February 2010
12 posts
8 tags
Day Seventy Three - A Longer Post
Mudvayne - Lost and Found This was Mudvayne’s follow-up to their multi-platinum “The End of All Things to Come.” I really enjoyed the previous album, yet I find that I just can’t get into this one. To me, this album feels like a re-hash of the more angry, visceral bits of their previous album. Certainly, there are slower, more intricate passages, but these islands of...
Feb 18th
4 tags
Day Seventy Two - Back To Reality
Today’s post will be particularly short. Not only was my day quite heavily punctuated by interruptions, I encountered a rather colossal set of music. Despite the brevity of today’s post, the music was, in a word, fantastic. Saigon Kick - The Lizard If you were alive in the early 90s, you probably remember Saigon Kick as the one-hit-wonders who did Love is On the Way. While...
Feb 17th
4 tags
Day Seventy One - Concert Series #2
Yes, this is actually yesterday’s post, It’s a day late because, well, yesterday sucked, and I was in no mood to try and craft a cheerful music blog. Of course, the upside to this is that you get a double dose today! First, we will finish the “Live” section of our trip, and then we’ll make a brief foray back into the more “standard” albums. Why brief? ...
Feb 17th
5 tags
Day Seventy - Concert Series #1
My goodness, I do seem to have quite a number of live albums. I checked ahead, and it looks like the next eleven albums are going to be live recordings. In no way is this my entire live album collection, however. There are also the live albums that I’ve not yet ripped (Metallica comes to mind), and the ones whose titles do not begin with the word “live”. Regardless, I do love...
Feb 13th
5 tags
Day Sixty Nine - Ups & Downs
God Lives Underwater - Life in the So-Called Space Age It’s been quite a while since I’ve listened to this album…I’d forgotten how good some of these songs are. This album gave God Lives Underwater their only “serious” hit: From Your Mouth. This song got fairly serious airplay for about a year before God Lives Underwater vanished from the public...
Feb 12th
9 tags
Day Sixty Eight - Day Sixty Eight
Get it? This one’s self-titled! OK, I admit - that was bad. On with the music… The Misfits - Legacy of Brutality This cornucopia of horror punk is brought to you by Glen Danzig. Other people were involved in the original recordings, but the songs on this release were overdubbed by Danzig alone, in order to avoid sharing any royalties if the collection were to be successful....
Feb 9th
10 tags
Day Sixty Seven - Strange & Unusual
David Bowie and Trevor Jones - Labyrinth (soundtrack) Ahh, sweet nostalgia… I love Labyrinth, I have since the first time I saw it. Its mix of whimsy, grandeur, and a touch of Brothers Grimm style darkness is just…lovely. The music is one thing that really stood out for me - I’d find myself singing Magic Dance and Underground for days after every viewing. It still...
Feb 9th
6 tags
Day Sixty Six - It Flows (Mostly)
Manowar - Kings of Metal Now THIS is a good way to start a Friday morning - the loudest band in metal. I honestly don’t think there’s a more over-the-top band than Manowar. They are the living embodiment of Nigel Tufnel’s “these go to eleven” theory of performance. Not only do Manowar play as loudly as they are legally able (could they possibly be the...
Feb 5th
6 tags
Day Sixty Five - Origin Story
Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus If, perchance, your entire Amorphis experience to date has been through this blog, you’re in for a bit of a surprise. All of the Amorphis that I’ve listened to so far has been music of a distinctly goth/progressive variety. That’s about to change. “The Karelian Isthmus” was the first album released by Amorphis…back when...
Feb 5th
6 tags
Day Sixty Four - Dark & Whimsical
Emperor - IX Equilibrium Wow…what a way to start the morning. Furiously fast yet melodic, Emperor really stands apart. To the uninitiated, Emperor will sound like nothing more than fast black metal. Once you’ve listened a couple times, however, you start to see what makes the music so great. You’re not meant to listen to the individual notes, but to the musical...
