Blog

Because I'm counterculture!

1. Das Ich
Very clever songwriting, they never succumb to any cliches, and Stefan's voice is great! :)))

2. Masonna
Very harsh and aggressive sounds!

3. Stars of the Lid
Peaceful and relaxing!

4. Carnival in Coal
Very unique! Disco sections in many songs! :)))))))

5. The Last Dance
Very emotional as well as catchy!

6. Lacuna Coil
No comment

7. Arcturus
Fascinating spacey sounds! Amazing musicianship! :)))

8. Heimataerde
Medieval and harsh! Dancefloor hit!

9. Children of Bodom
No comment

10. Melt-Banana
Energetic sounds! Amazing guitar work!

11. Iron Maiden
Unique NWOBHM! Great vocals! :))))))))))

12. Hocico
Harsh yet atmospheric! Comments on the problems with society!

13. 2 Bullet
Unique industrial sound! Great combination of electronics and guitar!

14. Whitehouse
Super aggressive power electronics! Screaming for justice and brutal! :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

15. Cephalgy
Gothic dancefloor mania! German pride!

16. Boris
Meh I thought most of it was pretty mediocre

17. Eluvium
Meaningful melodies! Relaxing sounds! I am sounding more Engrish with each successive artist!

18. Tanzwut
Fascinating bagpipe metal! New German Hardness!

19. Combichrist
Powerful and danceable! Nice clean vocals!

20. System of a Down
The debut was actually pretty great. The new ones had their moments too.



:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I'm not going to try to be comprehensive, but just list some of my favourite albums released this year. In no particular order:
Kannibale - Das Ich
Just an EP with only two original songs, but a great release nonetheless.

Memorias Atras - Hocico
This is really a high for Hocico. And I own quite a few of their albums to compare it against. Sorry, 99% of Hocico fans, but this is better than the old stuff, and that includes Odio Bajo El Alma and Cursed Land. A Fatal Desire and About a Dead are some of the best tracks they've done.

Made of Fire - Control Alt Deus
Okay, it's just a demo. But honestly, this is one of the best and most solid EBM releases I've ever heard. The drum'n'bass influences on You Are Dead, the pounding trance beats of Shut You In The Dark and Stalker, and the moodier, slower Control and (She Is) Made of Fire make for a release with incredible variation for such a short album in such a cliched genre. Sadly, Control Alt Deus broke up shortly after releasing this excellent album.

2 Unlimited - Pin-Up Went Down
Ex-Carnival in Coal decided to form his own avant-garde disco metal band, and it's great. Too many genres blended in here to count. I'm not so into the genre anymore, but I'd hazard to call it the best metal release of '08.

Wow, is that it? There was Cephalgy's Herzschlag, but it got old pretty fast... And genCAB's II Transmuter, but I only got into it yesterday. And Panic Lift's Witness To Our Collapse ditto. 2007 was a great year for ambient, with Eluvium's Copia and Stars of the Lid's And Their Refinement Of The Decline, but '08 seems to have been pretty dry there. Ah well, on to the anticipated releases of '09.

Who knows what - The Last Dance
The single Cages from the next album is apparently on a couple of compilations, although I can only find it at 96KBPS on their Myspace. A new album is said to be due for '09, and boy, I can't wait. For those of you who can't read charts, I love The Last Dance, and their new material is the best they've ever done, so I have high expectations for a new album.

Assassi-nation - 2 Bullet
It was supposed to be out this year, but 2 Bullet years-in-the-making sophomore album should be released in 2009. Definitely looking forward to it, too, because the songs from You're Downloading Anarchism were even better than Democratic Violence, so again I hope the new stuff will be even better.

It's a well-known fact that most popular bands suck. Britney Spears, Soulja Boy, no surprises here. This is pretty easy to explain. Most people who actually like music don't listen to these bands. I would theorize that people who don't actually like music listen to it because (a) it's on the radio and in HMV, so it doesn't actually take any effort to get it, and (b) listening to it makes you groovy with your peers. That's not to say all popular music sucks. I don't like Radiohead, but I at least consider them to be fairly talented musicians. They're at least good at what they do. What I find totally bizarre is that there are some underground bands that seem both good and accessible. For example. The Last Dance. Gothic rock. Okay, it's dark, which would stop it from entering the mainstream entirely, but it's a lot less dark than, say, Children of Bodom, who are on every 16-year-old guy's iPod. It's not very "heavy" or "hard". It has catchy melodies. I don't see any reason why your average person couldn't rock out to Distantly or Special Little Gift. Not only is it accessible, but it's good. Honestly, it's not just the best gothic rock I've ever heard, it's the best rock, period I've ever heard. Okay, I don't really like rock in general, but that's beside the point. Not only is The Last Dance unpopular in the mainstream, they're not even popular within the goth rock scene! Adding to the mystery, there are other bands in similarly unpopular scenes that are just plain bad, but are fairly popular within the scene. I'm not at liberty to name any names (all the ones I'm thinking of are EBM, and it's best that I not badmouth EBM bands for reasons that it's best I don't divulge), but there are bands with shitty cookie-cutter melodies, horrible production, and terrible lyrics that actually gain a following. I'm completely unable to figure this out. The only possible solution that's coming to mind is that I just have terrible taste, but I should at least be able to tell the difference between a band that is terrible and sounds like everyone else and one that brings good, fresh ideas to the genre, as well as executing the old paradigm better. I don't know, man. I just don't get it.

