Requiem

A corpse with a conscience!

You're having quite the run of interesting restaurant experiences as far as rude fellow customers are concerned. The setting sounds amazing though! I'm on the bus on the way to the metal pub I (rarely) go too. Time to knock back a few pints and listen to some balls to the wall metal.

Don't you dare touch those keyboards. I actually don't have 'The Olden Domain' and the one after it. I just need them to complete the Borknagar collection. I should get around to it at some point. NP: Saol - 'Guardians' What an amazing album.

I like this idea of the pentalogy. 'Panzerfaust' is obviously a masterpiece, but a lot of people overlook the greatness that is 'Total Death'. I really love that album and for me it's Darkthrone's last great black metal release. The original cover sucks though and throws people a bit I think. The re-release cover is much more suitable and helps the concept of the pentalogy work for me - because the music already fits well enough. (I presume this is what you mean by pentalogy...).

I know what you mean. I love sushi, but whenever anyone suggests we get it I kind of try to talk them out of it a little bit. I think because it's served cold. Usually I'd prefer to get into something more substantial and warm. We nearly ended up having dumplings and a few other dishes in Chinatown but I relented at the last minute and we got sushi elsewhere. It was a good move in hindsight. It's amazing all our kids liking sushi. It's good stuff.

No doubt you're right about this. People worship the classics of this genre just as much as, say, a 'Rust in Peace', 'Powerslave' or a 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' are respected within their own genres.

I agree with you 100% regarding the Cannibal Corpse comment. I'd rather have 'Symbolic' in my collection than nearly any of those bands that I named. Just a great album. But yeah, I could take any Death album over any Cannibal Corpse album, even Death's very proggy material which wouldn't be my first choice from them. No one's really rating Nile around here, and I accept this because they have a lot of albums out that really go nowhere and feel bogged down, but I really love a couple of those Egyptian themed albums. Chuck a theme on an album and I'm in, basically. I really like Dismember a lot, especially 'Like an Ever Flowing Stream' and 'Massive Killing Capacity', the latter of which is basically a melodeath album, if I'm using that term correctly. You never know around here. Entombed I can take or leave. Carcass I love, especially 'Surgical Steel'. Morbid Angel I love, mostly. Obituary are all right but a bit daft. Deicide have never done anything for me unfortunately and I find their music basically devoid of melody. My interest in music is inversely proportional to the lack of melody in any given release. Am I saying that right? I really like the first and last tracks on Deicide's 'The Stench of Redemption' album, but those tracks obviously aren't really typical of the band. The thing about death metal in general is that I always found it lacking in meaning for me personally. I just can't really plug into straight gore lyrics, and the concept of brutality for brutality's sake doesn't really turn me on either. Obviously it does for some people as death metal is a huge genre. I like to flirt with it in the office but I wouldn't ask it out on a proper date.

You and your frozen paella. It sounds awesome though and just reminds me that I've only ever eaten paella outside of Spain once. I'll have to remedy that because it's good stuff. With a nice big jug of sangria to wash it down, of course. There obviously are Spanish influenced restaurants in Melbourne, but there aren't many of them comparable to other cuisines. Thanks for the reminder!

Me neither. Some of you might think this sounds unsurprising considering my musical tastes, but for some reason Death seems to be one of the only frontline death metal bands that I don't own at least one album of. Morbid Angel, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Entombed, Dismember, Deicide, Obituary, Nile? All present and correct. So where the hell is my Death album(s)? I really can't explain it either because I absolutely love 'Symbolic', a hell of a lot more than most of the bands listed above, and I enjoy every other Death album to some degree. The irony of my Deathless collection is that I consider Death to be one of the easiest death metal bands to listen to and I generally feel good about them as a band.

This isn't my favourite style of metal, but there's no disputing how ultimately cool this band is, and this song is no exception. 7/10

You flatter me, sir. I've noticed all of these things too. So I'm listening to Ex Deo's Roman metal anthems and watching Ramsay's Hotel Hell with the sound down and the subtitles on so I can follow along with the plot, see? And I've just noticed that all the subtitles are in capitals. Why? He's not even shouting right now.

Ex Deo track ones. Allow me to explain. Fun fact: This Roman metal band has three albums out now, and while I enjoy the entirety of them all, each album's first track is absolutely incredible if you like epic fist-pumping melodic anthems. The funny thing is though, it's like they can only write one near perfect song per album, and they put it as track one each time. For anyone interested, the songs are these: Album: 'Romulus' (2009) - Track 1: 'Romulus' Album: 'Caligvla' (2012) - Track 1: 'I Caligvla' Album: 'The Immortal Wars' (2017) - Track 1: 'The Rise of Hannibal' If you like Roman history and you like metal, listen to these three masterpiece songs regularly. My Dying Bride - 'The Manuscript' EP I've made my feelings clear about the recent output of MDB in the MDB thread in the Doom Metal forum, but this little EP that was recorded during the 'A Map of All Our Failures' sessions is my favourite work of their's since 'Songs of Darkness, Words of Light' back in 2004. The closing track 'Only Tears to Replace Her With' is a masterpiece.

