything else on here, including my favorite Katatonia song 'Leaders'.

Took four posts to make up for that... 'Curse of the Red River' by Barren Earth. So far not as enthralled by this as I remember, but 'Our Twilight' is still great. In additional disappointments I can't in good conscience buy Alkaloid's debut because the message of the album (as explained by lead vocalist Morean) is almost the essence of evil. It's also a naive view of the world that might be hilarious if it weren't so sinister. He doesn't seem to live amongst the same human beings as those studied by the sciences he so professes to admire...

'Revelation' by Borealis.

'Ytst' by Hamferð.

'The Fiction Maze' by Persuader 'Purgatory' by Borealis

'And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope' by Ne Obliviscaris.

Oh, OK. I didn't get that there was a bit of perspective trickery and/or depiction of a giant.

Wonderfully dynamic! but what's his right hand doing?

I love the cleans, I'm just trying to figure out whether I should opt for Citadel or Portal of I. Leaning toward the latter, but I also wanna pick up Ghost Ship Octavius and some Barren Earth. 'Burn Away' by Ghost Ship Octavius...man, the ending to this song is very Katatonia and it's great.

'The Hole We Are In' by Disillusion.

'With You Forever' by 7days.

I'm actually curious whether most of them are atheists, or Christians making fun of fundamentalists. It's probably slightly tipped in favor of the latter.

Paul Kagame has been legitimately elected to his last two seven-year terms, so he is in fact an elected leader in a country more transparent than Italy. He fits the comparison you're describing, vague as it is. He also happens to be a despot because he has all the power. It's proved significantly worse than having a stable legislature or an independent judiciary. I also notice you didn't make a counterpoint to my argument, and have instead opted for an ad hominem attack. Neither, for that matter, have you clarified what your argument is in case I didn't understand. My point is that the UK has a system of government that is much better than having an ultimate leader (which I assumed would be a despot since you said having few people make decisions is just as bad as having one person make decisions - which suggests dictatorship is preferable to oligarchy/fake democracy). You also said that the UK doesn't have democracy, but as I pointed out to jfk pretty much no country has 'democracy' in its strictest sense - it is flat-out impracticable. It's a moot point to complain, since republics with representative government are the closest most countries can get. I don't doubt there are problems with the UK political system, but I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it's much, much better than an officially institutionalized oligarchy or a centralized system with all power in one leader. The general point that institutions matter was the one I made concerning Zimbabwe. Even if the institutions are almost totally dysfunctional it's still better than no institutions.

The subtler humor in that list is how the Bible verses don't even remotely apply to what they're talking about...my friend thoughtfully sent me this and I thought it was hysterical.

Yeah, Heljareyga are still boring.

'Deserted Morrows' by Barren Earth. Man, there were only two weak songs on this release. Honestly, they could have just left them off. I'm trying to see what other material by them I like, so see if it'd be worth it to get a shirt. Their good stuff is amazing, but their bad stuff is a dull drag.

Most of Europe uses proportional representation, as do Australia and New Zealand - not the countries that come to mind when I think 'abject political failure'. Technically, the only 'really' democratic states have been city-states and maybe Switzerland (and even then only because Switzerland functions as an amalgamation of small cantons), because democracy where everyone votes on everything is quite simply not practicable in countries larger or more populous than that. PR, if anything, is more responsive to minority concerns than the alternative, which is single-member districts - that's one of its strengths. ...you're kidding. Yes it is. It is much, much better. Go live in Rwanda for a few years if you want to gain an appreciation for the difference between an elected despot and a democratic parliamentary coalition. For that matter, look at the difference in governance in Zimbabwe before and after 1987, before and after 2008, and before and after 2013. I guarantee you will find that even in a joke of a system there are very distinct, observable differences in governance between a despot and even a pathetically anemic power-sharing agreement. In Ethiopia even the Derg, an oligarchy of butchering Communist tyrants, proved a more representative, egalitarian arrangement than the monarchy it overthrew. At no point in history has every member of a political community been given the power to make policy decisions, not in city-states, not in cantons, not even in tribes. That's not how the social contract works. The only example that even faintly fits that description that I can think of is the ancient place Jenne-Jeno in Mali, which one could only very hesitantly call a 'community' owing to how sparsely populated it was - not a village and certainly not a polity of any description. For that matter, Jenne-Jeno as a community didn't have many decisions to make as it consisted entirely of completely independent farmers who typically had absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Which of those two links should I click on?

Speaking of Tyr, I might check out Heljareyga (Joensen's other band) one of these days too. They've never stuck much with me but I suspect it's because I've not had the time/patience. Now would probably be a good point to give them another chance. I have enjoyed Hamferð so far though, I'm trying out the full-length 'Evst' now. Thanks to pushy advertising, 'Witchburner' by Tecate Sunrise. It's certainly not bad, reminds me of Las Cruces.