10,000th track: Бог мёртв - Otto Dix

My top artist is Das Ich, who make up just over 10% of all my tracks played.
The second top is Masonna, making up just over 5%, followed by Stars of the Lid, who make up just under 5%. This also means I have the most amazingly eclectic top 3 ever.
The figures are similar for the last 12 months, but without all that old Lacuna Coil, Carnival in Coal, and Arcturus that I used to listen to nonstop. Shortly after I joined last.fm my tastes went from uniformly metal to uniformly EBM, where they stayed until I discovered noise music, ambient music, and a crapload of miscellany (Melt-Banana, The Last Dance, and a bunch of other artists unrelated to any of my broader genre tastes.)
Around 3 months ago I stopped doing music by genre entirely - my top artists for the last 3 months go from Masonna to Das Ich to Pig Destroyer to 2 Bullet to 妖精帝國 to Current 93 to Richie Hawtin. Now I have this thing where I'll listen to a band obsessively for two or three days, then totally forget about them. It's kind of a curse because I have to keep buying music, but it's good because it makes me look awesome.

3
36 Crazyfists
Abel is dying
Alestorm
Altripercorsi x 2
Amorphis
Andy McKee x 2
Apocalyptica
Apulanta x 2
The Architects
Avenged Sevenfold
Backyard Babies
Biffy Clyro
Boarders
Born From Pain
boysetsfire
Bullet For My Valentine
Bullets and Octane
Children of Bodom x 2
CKY
CMX
The Damned
Danko Jones
The Datsuns
Day By Day
Dream Theater
Don Ross
Dropkick Murphys
Eagles of Death Metal
The Eyes Of A Traitor
Evangeline
Explosions in the Sky
Flogging Molly x 2
Früshtück
Funeral for a Friend
Gogol Bordello
Gojira
Grafted Branches
Hanoi Rocks x 2
Hell Is for Heroes
The Last Dance
The International Noise Conspiracy
Iggy And The Stooges
In Flames
Justifide
Kill the Young
Lamb of God
Lapko
Machine Head x 2
Mad Max
Maija Vilkkumaa
Mammuth
Metallica
Mew
Ministry
Mokoma
My Static Lullaby
The New Story
New York Dolls
North Atlantic Oscillation
Norther
Opeth x 2
Pennywise
Pilgrimz
PMMP
Poets of the Fall
The Rasmus
Redneck
Rise Against
Sepultura
SikTh
Sky Turned Red
Slipknot
Swallow the Sun
Timo Rautiainen
Towers of London
Triplet x 2
Turbonegro
Turisas
Unearth
Velvet Revoler
A Wilhelm Scream

Okay, so some of these will be really embarassing (my music taste has changed a lot recently, or I was forced into seeing one or two :P), but here's a list of all the bands I've seen live. Some of them are from festivals/events I've been to as well...

Abney Park
Aesthetic Perfection
Angels & Airwaves x2
The Answer
Arctic Monkeys
The Ataris
Atreyu
Avril Lavigne x2
Bayside
The Birthday Massacre
Black Stone Cherry
Black Tide
The Blackout
Broken Social Scene
Bullet For My Valentine
Classic Case
Combichrist
Cymeria
The Darkness x2
deadfilmstar
Def Leppard
D'espairsRay x2
Deviant UK x2
DevilDriver
Diary of Dreams
Dir en grey x3
Disturbed
Dope Stars Inc.
Down
Dream Theater
Drive By
Faith No More
Fall Out Boy
Feeder x2
Fightstar
Finch
Five Finger Death Punch
Flogging Molly
Foo Fighters x2
Franz Ferdinand x2
girugämesh
Green Day x3
Goldfinger
Goldie Lookin Chain
Gothika x2
Hatebreed
Hell Is for Heroes
Hollywood Undead
The House of Usher
Hundred Reasons
In Case of Fire
Journey
Kaiser Chiefs
KIK
Killswitch Engage x2
Korn
Lacuna Coil x2
The Last Dance
Less Than Jake
Limp Bizkit
Lostprophets x2
Marilyn Manson
Men, Women & Children
Meshuggah
Momoi Haruko
Mindless Self Indulgence
MUCC
Muse x4
My Chemical Romance x3
Panic! At the Disco
Paramore
Pendulum
Placebo
The Prodigy
Rammstein x2
RazorBladeKisses
Say Anything
Simple Plan
SkinjoB
Slayer
Slipknot
Staind
Static-X
The Streets
The Subways
Suicide Silence
Taking Back Sunday x2
Thrice
Tim Ripper Owens
Trivium
Uberbyte
V2a
We Are Scientists
Whitesnake
Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Zeitgeist Zero
ZZ Top

I've been thinking for a while about what albums I consider my all-time favourites. Many of the ones on here I bought years ago and got sick of before I was on last.fm, so that's the explanation if you see an album I rave about and have 30 plays for. Also, those are the ones that I know stand the test of time.