A ticket to the Van Gogh museum has you covered for both in my opinion... Thank you, I'm here all week. But seriously, is it just me or is this website going offline a bit lately?

And we're back. It was awesome. She lasted about 20 minutes in the grown-ups section which wasn't bad, and then we did some cut and pasting art in the kids area which was fun. We talked about how medieval painting often uses gold backgrounds and depicts Jesus and Mary, and how painting becomes more realistic during the renaissance and early modern periods. That was about as far as we got before we had to abandon ship and go and do some crafts. She loves arts and crafts and is already a better drawer than me (which isn't saying much to be honest), and she was pretty into it. There is a Van Gogh exhibition on at the moment and the queue for that was literally about three hundred people. Needless to say we gave it a miss. Besides, the dude can't even paint - his pictures are all blurry like. For lunch we had sushi (again! it's all she wants), then home on the bus.

The sun is shining on this crystal clear winter's day. Today my five year old daughter (of the firmament) and I are heading in to the city to visit the National Gallery of Victoria. It's the premier gallery in Melbourne (and therefore Australia). Last Tuesday we went to the Museum. Good times.

My youngest daughter's birthday, and two of my favourite bands putting out albums - and it's the first day of Spring in Australia!

Yeah, woops, 'Kveldy' is album number two. Oh man what a trilogy. It's sort of where my enjoyment of Ulver ends too (that is, after the three albums). I really love AIC 'Unplugged' too, but overall I like the added lushness of 'Flies'. And Layne sounds way better on 'Flies'. But yeah, their unplugged album is my favourite of the MTV Unpluggeds by far. It's great.

Eluvietie - 'Epona' Firstly, Anna Murphy's replacement, Fabienne Erni, sounds almost exactly like Anna Murphy, and even kind of looks like her. What the hell, that's amazing. How that managed that I'll never know. I see that they've actually changed about 80% of the line-up in the last year or two. Wow... Secondly, this band now as songs called 'A Rose for Epona' and 'Epona'. Thirdly, this song is awesome. I love this band!

Requiem's Top 10 Acoustic/Semi-Acoustic Albums from Metal Bands So 'regular' metal bands (and Alice in Chains) who have released a 'special' album, or disk in a double album release, that can be considered acoustic, semi-acoustic or deliberately subtle and non-metal. The bands' quieter experiments, if you will. 10. Eluvietie - 'Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion' (2009) When I heard that the Eluvs were doing this album I got really excited because I thought with their numerous folk instrumentalists that many great things could happen. Well, it turns out to be a bit disappointing. 'Omnos' is an absolute spine-tingler of a track, and overall this album is cool, but you need to be very patient to get anything out of it. I find myself respecting each individual track, but I start wanting to turn it off by about the 25 minute mark. I wish this band would cap all their albums at the 45 minute mark. They never do though. 9. Anathema - 'Hindsight' (2008) This is definitely a cool release, but is also now a bit sinister, as it shows where they start to fancy themselves as songsmiths more like Dylan than Holmes (as in the Nick variety). Needless to say my favourite songs from it are those taken from 'Eternity', 'Alternative 4' and 'Judgement', but I don't like any of these versions more than their originals. 8. Finntroll - 'Visor Om Slutet' (2003) Similar scenario to Eluvietie, I was really excited for this but was disappointed overall, but not quite as much. It's very synthy for a supposedly semi-acoustic album. Still, it's got that great forest/troll atmosphere, which I think everyone on this website hates except me, but I love it. I think this is Somnium's last contribution to the band before he took that fatal plunge off a bridge... 7. Opeth - 'Damnation' (2003) This has sort of grown on me over time, but I still think they were in a position to do more with this album. 'Windowpane' is brilliant, and overall it's nice and haunting. I wish there was a more acoustic/folky feel though, like an acoustic 'Morningrise' or something. Still, this is a cool release. 6. Moonspell - disk two of 'Alpha Noir/Omega Black' (2012) This is where the quality takes a huge jump. This isn't really semi-acoustic, but it's a soft second disk of the double album by these Portuguese wolves and it's great. In fact, I like it better than the 'heavy' disk. Songs like 'Fireseason' really strip away the theatrics and focus on the band's songwriting and the outcome is, if not excellence, at least high quality. 5. Alice in Chains - 'Jar of Flies' (1994) It says a lot that this band - call them grunge/hard rock or what-have-you - can out emotion nearly every other band out there who pride themselves on feels. Ok, they aren't really a metal band, I understand this, but I just can't leave this gem out. Layne and Jerry are at the top of their games, with this coming off the back of 'Dirt'. The whole 'Dirt'/'Jar of Flies' 1-2 is one of rock music's great doubles. Anyway, songs like 'Rotten Apples', 'Nutshell' and the glorious instrumental 'Whale and Wasp' pretty much slay everything in this list from 6-10. 4. Ulver - 'Kveldssanger' (1996) The second part of the 'trilogy', this is haunting, rugged and authentic. You can almost smell the woodsmoke in the forest cabin as you sip meap and commune with Norway's history. Garm does lots of humming and aaaaahhh-ing, and it all sounds great. This is truly acoustic too. What a band. 3. Empyrium - 'Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays' (1999) If I'm being fair, this album is a bit of a rip-off of the one above it, but I think it's better. This is more polished and more emotional, and the Brothers Grimm in the Black Forest vibe of these acoustic odes to medieval sylvan tragedy are scarily evocative. If you're looking for acoustic folk this is as good as it gets (for me). 2. Swallow the Sun - disk two of 'Songs from the North' (2015) The whole triple album from Swallow the Sun is epic, and mostly awesome. The first disk is regular StS, the middle disk (this one) is acoustic, and the final disk is pretty much funeral doom. This disk is close to my favourite, and really highlights some great songwriting moments. The track 'Pray for the Winds to Come' should be played at my funeral. 1. Katatonia - 'Sanctitude' (2015) A haunting, professional, and above all, emotional live album of all my favourite Kata-classics. It actually took me a long time to even check this out because I was pissed off with 'Dead End Kings' and was having a Kata-slump. Once I actually checked it out, my jaw hit the floor. All my favourite tracks are here: Teargas, Gone, The Racing Heart, Unfurl, Evidence, etc etc. Listen to the very first line of the concert as Jonas Renkse sings, in that goddamn emotional voice, "Are you in or are you out? The words are stones in my mouth" and you're pretty much hearing what I like about emotional music. This is Kata-killer.