Feb 3rd
8 tags
Day Sixty Three - Netlabel Invasion
Horchata - Isolated House Another album in the “netlabel stuff” series, Horchata’s “Isolated House” is an ambient concept album. With song titles like Yard and Kitchen, it’s not hard to see the concept. I’m guessing that this “Isolated House” is one of those really creepy houses - the deep, thrumming drones certainly seem to say so. ...
Feb 2nd
7 tags
Day Sixty Two - A Little Of This, A Little Of That
Ayreon - Into The Electric Castle This is the album that turned me on to Ayreon. I happened to notice it on the rack at Best Buy; the cover art really caught my eye. It had been a long time since I’d bought an album solely based on the quality of its cover art, and that certainly wasn’t the plan this time. I picked it up just to give it a good once-over, fully intending to put...
Feb 1st
January 2010
20 posts
7 tags
Day Sixty One - Quite Mellow
Steve Roach & Vidna Obmana - InnerZone This is a little dangerous, ambient music first thing on a Friday morning. Hopefully, coffee is up to the challenge. Of course, it’s also awesome. Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana are two of my favorite ambient/ethereal composers and when they collaborate, magic happens. “InnerZone” is no exception. Unfortunately, being early on...
Jan 30th
6 tags
Day Sixty - Full Circle
Evergrey - In Search of Truth You know, it feels pretty good to start the day with some Swedish prog metal. Evergrey’s music tends toward the dramatic and dark, and this album is certainly no exception. Another thing that Evergrey does a lot is create concept albums. Once again, this is no exception, although I was not aware of it until I checked with Wikipedia (I have yet to...
Jan 29th
6 tags
Day Fifty Nine - Highly Eccentric
Mephisto Walz - Immersion Mephisto Walz is a very good example of what goth music was like in the mid to late 90’s. The music is subtle. Except for the drums (electronic, from the sound of it), everything is veiled and atmospheric. In some ways, Mephisto Walz is reminiscent of The Gathering - female fronted, flowing rock music that draws the listener into its subtle machinations. ...
Jan 27th
8 tags
Day Fifty Eight - I'm So Bad, I Should Be In...
The Gathering - How to Measure a Planet? This 2-disc set is The Gathering’s most atmospheric album to date. It’s also my personal favorite. What really sets The Gathering apart (and keeps me coming back for more) is their ability to craft music that is simultaneously intense and minimal. The music on this album moves between moderately fast hard rock and slow atmospheric...
Jan 26th
8 tags
Day Fifty Seven - No Excuses
The Gathering - Home Once again, we have two albums of the same title, from very different groups. Though I’ll be alternating between the two on a track-by-track basis, I’ll keep them separate here. This little bit of insanity is all mine. The Gathering is a very interesting band. When they first same on the scene, they were very much a gothic death metal band. They...
Jan 25th
9 tags
Day Fifty Six - A Double Dose of Marilyn
Aghast - Hexerei In Zweilicht Der Finsternis A dark start to my Friday morning…nearly as dark as the coffee itself (I like my coffee black as homemade sin). Dark and atmospheric, I once considered using this music to create ambience whilst playing Dungeons and Dragons. It’s that good. Enter The Hall of Ice, for example, is a very chilling track that (for me, anyway) conjures...
Jan 22nd
6 tags
Day Fifty Five - Beginnings
They Might Be Giants - Here Come the ABCs! Picking up where we left off yesterday, today begins with the first children’s album from They Might Be Giants. On this album, they seek to teach a basic understanding of the alphabet through rock. TMBG have raised an interesting question - who says that children’s music, especially educational children’s music, has to be...
Jan 22nd
10 tags
Day Fifty Four - Revelry In The Darkness
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell This was the first Sabbath album with Ronnie James Dio on vocals, and it did a lot to revitalize the band after the departure of Ozzy Osbourne. The sound of this album is substantially different from previous Black Sabbath releases. Where previous Sabbath albums had a tendency toward slow, plodding rhythms and a dark, sludgy sound, “Heaven and...
