MacabreEternal

Cheers - playing "United In Regret" now on Youtube. Very thrashy sound to the DM style so far. Vocals are very BM to my ears (but I also hear a bit of Carcass too). Not sure if they are for me but will give the whole record a listen before deciding.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]659[/ATTACH] I still can't get past this - why would anyone post this as promo?

There was a brilliant record store in Manchester called Power Cutz (i think)which had all my kind of stuff in when I was 16 - I remember getting my grant from college and going down there with the cheque cashed and some of my wages from the supermarket and blowing about £60 on CDs in one visit. Good times!

Diamond Head - "The Best Of.."

Just about to start "Louder Than Hell : The Definitive Oral History Of Metal". Been looking forward to picking it up for a while and have been meaning to start up a proper collection of music tomes in my house. Been re-reading "Stalin:The Court Of The Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore as I find if a read a massive book (near 700 pages) I need to refresh/re-visit it at some point. I have read Robert Service's books on Lenin and Trotsky as I have a particular nerdy fascination within Soviet era Russia and the whole Revolution and Communist rule years. I find the whole sham that it was truly Communist and for the benefit of the country and it's people particularly disturbing in the face of the blind allegiance to a concept only followed largely out of fear of death or reprisal for non-conformity to.

Yeah not sure "rare" is an accurate description. "Promo Releases" might be more fitting a title. Who is Rhonda Vincent anyway? A quick google image search shows a picture of her shaving her armpit. She seriously needs to hire a new PR guy right fucking now! Wow!

New Gorguts is quite good actually - heard lots of good things from reviewers. One of the guys who writes for Metal Hammer appears on another forum I frequent and he has very good things to say about it which is rare for him. Never heard any Arsis, might have a search on Youtube later and give them a go.

I do the same to get copies for the car plus they make for back ups (even though I have various cloud storage set up for this purpose). I tend to get most CDs second hand - here in England we have Thats Entertainment and Cex where you can pick up second hand (and some new) CDs, DVDs, games, etc for around 60% to 70% of the main retailer price. Takes a bit of searching in these places to fight your way past Slipknot and Paramore albums to get to the gems but it is as near to shopping in the old record stores as I get nowadays.

It's annoying when one of your favourite bands splits up and falls out to the extent that all hope of a reunion is lost. Queensryche already have two entries in my all time top one hundred albums with "Operation Mindcrime" and "Empire", two largely near perfect releases that showed a band on top of their game and setting real precedents in their sound and style with the bold concept structure of "Operation Mindcrime" and the sheer accessibility of "Empire". Fast forward a few years and all the upset and uproar have (understandably) taken their toll. Todd La Torre is about as near to Geoff Tate as you can get in terms of sound and vocal style and that isn't a criticism as it makes the sound recognisable as Queensryche from the moment his dulcet tones seep in on opening track "Where Dreams Go To Die". Unfortunately the first thing you also notice is how terrible the production on the record is. It is really tinny and flat sounding (either that or the mastering on the download version is non-existent), throughout the album this problem plagues the ear. When moments of brilliance start to show on "Spore", "Redemption" and "A World Without" they are all muted or blunted by the sound constantly making you feel like you are being robbed of some real oomph to carry the moment through. There are still some great moments that show promise - the pre-chorus on "Fallout" for example - but overall I found myself wanting more even though it has grown on me with repeated listens. I read a review somewhere that described this album as a natural bridge between "Operation Mindcrime" and "Empire", although I can see the rationale behind such a statement with it's attempts to mix technique with memorable tunes the fact remains this is along way off Queensryche's best work. For fans only I think.

This morning I nipped into town (I am on a rare day off today) and picked up: Iron Maiden "No Prayer For The Dying" and "Fear Of The Dark" on CD and also picked up "The Best Of Diamond Head" on CD too. Also because it is my birthday tomorrow the girlfriend just bought me "Louder Than Hell : The Definitive Oral History Of Metal" by Jon Wiederhorn & Katherine Turman. Looking forward to this as I have heard good things about it and I am familiar with Wiederhorn's work over many years.

Old School Or No School

I was smart at school but fell in with the wrong crowd in 3rd year and flunked more or less all of my GCSEs. I had 3 passes and the rest were crap. I had to to college and retake a handful of GCSEs which gave me enough qualifications to do A-Levels in English Literature, Sociology and Media Studies. Flunked Eng Lit but got Sociology and Media and went to University to do Sociology and Cultural Studies. I hated University it was disjointed and the course subject matter was not as I expected and 6 months in i quit and trained to be a baker in a local ASDA/Walmart. I developed dermatitis from the flour and had to quit and take a job on the shopfloor as supervisor/trainee manager. Stuck at that for a couple of years and then went to work for AVIS car hire in a call centre - I was good there and got promoted to deputy team manager and worked on predominantly corporate and government accounts. From there I moved to the NHS where I remain today (10 years on). I have been a call centre manager, a senior administrator and am now a deputy manager of a temporary staffing bank for nurses and doctors. I interview applicants, oversee payroll for 700 people and am now involved in implementing, training staff about and managing a new software that rosters people electronically. I am looking to go back to University now (hopefully paid for by work) and study IT or Workforce Management.

If you are a fan of Autopsy you will know the logic behind my name.

I predominantly download music. I miss the days of endless hours in the record shop searching for stuff though. I would still prefer to have the physical product in my hand as I never feel like I have bought something otherwise. I do still buy CDs if it is cheaper than the download and I do get a lot of second hand CDs from the likes of That's Entertainment. I recently joined Ebay and you can get a lot of (new) CDs for a few quid which is pleasing.

New Queensryche

Black Sabbath Cannibal Corpse Thunder Queensryche Testament

This week: Black Sabbath - 13 Black Sabbath - Vol 4 Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny

Testament - Dark Roots Of Earth

Black Sabbath - 13 Testament - Dark Roots Of The Earth Queensryche - s/t

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

It's June. I don't look at albums of the year until I have an entire 11 or 12 months to reflect on.

Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny

1.Magnum - On A Storytellers Night 2.Nightwish - Wishmaster 3.Virgin Steele - Hymn to the Gods of Night 4.Black Sabbath - The Wizard 5.Judas Priest - Night Crawler Songs about the music industry

Black Sabbath - 13

Ok - first of all I don't care if Bill Ward is on the record or not the drums sit too low in the mix but it is by no means a massive problem. This review shall contain no further reference to drums or Bill Ward, I am bored of all that talk. If there was any doubt that Tony Iommi is truly a god then this album dispenses with any lingering doubt - the riffs on here are monstrous, hulking, gargantuan slabs of doom with just enough groove and blues to compliment Butler's bass. Osbourne was in danger of being the weak link in the chain for me (I have never rated him post Sabbath) but his menacing and sneering tones are perfect for this album. The opening track "End Of The Beginning" and "God Is Dead" set the tone perfectly for the rest of the record by the end of the second track it's obvious some actual thought went into this album. There is a sense of the Sabbath of old rumbling around like a disturbed beast showing occasional flashes of aggression and menacing fury. "Zeitgeist" is cool with Ozzy's spacey vocals and the accompanying ethereal atmosphere and "Age Of Reason" is an absolute monster of a track with it's proggy build and changes. The album is only really let down by "Loner", "Live Forever" and "Dear Father". Whilst never straying into filler territory they don't really stand up as on an equal par with the rest of the tracks. All in all "13" is a good album from a band line-up who haven't worked together for 35 years - if you know nothing about Sabbath you could quite easily pick this up and use it as a reverse stepping stone back to their heyday. Recommended.