Okay, let's begin. These will go in vaguely ascending order.

Since the Day it All Came Down - Insomnium

This is certainly one of the best metal albums I've ever heard. It's heavy as hell, but also very melodic. It has a lot of sad but catchy melodies - and it's not too often that music that's so loosely structured manages to be catchy. For some reason, it's always seemed to be the perfect music for the zombie apocalypse. For a while after I bought this album I frequently listened to it while watching muted Dawn of the Dead clips on Youtube.

Copia - Eluvium

This album, probably more than many of the other albums on this list, functions excellently as a cohesive album. This is an album that feels kind of weird to listen to any other way than all the way through, beginning to end. It's different than most of the ambient I've heard, and in fact I'd be more inclined to describe it as minimalist neoclassical with ambient influences. The songs are all based on a few melodic phrases repeated through the whole song. Still, they build throughout the song, which makes this album more suited to foreground listening than most ambient. It's very relaxing and definitely some of the best ambient I've heard.

Egodram - Das Ich

Egodram bridges the gap between Das Ich's pure darkwave phase and their near-pure EBM stage. (Their newest albums return to the darkwave roots somewhat.) There's a lot of crap in this album, like Krieger and He Mensch, as well as a lot of catchy-but-nothing-special songs like Chroma and Reflex, and several masterpieces like Destillat and Schwanenschrei. If you take it as a whole, it's actually probably one of Das Ich's worse albums, but some of the songs on it are so excellent that it had to be on the list.

Now we're getting to the good ones.


The Sham Mirrors - Arcturus

I have heard very few albums as well put together, complex, and test-of-time-standing(I know there's a word for that, but I can't remember it) as this one. I mean it, this album is truly excellent. I can't even think of what to say about it. Seriously, it's so good in so many ways that I can't even think of an adjective.

Once Beautiful and -Whispers In Rage - The Last Dance


I'm blending the reviews for these albums since I can't pick a favourite, and they're quite similar in a lot of ways. They're both quite varied. They go from club-dance numbers like Special Little Gift and Whisper, to dark, rock-hard(okay, it's late and that's the only way I can think of to describe it) songs like Frozen and Desperately Still, to ridiculously sad tearjerkers like Become Forever and Silently She. While I'm not big on goth rock in general, these guys have such sheer songwriting talent that they're one of my favourite bands ever. These two albums are some of the best I've ever heard, in any genre.

Unleashed Memories - Lacuna Coil

Before they went all nu-metal, Lacuna Coil were putting out some really great music. Unleashed Memories in particular. Despite being labeled gothic metal, it's really not very heavy at all. Instead, it's very hypnotic, and while I wouldn't call it relaxing, it's not the kind of thing you put on to disturb the neighbours. Actually, after I bought it a year or two ago, it was my late-night music of choice for months. I'm trying to think of a way to describe it other than "hypnotic", but I can't. I was about to call it powerful, but none of these songs really made me come close to tearing up like some songs by The Last Dance do. It all makes you feel like you're under a veil or something. It's got a dreamlike quality. I would kill for another album like this. Actually, they might have done one. Why didn't I ever buy any other pre-Comalies albums? Even Comalies was pretty good.

Anti ' Christ - Das Ich

What to say about it? It's one of the most evil and sacreligious-sounding albums outside of the black metal genre, and certainly better than anything in the black metal genre. This one is less glare-you-in-the-face unique than most of Das Ich's work, so I don't really know what else to say about it.

Cabaret - Das Ich

This album shows Das Ich both returning and moving away from their darkwave origins. It has both unce-unce-unce aggrotech songs and slow, dark darkwave songs. Still, it's a great concept album - I'm not even sure what the concept is, but it has a definite feeling to it - and Das Ich's most cohesive and consistently great album all-around. Back on my old iTunes id, every single song on here had upwards of 40 plays. That never happens to me. Just shows you how excellent it is.

Lava: Asche - Das Ich

Das Ich's only straight-up EBM album. It's dark, danceable, intense, and thoroughly unique. If I had to recommend one album to an EBM newcomer, it would be this one, because it completely represents everything that most EBM fails to be: catchy, inspired, powerful, not-a-rip-off-of-everyone-else.

Inspired mostly by that tragic, romantic sort of aesthetic that The Last Dance have, I started putting together some minimal electronic music under the name Staring at Stars a few weeks ago. (I've been told it's a crappy band name, but I couldn't think of a better one, okay?)
Here are the songs I have so far:

Intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBkB2ocD08

Forever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HctlyGMiM2k

Distance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBvHeOXAczI

Childhood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyZY4ETLYao

Distance (Alternate Version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWK_PI2MYPY

Most of these take at least a few minutes to fully build up to please listen to them all the way through. Or you could just skip to halfway if you're impatient.

Comments and criticism, please?

(And Axem, should you happen to see this, please keep your spirit-crushingly harsh criticisms constructive.)