Saturday, April 25, 2009

A Baker's Dozen Reviews in One Post

Since I have gotten a ton of stuff and won't get to reviewing it anytime soon I figure I should type out very short reviews now while I have the time.


Einsturzende Neubauten - HALBER MENSCH
This is my first E.N. album and I must say it is an awesome album to start out with. It has the musical stylings of F.M. Enheit heard throughout. For those of you unfamiliar with him, this means that there is a lot of "stomp" oriented music (i.e. metal pipes etc). The album begins with the title track, which happens to be an amazing, yet eerie cantata. Female vocalists saying "Halber Mensch!" while other male vocalists join in at different times saying, "Halber Mensch" there are other lyrics included that are done terrifically. Lots of excellent percussion and bass going on. Because this is my first E.N. album and it tends to stray a bit far from the industrial music I'm used to it's a little hard to listen to, though as I listen to it more and more I love it more and more. Get this album if you're interested in branching out your industrial roots.


PIG - No One Gets Out of Her Alive
As I continue to complete my PIG collection I end up buying these albums with such colorful fun titles. If you're into the new PIG stuff (Sinsation/Prime Evil) this will be right down your alley. The title track reminds me a bit of their song "F.O.M." where it begins very intense and you think "Oh damn, this is gonna be intense" and then it gets suddenly quiet for the verses and somewhat loud for the choruses. Well that's how the title track works and it works quite well. After that comes "Jump the Gun" which has the greatest backing vocals and chorus I've ever heard. It's dark and rather comedic... in a dark fashion. The song begins with, "Fee Fi Fo Fum, Jump the gun, Kill and Come" it might not sound intense, but that's because you have to hear it. The rest of the tracks on the CD are amazing, even the remixes! Get this if you're a PIG collector/fanatic!


KMFDM - Blitz
I was not to fond of their previous album Tohuvabohu, but when I saw it at Best Buy I figured, what the heck why not. As I listened to this I realize this is not Tohuvabohu, it's awesome! Lucia's vocals are in-fucking-credible! I've never heard her sing like this before. "Bait and Switch" and "Strut" are probably the best tracks on the album right next to "Potz Blitz". "Strut" is like an 80s dance song with a KMFDM kick to it, which makes it awesome. "Potz Blitz" reminds me of "Saft und Kraft" which is a good thing. It's got that heavy metal sound to it that makes great and creates some diversity in the album. It's also kind of like PIG's "F.O.M." where it's intense during certain parts and quiet during the verses, which is fine if you do it right... which they did. "Bait and Switch" is just fantastic... that's all I can really say, Lucia's vocals made my jaw drop they were so good. The title track is awesome and hilarious. It's called "Symbol" because it is a symbol which according to the chorus is called "Up Uranus" or "Up Your Anus" which ever you prefer. The beginning of the track has a sample of system control during a space launch counting down along with the songs tempo, which is cool. If there's one thing to not like about this album it's "Bitches". I don't much care for the lyrics at all. Great album altogether, if you were disappointed like I was with Tohuvabohu, have no fear Blitz is here!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It's Been Awhile

Well I haven't made a post in awhile and I kind of stopped working on my Epitaph review. I've pretty much gotten lazier, but I'll pick up the work soon. I've been focused more so on my music output than my blog output (Yeah, screw you guys). I added one track to my band's first album and I added nine tracks to my soundtrack. I got three more CDs and a new game so hoo-bloody-ray I have more reviews to write. Hopefully I can finish them all this weekend.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The World is Becoming a William Gibson Novel

Today I read an article on CNN about a guy who had lost his eye in a childhood accident and now has a prosthetic eye. What makes this story interesting is that he is working with tech specialists to put a camera in his prosthetic eye and to hook it up to nerves so that he can see again. It's a really cool article (Link at the bottom) and it made me realize that our world is slowly turning into a William Gibson novel. Soon plastic surgery will be out of style and soon we'll all be focused on getting new cybernetic implants and drug dealing will turn into RAM dealing. I think these old cyberpunk authors are right about our future. I haven't read any Phillip K. Dick so I can really throw in any ideas from his novels.
...
I don't know, I just thought this was really cool and decided to give my thoughts on our future. As for cities being covered in Neon Japanese... I don't know and I honestly doubt that. Anywho, you can find the article here:
BIONIC BODY 2.0

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Another Quick Review

As I'm still chugging away at my "Epitaph" review, trust me it will be epic, I figure I'll give you another quick review of the other CD I got, "Covergirl" by Jared Louche and the Aliens!


One of my friends read some of my blog and asked, "How do you find all this music?" and I simply told him that it all stemmed out from one thing to another. I had discovered Chemlab by going onto the website raymondwatts.com and I wanted to see what else Raymond had done and saw that he had worked with Chemlab on the album "East Side Militia." I looked at the album art and thought, yeah I'll give it a go. I listened to that album and I was instantly hooked on Chemlab and Jared Louche. I went onto Amazon.com and saw this album. I had to get it. So I did. The day I got it I furiously removed the shrink wrap, tormented my dog with the bubble wrap, and then went on to listening to the album. In classic Jared Louche fashion it has "suture" tracks. I don't know how to describe a "suture" track because every "suture" track is different in its own way. The album opens softly with a cover of the Bryan Ferry song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache." The song ends a bit on the loud side with percussion blasting, which may sound bad, but it's pretty cool because it is built up. There are two jazz songs in here that I like a lot. A cover of Jared's own song "Suicide Jag" which done with jazz loses its intensity, but it's still very cool. The next song starts with jazz then goes into dance, which I'm alright with. I also like to note the track "Famous Blue Raincoat" it starts with the crowd cheering and Jared walks off stage and someone's in the dressing room. Well who the fuck is in the dressing room? Oh! It's the in crowd. Then Jared starts playing a nice acoustic jam. Overall, this album strays somewhat far from the usual Chemlab works and hits new levels. If you like Chemlab, if you like jazz, if you like acoustics, if you like Jared Louche then for God's sake get this album!



Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Opening Pandora's Box

My friend (and affiliate) John just told me about an internet radio service called "Pandora Radio." He told me about it over Teamspeak, so at one point his mic cut out and I decided to check it out instead of having him explain it all over again. So I check it out. It tells me to type in an artist or song and so I give it the test. I type in PIG and surprisingly they have PIG! So I add it to my station, then I add KMFDM. First it plays "Here to Stay" by PIG then "Glory" by KMFDM and then it starts playing OhGr and Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails. At that instant I stopped using it because it's stupid that it would give me music that I don't want. I tell John what happened and then he told me there was a thumbs up and thumbs down button that can cancel or keep playing a certain artist. Now I'm back to it and giving a thumbs down to all those sucky artists... well... OhGr is good, but I'm not in the OhGr mood. Suddenly I start getting good music like Die Krupps and Powermann 5000 and some other stuff. Then with no sign of change it suddenly goes to 80s acoustic then after I thumbs down that I get death metal! If I want crappy music I will ask for it, but all I want is what I asked for! So I decide to add a couple more bands and the music continues to be crap. There are times when giving me new music is alright and when it's not. These is one of those times when it's not okay. You should examine what I like CLOSER. Adding My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult does not mean give me crappy 80s acoustic music. Adding Foetus does not mean give me death metal and for that matter what does Foetus have to do with death metal anyways? Even as I'm listening now I'm being given suck ass hair metal. It's like going to restaurant and asking for the Surf & Turf, but instead they give you grass on a slice of bread. If you really want to try this, be my guest, but if I don't get some good like with this thing soon I'm gonna quit using it.