Jan 20th
11 tags
Day Fifty Three - Heavier and Heavier
Patrick Doyle - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (soundtrack) John Williams - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (soundtrack) What a difference a change in composer makes! Right off the bat, I notice a distinct change in tone from last week. Goblet of Fire has a much more dramatic sound than Sorcerer’s Stone. To be fair, Goblet of Fire is also a much more dramatic...
Jan 19th
16 tags
Day Fifty Two - Defining Guilty Pleasures
R.E.M. - Green Only two of the songs from this album are present in my collection: Orange Crush and Stand. I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to R.E.M., so the only songs of theirs that I enjoy are the “greatest hits.” Does that qualify R.E.M. as a Guilty Pleasure? I used to think so. I used to define a guilty pleasure as an artist who has only produced a...
Jan 16th
11 tags
Day Fifty One - Everybody's Greatest Hits
Twice so far, I’ve encountered an interesting quirk in the iPod firmware. When going through my music collection by album title, something interesting occurs if multiple artists have used the same title: both albums will play, usually alternating between artists on a song-by-song basis. Today, moving through the “G” section, I hit “Greatest Hits.” Well,...
Jan 15th
9 tags
Day Fifty Supplemental - Compilation Exploration
Gothik Rosetta Stone - Nothing Eva O Halo Experience - Children of the Night The Wake - Side Show Mephisto Waltz - Mephisto Waltz Christian Death - Haloes Nosferatu - The Keeper’s Call Corpus Delicti - Patient
Jan 13th
8 tags
Day Fifty - No Title Is Coming To Me
Marilyn Manson - The Golden Age of Grotesque I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, musically, this is Marilyn Manson’s finest moment. This album finds Marilyn at the top of his game - the angst, the sneering contempt for “normals,” the near obscene strangeness…everything he’s known for is right here. The thing that sets this album apart is...
Jan 13th
10 tags
Day Forty Nine - Another Album Bites The Dust
Hammerfall - Glory to the Brave As I recall, we’ve discussed Hammerfall once or twice before. I remember scrambling to find just the right way to describe why I like listening to Hammerfall. Yes, they’re an epic power metal band, but there are hundreds of bands like that scattered across Europe (where metal lives!). I think I’ve figured it out. Have you ever seen Rock...
Jan 12th
8 tags
Day Forty Eight - The Spice Of Life
Foetus - Gash I was introduced to Foetus by a friend back in the mid-nineties. Having thoroughly enjoyed Nine Inch Nails’ work to date (“The Downward Spiral” was brand new at the time), he did some research into industrial music. It was through his efforts that we discovered Foetus (and Skinny Puppy, and KMFDM…the list goes on). If memory serves, J.G....
Jan 11th
9 tags
Day Forty Seven - Bonus! Story At The End!
The FuMP (compilation - sorta) This isn’t really a compilation as much as it is a handful of songs that I’ve “captured” from the FuMP (Funny Music podcast). I’ve only grabbed a few songs so far, most notably Blow Me Down (a pirate themed parody of the Thompson Twins’ Hold Me Now) and New Song (a parody of the fact that all Nickelback songs sound the...
Jan 8th
7 tags
Day Forty Six - Not As Verbose As Usual
The Cruxshadows - Fortress in Flames Part EP, part remix collection, this is a very energetic way to start your day. There are a couple new tracks here, but most of “Fortress in Flames” is remixed songs from “Ethernaut,” done by such fantastic artists as Razed in Black, Absurd Minds and Ego Likeness. I’m particularly fond of Subway to Sally’s remix of...
Jan 8th
6 tags
Day Forty Five - Rocking Hard...Very Hard
Korn - Follow the Leader This may very well be Korn’s best album. I’m not entirely certain, though - “Issues” is a strong contender for the title. I should listen to them back-to-back so that I can declare a winner. That’s not to say that Korn’s other albums aren’t good - they just don’t quite compare to the Follow the Leader/Issues era....
