So, I managed to remember to do the song of the week this time, although I'm a day late on it. Ah well. I'll get the hang of this regular posting stuff someday.
Demolition Hammer - Infectious Hospital Waste
So, I'm turning the clock back a bit this time. The last 2 songs of the week (also the only 2...) were within the last couple years. This one comes from the year 1990, almost two decades ago. But, I felt like posting about it because Demolition Hammer has been somewhat forgotten by a large number of metalheads, and they made some really cool thrash back in the day.
Now then, I'll talk about the actual song. Like many thrash songs, it simply starts out with fast aggressive riffing. The production is raw, and gives it a bit of a muffled feeling. This is unfortunate, as it somewhat lessens the impact of the riffs, but it's not too much of a detriment. The riffs are quite simply, great. They're surprising brutal for thrash metal, and frequently are on the verge of crossing over into death metal riffing. Indeed, Demolition Hammer seems to be very close to being death metal throughout much of their music (except for their last album, but that's a tale for another blog post). The vocals however are pure thrash. Raw shouting and spitting. It's what good thrash vocals should be, and they do their part. The song goes on for about 5 minutes, riffing away with this brutal thrash style. It's a great song, and shows how brutal you can really make thrash metal.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Aaaagh! Song of the week!
So, due to a variety of problems (such as me being sick), there were never any more short song reviews after the Swashbuckle song, even though I promised to do them every week. I apologize, and intend to make this a regular thing. Or as regular as possible. So then, onto the song.
Vesania - Rage of Reason:
So, for those of you that don't know Vesania is a symphonic black metal band, with some death metal thrown in here and there. They come from Poland, and their vocalist is Orion, the bassist of Behemoth, a Polish band that's very well known within the metal world. However, I'll avoid comparing this song to any of Behemoth's work. Now then, this song is rather good. It's got entertaining guitarworks, and good keyboard work. The keyboards really do complement the music well. They don't simply supplement the guitars, or drown them out either. They interact with them very well. Now, the vocals are what I really like about this song. Orion really has a unique style of black metal vocals, and the melodies he rasps, are very nice. The chorus is good raspy fun. There's one weird part in the song where you hear carnival music, but I guess that's to be expected considering what the artwork was for the album from which this song was; a creepy jester mask that would be right at home in some sort of bizarre evil-carnival.
So then, my overall decision is that this is a good song. Not amazing, but quite fun.
Grade: 8.2/10
Vesania - Rage of Reason:
So, for those of you that don't know Vesania is a symphonic black metal band, with some death metal thrown in here and there. They come from Poland, and their vocalist is Orion, the bassist of Behemoth, a Polish band that's very well known within the metal world. However, I'll avoid comparing this song to any of Behemoth's work. Now then, this song is rather good. It's got entertaining guitarworks, and good keyboard work. The keyboards really do complement the music well. They don't simply supplement the guitars, or drown them out either. They interact with them very well. Now, the vocals are what I really like about this song. Orion really has a unique style of black metal vocals, and the melodies he rasps, are very nice. The chorus is good raspy fun. There's one weird part in the song where you hear carnival music, but I guess that's to be expected considering what the artwork was for the album from which this song was; a creepy jester mask that would be right at home in some sort of bizarre evil-carnival.
So then, my overall decision is that this is a good song. Not amazing, but quite fun.
Grade: 8.2/10
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
[4e] Some Good ole Homebrew!
So, I'll spare the introduction and cut right to the chase. These are some homebrewed D&D fourth edition items. The levels are a bit iffy, but I never cared for them anyway. Hell, 3.x barely had a level system. Regardless, they're below! I especially like the 2nd and 4d. How about you all?
Quickened Scabbard Level 1
This holster gives its blade a quicker bite.
Wondrous Item 360 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (At Will): Free Action. Drawing or sheathing any blade from this scabbard is a free action.
Power (Encounter): Free action. If the weapon is draw with an enemy adjacent to you, you can +1 to attack rolls until the end of your turn. The weapon must have been sheathed in the last 24 hours to regain this power.
Spiritwrought Scabbard Level 9
A ghastly scabbard, covered with runes that fade and reappear.
Wondrous Item 4,200 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (Daily): Free Action. When this blade is drawn, you may activate this ability. If so, you can attack incorporeal creatures as if they were corporeal. in addition to creatures you can already attack, until the end of the encounter.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. When an enemy incorporeal creature reaches 0 hit points, you may choose to become incorporeal until the end of the encounter. You can become corporeal as a minor action.
Ring of Refraction Level 7
This square ring, covered in silvery mirrors, can redirect the attacks of your enemies.
Item Slot: Ring 2,600 gp
Power (Daily): Special. When an ally uses a Burst, Blast, or Ranged attack, you may count as the origin square. You grant line of sight and line of effect.
