JonoBlade

By "malaise" do you mean stagnant or apathetic? The Attlee government came in in 1945 which was an unusual situation where the population actually voted for its universal best interests. Churchill had just won the war, yet lost the election. The policies at that time were quite radical and served the greater good. I wouldn't call that stagnant. "Most historians argue that the main domestic policies (except nationalisation of steel) reflected a broad bipartisan consensus. The post-war consensus is a historians' model of political agreement from 1945 to the late-1970s. In 1979 newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rejected and reversed it." I blame TV and advertising....for everything. It's only with watching the Rugby World Cup on ITV that my 13 year old daughter has been exposed for the first time to mass advertising and the brain melting intellect vacuum that is reality TV. Otherwise, we only ever watched streaming services and BBC from time to time. BBC still has no advertising. I find television in Australia and New Zealand to be utterly unwatchable. I also once turned on a TV in a hotel room in Detroit and threw up into the waste basket.

Prajecyrujučy Sinhuliarnaje Wypramieńwańnie Daktryny Absaliutnaha J Usiopahłynaĺnaha Zła Skroź Šaścihrannuju Pryzmu Sîn-Ahhī-Erība Na Hipierpawierchniu Zadyjakaĺnaha Kaŭčęha Zasnawaĺnikaŭ Kosmatęchničnaha Ordęna Palieakantakta... | Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum (bandcamp.com) Catchy stuff.

To be honest I like Sulphur Aeon more for the atmosphere. It seems to work well as background music during the work day while being sure I get a Lovecraft fix. The albums sound pretty similar to me. This new one might not be as good as the earlier ones but I'm unlikely to listen critically enough to realise. It still fits in the right sonic space. I only tend to get disappointed if, after a few seconds, you can tell the sound is really off somehow. Like the new Priest single. The combination of electronic bleeps and seeing a mock up photo of a double LP just made me sad. But, I'll get over it.

Tyranny of Distance | BEASTWARS (bandcamp.com) Also released today. I admit to being duped by this one because I love Beastwars so much I bought the pre-order without any investigation. The artwork was awesome. Turns out its a goddamn covers album! I can get on board with covers (Inter Arma's one is great) but I wouldn't have been in a hurry for it.

Seven Crowns and Seven Seals | Sulphur Aeon (bandcamp.com) Released today. These guys are extremely consistent and this one seems to fit in with their catalog just fine.

I could look it up but prefer to think of a "posture corrector" as some kind of electrode system that shocks your balls when you stray from perfectly upright. After 3 years sitting on a rickety Ikea dining room chair in front of a computer every day I shudder to think what condition my posture is in. It shouldn't be too bad but I definitely slouch. I tend to sit barefoot and cross legged like a child being read a story at nursery before afternoon nap.

Is a nocturnal mortuary a pop up mortuary that only opens at night? It seems a rather short sighted business plan. Many morticians presumably like to keep sociable hours and would prefer to work 9 to 5. At busy times, like during a pandemic, some professionals in that field might have to work the graveyard shift, but buying a Nocturnal Mortuary franchise really limits your options.

There's a new Beastwars next week, but picked up (sight unseen) today on BC Friday so they get more cash: Pre-order Tyranny of Distance by BEASTWARS

It's bandcamp Friday! A few random purchases so far... Strength II ...Deep Cuts by Unto Others New 1992-1994 Discography Digital download by Timeghoul The Enduring Spirit by Tomb Mold

And I bet both made in USA too.

To be honest, I can't say for sure that Ripper did do the vocals remotely on the second record. However, my guess is that they are on a tight budget and he has his home studio set up for vocal recording anyway. I recall reading in an interview that he is constantly doing guest spots, and this is how he does it. Send him some money and he will record the vocal parts you want to the lyrics provided and send it back. Done. Many guitarists do things this way too. Send some money and say "put a solo between this and this time marker". They record it and send it back. It is a great way for artists to monetise their skills and notoriety in downtime. You've got to make a living somehow when everyone's listening to your music on Spotify and touring costs are through the roof. Even KK apparently did a solo on Geoff Tate's Queensryche album before the band settled and kept the name. In fact I think that was the sole musical endeavour he did in nearly 10 years before finally deciding, after he passed 70, to form a new band.

After an hour or so I am finally at The Legacy which is the track I was waiting for. It has a nice intro and chorus. My recollection of this album was very positive so I will have to give it more spins. Although I wonder if, as a whole, it's not much more than Maiden flavoured elevator music. Really inoffensive and a perfectly reasonable way to pass the time with old friends. Sorry about your eyes. Sight is a useful sense.