Jan 6th
10 tags
Day Forty Four - Almost 100% Awesome
Finger Eleven - Finger Eleven This album is part of the “stuff I swiped from my Wife’s PC” collection. I seem to remember liking a Finger Eleven song back when this first came out. I don’t remember the song (I think it was One Thing), but I’m pretty sure it was the surreal video that I actually liked. Listening to this album now, I can’t say that...
Jan 5th
6 tags
Day Forty Three - It's 2010!
Is it Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten? Happy new year, however you say it. On a side note, I noticed a marked lack of responses to my pathetic plea for comments on Day Forty Two. I know that several people read the post, so this leads me to conclude that nearly all of my readers must be ninjas. Cool! Dark Tranquillity - Fiction After four days off, this album makes for an excellent return. ...
Jan 4th
December 2009
23 posts
8 tags
Day Forty Two - Not Making The Obvious Reference
Here we are, the final “Around the ‘Pod” post for 2009 (I’ve taken tomorrow off, and I do most of my listening at work). I think it’s been a pretty cool trip so far. What I’d really like to know, however, is what do YOU think? As the reader, your presence is all that prevents this from becoming an exercise in futility, so please…let me know what you...
Dec 30th
8 tags
Day Forty One - Now Thats What I Call Variety
Faces of the Harp (compilation) This compilation contains 15 tracks of excellent Celtic harp music. It’s interesting, even when playing an upbeat song like The Tipsy Elk (how awesome is that title?), the harp is still a very soothing sound. I won’t be doing a separate “Compilation Exploration” post for this one - the songs are similar enough that one might think that...
Dec 29th
9 tags
Day Forty - Back From Xmas Break
I’m back! Didja have an excellent Xmas? I know I did. I ate, drank, and was merry - Mission Accomplished! The Cruxshadows - Ethernaut The Cruxshadows are a rather trippy way to start your day. Their modern take on the “new wave” style is…interesting, to say the least. Energetic yet somehow unobtrusive, this album worked with my morning coffee to get my arse...
Dec 28th
9 tags
Day Thirty Nine - Last Post Before Christmas
Flaw - Endangered Species I discovered this melodic alt-metal band in the heyday of MTVX. “Endangered Species” is their second album, the first being one that we won’t get to for quite a while. Honestly, I’m surprised that Flaw never really went anywhere. I think they “hit” just a few years too early. Today, they’d fit right in with the better...
Dec 24th
5 tags
Day Thirty Eight - "Damn" Makes A Damn Fine Adverb
Emigrate - Emigrate Emigrate is a side project from Richard Kruspe (Rammstein’s lead guitarist). Less industrial than Rammstein, and with lyrics in English, this is definitely a little something different from an established artist. He seems to take inspiration from everywhere. My World is reminiscent of the Butthole Surfers, while You Can’t Get Enough sounds a lot like...
Dec 22nd
5 tags
Day Thirty Seven Supplemental - Compilation...
Electro Industrial Assassins This compilation may be out of print, but it’s still awesome. I managed to locate a few ov my favorites on YouTube. Not all of them, though… Birmingham 6 - Policestate Psychopomps - Torso Neo-Tek - Mind Traveling
Dec 21st
7 tags
Day Thirty Seven - Progressive Takeover
Rob Zombie - Educated Horses I really like the title of this album. Shortly after its release, I heard an interview with Rob Zombie where he stated that it has no meaning. It seems that he chose “Educated Horses” because it sounds like it might have meaning, and he wanted to mess with those who feel that everything in music has to have meaning. Rob Zombie’s a funny...
Dec 21st
5 tags
Day Thirty Six - A Short List From A Bad Day
The Eagles - Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2 The Eagles are one of those bands that you’ve heard pretty much everywhere. You may not even know that you know The Eagles, but you do. At the very least, you’ve probably heard Hotel California several thousand times. That kind of omnipresence says something about a band, especially when it continues for years after the band is no...