Power (Daily) Interrupt. When an enemy hit you with a blast attack, roll d20. If you beat your opponents unmodified to-hit roll, The attack is reflected in the opposite direction.
Magician's Best Friend Level 8
With this band, a talentless man becomes a wizard!
Item Slot: Ring 3,400 gp
Property: +2 to Arcana Checks
Power (At-Will): Standard Action. You may cast any of the 4 cantrips. You may not have more than one cantrip cast at once. If one cantrip is cast while another one is still act, the first cantrip is nullified.
Quickened Scabbard Level 1
This holster gives its blade a quicker bite.
Wondrous Item 360 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (At Will): Free Action. Drawing or sheathing any blade from this scabbard is a free action.
Power (Encounter): Free action. If the weapon is draw with an enemy adjacent to you, you can +1 to attack rolls until the end of your turn. The weapon must have been sheathed in the last 24 hours to regain this power.
Spiritwrought Scabbard Level 9
A ghastly scabbard, covered with runes that fade and reappear.
Wondrous Item 4,200 gp
Property: This scabbard resizes to fit any light blade or heavy blade.
Power (Daily): Free Action. When this blade is drawn, you may activate this ability. If so, you can attack incorporeal creatures as if they were corporeal. in addition to creatures you can already attack, until the end of the encounter.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. When an enemy incorporeal creature reaches 0 hit points, you may choose to become incorporeal until the end of the encounter. You can become corporeal as a minor action.
Ring of Refraction Level 7
This square ring, covered in silvery mirrors, can redirect the attacks of your enemies.
Item Slot: Ring 2,600 gp
Power (Daily): Special. When an ally uses a Burst, Blast, or Ranged attack, you may count as the origin square. You grant line of sight and line of effect.
Power (Daily) Interrupt. When an enemy hit you with a blast attack, roll d20. If you beat your opponents unmodified to-hit roll, The attack is reflected in the opposite direction.
Magician's Best Friend Level 8
With this band, a talentless man becomes a wizard!
Item Slot: Ring 3,400 gp
Property: +2 to Arcana Checks
Power (At-Will): Standard Action. You may cast any of the 4 cantrips. You may not have more than one cantrip cast at once. If one cantrip is cast while another one is still act, the first cantrip is nullified.
Monday, November 9, 2009
So boss it hurts!
Disclaimer: The below video may cause serious mental shortages and cerebral explosions. Seriously, not for the weak of awesome. (If you do watch you are unawesome, it'll bad… brains all of the walls… Huge burden on your family… You know, the works.)
Oh. Ehm. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
/fangirl
Now, we've all seen that really talented guy play the Mario theme on guitar (which, is awesome in its own respect), but I've never seen a modern song played on a harp. Let alone heavy metal? I love the riffing in the original song, by Iron Maiden, but the picking in that cover takes it to a whole new level. That guy has got some serious talent, quick fingers, and great taste in music. And that's why, he's the featured video of the week.
Oh. Ehm. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
/fangirl
Now, we've all seen that really talented guy play the Mario theme on guitar (which, is awesome in its own respect), but I've never seen a modern song played on a harp. Let alone heavy metal? I love the riffing in the original song, by Iron Maiden, but the picking in that cover takes it to a whole new level. That guy has got some serious talent, quick fingers, and great taste in music. And that's why, he's the featured video of the week.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Cruise Ship Terror - Swashbuckle
So, it's another post about music. It's something that Mr. Mud and I intend to do from now on. Every week, we'll post a quick paragraph or two about a song that we've recently come to like. We'll probably switch off every week. So, this week I have song duty. I'm gonna write about the song in the title, Cruise Ship Terror. So then....
The Song:
Arrr, this be a pleasin song. It's by Swashbuckle, who I mentioned in the most recent blog post. If you didn't read that post, then I'll quickly summarize them. Pirate theme thrash metal. It's quite fun stuff. In terms of rifffs and such, Swashbuckle isn't very original, but they are unbelievably fun, and their pirate theme is rather fun. Now for the song itself, this is a song about pirates attacking a cruise ship, stealing all the money and women, and in general doing what pirates always do. The song is fast, thrashy, and really fun. A high point is when the band starts chanting YO! HO! YO! HO! It has some solos at the end, but they aren't really anything special to talk about. It's got a fun, catchy chorus (party boat! parrrty boat!). In the end, it's a rockin song about pirates doing what pirates do best. And that's why it's the song of the week.