I've had to resort to drastic measures and buy some CDs, because I couldn't find a lossless digital download to buy. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata Just so rad. Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life and Death Had an urge to hear The Legacy which I remember was a great song, but can't tell you how it goes until I cue it up next. Still in the mail: Wedgiedoods - the third one Goddamn Century Media. Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal After @Arioch posted the other day, I just had to check it out. The CDs are next to useless to own now I have them. The lyric text in the Maiden album is so small you need a microscope to see it. My ageing eyes just aren't up to it anymore. Triptykon is not much better. A nice presentation with lots of Giger art, but small gold on black text. Damn my eyes! They will just collect dust in the corner.

When Ripper is "on" he's great. I just feel the delivery is a bit samey. I suspect it is down to him recording vocals alone in the US and sending files for inclusion in the mix. There is not much room for feedback and being "produced" in that kind of dynamic. For a classic metal vocalist there needs to be some external input on the delivery. The producer is important. If you are a death metal grunter the feedback is less critical, so long as it fits in its box. I also feel I'd like the KK albums more if they had more retro production in general. As it is, it's all very slick and suffers from the same homogeneity we've covered when discussing Andy Sneap. What KK's Priest has nailed is an economical album length which he and his Priest colleagues have utterly failed at the last few times out. I am looking at you Nostradamus triple album. I suspect a lot of that was KK's fault. At 52 minutes even Angel of Retribution was too long. I listened to it the other day for the first time in years (since @GoatmasterGeneral makes the rare concession that "it's not all that shit"). It is quite good and has nice pacing/flow. Some of the worst lyrics in a long career of terrible lyrics though. Loch Ness makes Living After Midnight read like Shakespeare.

I think your neighbour should build a Dyson sphere around your house and harness the high levels of positive energy you emit. It could power a small town on vibes alone.

Wait up. It sounded like you said: "I really like "St. Anger"" I must have misread, because that string of words is not compatible. It's like saying "spaghetti fog sad engine," individually the words have meaning but there is no synergy when combined. I've listened to KK the last few days quite a few times. It is definitely a heavy metal band. I can't say it has really landed for me but it's nice and short. N.P. ABSCISSION | 𝐓 𝐎 𝐑 𝐏 𝐎 𝐑 (bandcamp.com)

Bandcamp has been sold again! This time to Songtradr. Whatever that is. Epic Games still seems to be involved but I do fear for the integrity of bandcamp. BANDCAMP Acquired By SONGTRADR - BLABBERMOUTH.NET Bandcamp does take quite a cut when you add in the transaction fees...but I guess that is the price of business. A band should still clear more than 60% or so on a downloaded album. Throwing all my IP ideas out there (which is ironic for a patent attorney), there is a gap in the market for an app that is both a direct-to-artist marketplace, social page (way to post info about tours etc and interact with fans) and somewhere to curate your own collection (e.g. ripped from CDs) in one place just as a music player and file manager. Mind you, I guess you don't need it if you download all your bandcamp purchases to FLAC for a home server....except for a facebook style socials page. Which reminds me.... does anyone use something like this? All-in-One Desktop HD DTS Decoding and Ear Mafer-FiiO R7 It seems to tick all the boxes for a lossless DAP which can plug directly into studio monitors. You can't put it in your pocket but out and about I have a phone or a Fiio x3 as a back up. I feel its one of those things I could easily do without but it would set me up for years to come.

Oh yeah. That one does it. "My mind is clearer now ...." Judas is metal as fuck.

Icon was on Music for Nations which went bust. The rights got transferred somewhere in the bankruptcy but are a mess. I completely understand that you'd never want to hear a new version. I am in the unusual position of knowing I liked the album but don't have it burned into my conscience (like Shades of God). I could just buy the Icon CD off eBay but I like the idea of giving the band money today. Spotify is not the modern day equivalent of radio. Radio plays singles and that is absolutely fine. It is a great promotional tool. I use You Tube in this way. Watch a new promo video or old gig footage, but spotify makes entire catalogs available for a pittance. It's very true that it's a free market and each artist/label has the right to choose. But artists are not rocket scientists and frequently make bad choices. Getting your stuff OFF spotify is a pain in the ass and they charge you to do it. Far more than they ever would pay out for it to be there in the first place. Everyone (managers/labels/venues) has tried to screw over artists since the beginning of time. I only rail against it for the sake of awareness. Anyone who pays a subscription to Spotify to listen to albums day in day out is a piece of shit. If they think they are actually contributing somehow, they are a delusional piece of shit. If they're just fair weather music fans wanting to line up a playlist of feel good modern hit singles, fine. That is radio. Listening to your favourite bands' albums and discovering new whole albums to listen to over and over is not radio. "They're not trying to fuck anyone over." It is hard to know whether whoever created Spotify is actually the devil. Was there an intent to devalue music in the way they do? Possibly not. It is not active fuck-overy in the way a manager or a record label operated, but it is still bad.