Dec 19th
9 tags
Day Thirty Five - A Day So Busy, I'm Posting It...
Thursday was a very busy day for me. That’s why I’m just getting around to Thursday’s post now (it’s Saturday). I didn’t post this yesterday, because yesterday was just an extremely unpleasant day. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (soundtrack) A three act comedy musical written by Joss Whedon and starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion....
Dec 19th
9 tags
Day Thirty Four - Christmas Special 2
Excelsis vol 1 - A Dark Noel (Compilation) Excelsis vol 2 - A Winter’s Song (Compilation) These holiday compilations were released in the mid-nineties by Projekt Records. They contains various holiday standards, performed by Projekt artists. In other words, they are goth/darkwave holiday albums. Henry Mancini - Greatest Christmas Songs It’s time for some...
Dec 16th
10 tags
Day Thirty Three - Rampant Geekery
Murray Gold - Doctor Who (Soundtrack) How cool is this? I got to start my day with the theme from Doctor Who! This is the soundtrack from the first two seasons of the revived Doctor Who - Christopher Eccleston’s season, and David Tennant’s first season. The music is like the Doctor; sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical, and always entertaining. Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle ...
Dec 16th
8 tags
Day Thirty Two Supplemental - Compilation...
DJ Ferret’s Underground Club Mix #2 It looks like Amazon doesn’t have this bad boy in stock. Ah well, we’ll just take a look at a few tracks anyway… The Cruxshadows - Sophia Absurd Minds, Stop the Fall Stromkern, Stand Up Voltaire, Day of the Dead Ayria, Six Seconds Rasputina, Warbots
Dec 15th
7 tags
Day Thirty Two - Radio Daze
AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap This takes me back to the time that I spent in college. I was a DJ on the radio station, and one of our morning show staples was Big Balls - a rather nice song about especially extravagant parties. Wait, its about what? No…can’t be. I don’t believe it. AC/DC wouldn’t sink to that level of childishness, would they? Collective...
Dec 14th
10 tags
Day Thirty One - Devilish!
Voltaire - The Devil’s Bris There I was, listening to the latest sampler from Projekt records. I’m hearing new songs from some of my favorite artists, enjoying new artists, and generally having a good time. Wait, what’s this? It sounds like some kind of strange gypsy music…and he’s singing about the joys of being evil. Wait…no, he’s not actually...
Dec 12th
Day Thirty - Bracketed By Very Heavy Metal
Fear Factory - Demanufacture This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite “rage albums.” Songs like Demanufacture and Self bias Resistor have seem me through some very angry times over the years. I also find myself reminded of another anecdote relating to this album. During the late nineties, I was in a “band” (we never performed for an audience, so it really...
Dec 11th
Day Twenty Nine - A Short List On A Busy Day
Today was an extremely busy day at work. As a result, I found myself pausing the iPod far more frequently than normal. I was only able to listen to five albums and a single today. Alas… Also, I’m making a slight change to the format of this blog. Starting today, the “Artist Name - Album Title” at the beginning of each section will be a link to Amazon.com. Don’t...
Dec 9th
Day Twenty Eight - Christmas Special #1
Tonight is “put up the tree” night at my house. Is an effort to engender the appropriate mood, I decided that today shall also be the first Christmas Special. Doctor Octoroc - 8-Bit Jesus This is a chiptunes christmas album that my wife found last year. You can still get it for free here. This is no ordinary chiptunes christmas album; each of the songs on this album is a Christmas...
Dec 9th
Day Twenty Seven - Samples A-Plenty
Nevermore - Dead Heart, in a Dead World I just love Nevermore’s combination of soaring, power metal style vocals with heavy thrash arrangements. Especially when they’re turned loose on Simon and Garfunkel… Of course, their own songs are great as well: Midnight Syndicate - The Dead Matter: Cemetery Gates I bought this CD (and about three or four others from...
Dec 7th