The Song:
Arrr, this be a pleasin song. It's by Swashbuckle, who I mentioned in the most recent blog post. If you didn't read that post, then I'll quickly summarize them. Pirate theme thrash metal. It's quite fun stuff. In terms of rifffs and such, Swashbuckle isn't very original, but they are unbelievably fun, and their pirate theme is rather fun. Now for the song itself, this is a song about pirates attacking a cruise ship, stealing all the money and women, and in general doing what pirates always do. The song is fast, thrashy, and really fun. A high point is when the band starts chanting YO! HO! YO! HO! It has some solos at the end, but they aren't really anything special to talk about. It's got a fun, catchy chorus (party boat! parrrty boat!). In the end, it's a rockin song about pirates doing what pirates do best. And that's why it's the song of the week.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Concert Review #1
So yeah, we haven't posted in a while. As Mr. Mud said, I've had technical difficulties. A lot of them. As you can see, they've lasted since August. I wish I could hurry the adventure up, but I can't. However, in the meantime I'm going to post something that I don't think we've had here yet. A concert review. Last night, I saw the Monsters of Death tour. For those of you that don't know, it's a tour through North America headlined by a Polish Death Metal band called Vader, with about 5 bands opening. So, onto the actual review.
So last night I saw Vader, and the five bands that opened for them. I shall now type up a rather un-brief description of it, describing how cool it was. For a short summary, scroll to the bottom.
Swashbuckle
So I walked into the venue after these guys had played about a third of their set. I looked at them, and was in awe. They were all dressed like pirates, and had a palm tree on the stage. In the pit there was a guy (presumably with Swashbuckle) dressed as a shark, moshing. After quickly buying some merchandise, I went down and enjoyed the show. These guys are very entertaining live. Instead of getting the crowd to go "Hey! Hey! Hey!" they had us chanting "YO! HO! YO! HO!". I've known of pirate themed metal bands for a while now, but this is the first time I've ever seen one live, and I must say that they made quite an impression. There's just something incredibly entertaining about a bunch of guys singing about bottles of rum and sailing on the high seas. In the end, this band was simply really fun.
Augury
This band started being fun before they even started playing. During their sound check, the venue was playing Nightwish songs from Dark Passion Play over the speakers so loudly, that they couldn't hear their instruments well enough to judge the sound quality. They kept yelling desperately that the music should be turned down. Eventually, when the sound either ignored them, or just didn't hear them, they started dancing around like it was pop music. Much of the crowd joined in, which led to good fun. Eventually, they got going. They played some very good progressive death metal, and as a reward for being a good crowd, they graced us with a beautiful bass solo. Their performance was good, although the vocalist had a shirt praising deathcore that some people in the crowd did not approve of.
The Amenta
This band certainly was weird. I didn't catch the beginning of their set, because I had seen Peter Wywczarek, and gone over to talk to him (in Polish!). But I quickly got back, and I was very entertained by them. They all looked fairly strange, with their faces lightly blackened by facepaint, the singer with his rather awesome leather boots and silver wolf-head belt buckle. The singer acted very....black metal, for someone who plays in a band that is industrial death metal. I had a hard time catching this band's name, since the vocalist always messed it up somehow when he said it, but I looked them up later. They were quite good.
Warbringer
Now this was probably the most entertaining part of the show during the night. Earlier, while Swashbuckle was playing, I had met and talked with their vocalist. Now, I had managed to get a spot right up in front against the stage (no barrier), so I had an excellent view. They started off with 3 songs on their new album, and kept kicking ass from their. They all were really into the music. One of their guitarists, John Laux, was so close to me I could have probably plucked his strings for him if I had wanted to. John Kevil (the vocalist) was a maniac, headbanging and jumping around. At some point the drummer from Swashbuckle ran on stage, and stage dived. John Kevil responded by saying "Yes, stage diving pirates are awesome! Arrrrr!" Later, Kevil stage dived himself, and was placed back on stage headfirst in a position that looked painful. Still, he got back up and managed to awe the whole crowd with how metal he was for the rest of the set.
Decrepit Birth
There's not too much I can really say about these guys. While these guys played, I rested up a bit because I had worn out my neck and voice during the last 4 bands, and I still needed all my headbanging power for when Vader came on. So I just stood and watched. They seemed to be fairly good death metal. They had live presence, and to a fan they probably would have very fun. I managed to catch a pick from the bassist, so I put it in my wallet so I wouldn't lose it. Then....I lost it. I feel kind of stupid about that.
Vader
And now for the headlining band. Really, they were simply fantastic. They played great songs, had lots of energy, nailed all the solos, Hyped up the crowd really well. A near perfect performance. Except for 2 issues. The first was that for some reason Peter's vocals were really low into the mix, so you could barely hear his growls. This was rather annoying. The other issue was that since there were a total of 6 bands playing that night, Vader's set was rather short, and they didn't get to play as many songs as I wish they would. This is especially a problem since they have a lot of short songs, so this really made it seem like their set wend by realy quickly. Still, they played some of my favorites such as Sothis, Silent Empire, and This Is The War, so I was overall happy with it. Things such as sound problems or short sets can't hold back a great band like Vader.