This is my take too. There is just so much music out there that you can afford to pass over bands that appear dodgy. Of course, if you listen on Spotify they're not getting paid anyway - so have at it. Buying merch is a step beyond buying music I reckon. You are proudly representing and endorsing a band by wearing a t-shirt, whereas having a few MP3s on your phone is just your dirty little secret.

Perhaps I described this poorly. Phil looks pretty rough but he still played on the last AC/DC record and sounds great. He had his problems with drugs which means he can't tour now, so he screwed himself big time with that, but he's still active. His life choices make him a bit of a vegetable, but he is a legend among drummers. Not like poor Malcolm. Pretty much the cruellest way to go imaginable. He was a visionary band leader that took little more than a pub rock band with a gimmicky lead guitarist and made it the biggest band on the planet - and ended up a diminished shadow of himself. Mercifully dementia took him quite quickly as these things go. He wasn't that old when he died. His hard drinking and smoking lifestyle quite likely played a part in his decline (it can't have helped) and left us with only Angus, having to sift through old cassette tapes to put together albums from Malcom's riffs. Although I actually prefer the last few albums to the latter ones where Mal was still involved. In honour of our friend, the nicest guy in the universe, James T "let Spock handle it" Kirk, I am on my second pass through: The Sinner Rides Again | KK Downing / KK's Priest (bandcamp.com) It's nice. And short! But I doubt we'll hear from James today as he's in trad metal ecstasy.

Shamefully I have never even heard Dark Angel's output after Darkness Descends. I had that one on CD but I think it got stolen 25 years ago and I never replaced it. I remember a live VHS of We Have Arrived (with Rineheart on vocals) which was great. You make a strong point about production being part of the identity. It's a tough call. I think you could utilise some modern studio capability without losing the spirit of the original. In Sneap's case he would be tempted to sample replace every drum hit, which would be a bad idea, but the production could be tidied up a bit. A lot of 80s albums are damaged by the drum production that was en vogue at the time. Damn you Phil Collins! The main problem with modern masters is that they just brickwall the earlier CD master from the 90s. That takes no effort and damages the music. A tasteful remix and dynamic master could add value to the original recordings. Re-recording outright however is fraught as a potentially pointless task. Twisted Sister rerecorded Stay Hungry supposedly so it would be "as we always intended" but it sounded even more shit and wasn't the original magic so had no nostalgia to carry it. In reality it was because they fell out with the record label and wanted to have a replacement out there which actually paid them. I bet they made about $40 bucks from the whole debacle. The upcoming rerecording of Paradise Lost Icon will be an interesting exercise. They've done it because they have no rights to the original masters and wanted to celebrate its 30 year anniversary. I really liked that album but haven't heard it in so long because I only had it on cassette! Therefore, I could get the new one and enjoy it on its own merits. That is my plan.

Plus one. Twisted into Form is a thrash standard, pretty much perfect. I saw a clip of the new singer and he seemed to do well. Those are big shoes to fill, and an even bigger t-shirt. It was something much discussed at the time. Spill the Blood is like South of Heaven reprised because the riff is pretty similar. But it works. Jeff at his best.

Due to Andy's association with Sabbat I could never not like the guy. Ironically, the production on those Sabbat albums is not great in my opinion and maybe he could even do a good remix if he kept the spirit of the original. Methinks labels do send work to producers who are a safe pair of hands. Sneap sure has done his time and dedicated his life to metal. But yeah, that samey production is not a selling point, it is just something you live with. I would love to work with him one day and try and steer things in a different direction but doubt I can afford his rates! I've worked with another name producer Jaime Gomez Arellano, who did the last 4 or 5 Paradise Lost records (recorded, mixed, mastered) and he is the consummate professional, but he definitely has a "house sound" especially for drums which are just on the wrong side of too polished for my tastes. But others must love it or they wouldn't go to him.