Yeah, the dishes are the (storm of the kitchen's) bane of my life. The dishwasher is a good friend of mine so I'm usually only washing non-dishwasher friendly items, but thy still mount up. Your son sounds like a candidate for a rewards chart. It helps them feel a sense of accomplishment too when they accumulate enough stickers to get a dinky little toy. They're sort of in control of their own successes and it gives a tangible reality to good behaviour rather than just my "don't do that" and "be careful" catch-phrases, which are obviously meaningless to young children. My, aren't we all grown up, talking about raising children like a couple of real dads! Next we'll be discussing tax incentives and golf clubs...

I'll astrally project my foot to your ass in a minute. Everyone knows that the light in my photo is a symbol of the fire that burns within all our hearts, FatherAlabaster.

It must have been a pretty popular song at one point because I still remember lines from it too. Weird.

That's great. I simply love Vietnamese. We have a pretty big Vietnamese community here in Melbourne and we always used to head in to the Vietnamese restaurants and go crazy. The pho trend is all over this city by the way. I love living in Melbourne but god we can be a trendy lot sometimes... I can empathise regarding your son's antics. We brought in a rewards chart where the kids could put their own stickers on the corresponding good behaviours at the end of the day. I thought I'd never be one of 'those' types of parents, but then reality hit and I had to face some practicalities hahaha. Anyway, it sort of worked. Both kids had Frozen (as in the movie, not the Sentenced album) rewards charts with things like, "Staying at the dinner table" and "Bath and Bed" and "Sharing and Politeness". Plus the usual "no dessert" lines when they're not into sitting down at dinner. They're all pretty good now, especially our five year old who has really matured lately. ANYWAY, let's get back to food. Last night the Countess of Blasphemic Iniquity cooked and presented to me, the love of her life, a roast chicken (cooked with a lemon inside it and a soy sauce rub), roast potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, zucchini, capsicum (red bell peppers) with gravy over everything. For dessert we had a self-saucing lemon pudding with vanilla ice-cream. My youngest vampire thought the pudding was too lemony, so I had her's as well. It was exquisite. Usually she makes a self-saucing chocolate pudding with our roast dinners, and I was at first skeptical of this lemon concept, but I strenuously approved as I was eating it. Edit: This looks like some sort of 1950s style chauvinism on my part, but my wife is an amazing cook and I tend to relegate myself to scullery dude.

Thanks Deathy. I've tinkered here and there like most people on the forums. I was out walking with this amazing moon and tried to capture the moment. Somehow photos of the moon (taken on phones) don't turn out as cool as hoped.

I'm actually pretty interested in hearing the new Eluvietie - thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit nervous about Anna Murphy not being there anymore, but to be honest I sort of lost a little interest in the band even when she was there, so this could be a good move. The lyrics in Gaulish sound cool. Amazing they'll still be speaking Gaulish far into the future. What turned/turns me off are the over the top visuals and theatrics. They used to be the real deal but now they feel like a B grade Dimmu Borgir. The music is certainly amazing though and I do love those Watain albums, including this one. For some reason I actually have two copies of 'The Wild Hunt' - a regular jewel case and a special box sort of edition. I think I ordered one of them by accident during a night of drunken revels. Don't blame him. He didn't start the fire, it was always burning...