So overall, I would rate the show an 8/10. If you're a fan of any of these bands, then go ahead and check out this tour. It's well worth it.
So last night I saw Vader, and the five bands that opened for them. I shall now type up a rather un-brief description of it, describing how cool it was. For a short summary, scroll to the bottom.
Swashbuckle
So I walked into the venue after these guys had played about a third of their set. I looked at them, and was in awe. They were all dressed like pirates, and had a palm tree on the stage. In the pit there was a guy (presumably with Swashbuckle) dressed as a shark, moshing. After quickly buying some merchandise, I went down and enjoyed the show. These guys are very entertaining live. Instead of getting the crowd to go "Hey! Hey! Hey!" they had us chanting "YO! HO! YO! HO!". I've known of pirate themed metal bands for a while now, but this is the first time I've ever seen one live, and I must say that they made quite an impression. There's just something incredibly entertaining about a bunch of guys singing about bottles of rum and sailing on the high seas. In the end, this band was simply really fun.
Augury
This band started being fun before they even started playing. During their sound check, the venue was playing Nightwish songs from Dark Passion Play over the speakers so loudly, that they couldn't hear their instruments well enough to judge the sound quality. They kept yelling desperately that the music should be turned down. Eventually, when the sound either ignored them, or just didn't hear them, they started dancing around like it was pop music. Much of the crowd joined in, which led to good fun. Eventually, they got going. They played some very good progressive death metal, and as a reward for being a good crowd, they graced us with a beautiful bass solo. Their performance was good, although the vocalist had a shirt praising deathcore that some people in the crowd did not approve of.
The Amenta
This band certainly was weird. I didn't catch the beginning of their set, because I had seen Peter Wywczarek, and gone over to talk to him (in Polish!). But I quickly got back, and I was very entertained by them. They all looked fairly strange, with their faces lightly blackened by facepaint, the singer with his rather awesome leather boots and silver wolf-head belt buckle. The singer acted very....black metal, for someone who plays in a band that is industrial death metal. I had a hard time catching this band's name, since the vocalist always messed it up somehow when he said it, but I looked them up later. They were quite good.
Warbringer
Now this was probably the most entertaining part of the show during the night. Earlier, while Swashbuckle was playing, I had met and talked with their vocalist. Now, I had managed to get a spot right up in front against the stage (no barrier), so I had an excellent view. They started off with 3 songs on their new album, and kept kicking ass from their. They all were really into the music. One of their guitarists, John Laux, was so close to me I could have probably plucked his strings for him if I had wanted to. John Kevil (the vocalist) was a maniac, headbanging and jumping around. At some point the drummer from Swashbuckle ran on stage, and stage dived. John Kevil responded by saying "Yes, stage diving pirates are awesome! Arrrrr!" Later, Kevil stage dived himself, and was placed back on stage headfirst in a position that looked painful. Still, he got back up and managed to awe the whole crowd with how metal he was for the rest of the set.
Decrepit Birth
There's not too much I can really say about these guys. While these guys played, I rested up a bit because I had worn out my neck and voice during the last 4 bands, and I still needed all my headbanging power for when Vader came on. So I just stood and watched. They seemed to be fairly good death metal. They had live presence, and to a fan they probably would have very fun. I managed to catch a pick from the bassist, so I put it in my wallet so I wouldn't lose it. Then....I lost it. I feel kind of stupid about that.
Vader
And now for the headlining band. Really, they were simply fantastic. They played great songs, had lots of energy, nailed all the solos, Hyped up the crowd really well. A near perfect performance. Except for 2 issues. The first was that for some reason Peter's vocals were really low into the mix, so you could barely hear his growls. This was rather annoying. The other issue was that since there were a total of 6 bands playing that night, Vader's set was rather short, and they didn't get to play as many songs as I wish they would. This is especially a problem since they have a lot of short songs, so this really made it seem like their set wend by realy quickly. Still, they played some of my favorites such as Sothis, Silent Empire, and This Is The War, so I was overall happy with it. Things such as sound problems or short sets can't hold back a great band like Vader.
So overall, I would rate the show an 8/10. If you're a fan of any of these bands, then go ahead and check out this tour. It's well worth it.
Monday, August 24, 2009
More of the same, really.
So, sorry for the delay, but you may have come to expect it from us - which isn't uncalled for in the least bit. Anyway, the reason the Adventure isn't up yet, is because my awesome counterpart, is running into some rather unawesome technical issues. But the adventure will be up by Thursday. To make up for this... Another sneak peak!
Uhm...
...
There'll be a part two!
Uhm...
...
There'll be a part two!
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