Gavin B.

On Daft Punk: Does anyone know what the story is with Darth Vader helmets?

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Key

A Visual History of Daft Punk’s Helmets

Key

Number 4 out of 15: Asia - XXX

Favorite track: Tomorrow The World



This album got a lot of hate for being from a band that have been in the music business for a very long time. I for one am not one of those that found a lot of disappointment from this album, I thought it sounded exactly what I was expecting from a new album by them. The first track (and my favorite) Tomorrow The World is a great way to open an album, just based on the fact that it is so god damn catchy and addicting. I do find that perhaps there are a few boring songs within the album, but there's always bound to be with any album. I loved hearing this album for the first time when it came out, but I want to say, searching for the album on Google can at times be a very awkward search, so just be sure to have safe searching on, because those clever bastards decided to name their album XXX, which can bring up some interesting results, especially for a band named Asia. Fantastic album, and definitely a worth of a place on my top 15 list.

Trollheart

You know of course that I disagree with you in the strongest possible terms that don't escalate to a knock-down fight or perhaps a round-the-world balloon race. Absolutely hated it, start to finish. Pretentious crap, and not worthy of the name of this fine band. A total crapfest, massive disappointment and not only that, they ripped off BOC on the riff for "Got no religion".

Other than that, it was fine.

Seriously, I had a big argument with another reviewer on a separate site who thought as you did. How anyone could think this album worth doing anything with other than using it as a frisbee is beyond me. You're entitled to your opinion of course, but you are wrong --- never gonna see eye to eye (hah!) with anyone who praises this album in the slightest. Almost ruined Asia for me, terrible, terrible album with not a hint of creative thought or interest in doing anything to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the band. I mean, what the fuck is "Gatto negra" about?

Funny point about the Googling though: top marks there! Hope Lil wasn't with you when the results came onscreen!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Key

Man oh man, where have the days gone?! Hello everyone, yes...I am in fact still alive, the last few months have gotten busier than I could have foreseen. What with moving into my new apartment, starting and still working at my new job, and managing my time with sleeping and working. Honestly, I have been wanting to write more entries for my journal, because I really like what I have going here, but unfortunately the time does not allow for it. Anyway, while I also haven't had much time to update my journal, I unfortunately have not had enough time to get around to listening to some of the new releases that I have been hearing about. Today, while I am "stealing" some of the libraries WiFi, I have decided to download a few just to get things rolling again:

First one in the queue is one I have been hearing nonstop good things about -

City and Colour - The Hurry and The Harm


I don't know what to expect from this album other than a typical Dallas Green album, which is completely alright with me. Even though I do miss the Alexisonfire days, Dallas Green has managed to make a name for himself with his solo career, and with each new release, he's managed to continue to make his name known. His last release "Little Hell" was one that I held very dear, one that made it to my favorite albums of all time lists, this new one will hopefully meet those standards if not exceed those standards. With this one, I'm really hoping to be as satisfied as I usually am with his albums, because I know he can deliver, and I hope he doesn't start going down a rough slope as more of his albums evolve.

The next one in the queue will be one that I have been so eager to listen to -

Sigur Ros - Kveikur


First off, holy hell, another new album? It hasn't even been that long since Valtari was released has it? Maybe it has, but hey, my grasp on time is very flawed. I cannot even believe they've managed to pull another album out in such short time, but I cannot express my excitement in just words, because I always seem to be blown away with their new releases, and nothing stops me from listening to their new albums 100+ times without it becoming stale, sort of how Daft Punk's new release has not grown stale, I do feel that this one will have that same effect. I don't want to say much on this one, seeing as I have yet to hear it, but I will say more once I listen to it a few times.

Anyway, that's my update for today, hopefully I can pull some more through in the next few weeks.

Key

I'll admit, it's been a while since i've given Led Zeppelin a thorough listen, however I remember back a few years ago when I decided it was a good idea to have physical copies of all their CD's, was it a good decision? I look back on it, and I still answer yes to that question, since it allowed me to experience them as a whole in one sitting, which was fun. Admittedly, I didn't see much to them when I listened to them for the first time, as I was expecting something super fantastic, however I also didn't find them boring and underwhelming, because there was a lot that I loved about the whole experience. Before I allowed myself to experience all their albums, I was one of those people who only knew about Kashmir and Stairway To Heaven. Which brings up another point, sure...Stairway To Heaven is a great song, but holy hell, I don't think it deserves as much praise as it receives, but it helped to continue to think about the fact that it's only one song, and that there were plenty of others that I grew and have still loved to this day, one being Ten Years Gone which coincidentally is placed on my favorite Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti. I am happy to admit that this band receives a rating of...



Definitely worth the hype, I mean...at first I found a lot of the Zeppelin discussion to be rather boring and bland, but after giving them a nice thorough listen, I found them to be very enjoyable, and it even opened up the opportunity to listen to Robert Plant's solo work, which I also found enjoyable, but i'll save that for another day.

Key

Number 5 out of 15: City & Colour - Bring Me Your Love

Favorite track: Death of Me



Bring Me Your Love was the first album I ever heard of Dallas Green's solo work. My cousin actually introduced me to it when he learned that I was a pretty big fan of Alexisonfire, he told me that Dallas Green had been going solo and at that time, I wasn't entirely sure who he was, but when I heard this album, it became clear that he was very easy to spot out while listening to Alexisonfire. I'm pretty happy with that fact. This album overall has had a huge impact on my music taste more for the fact that I feel it opened my mind to vocalist that were a bit different, but evidently knew how to write a good song, which brings me to the point of why I find Death of Me to be one of the best, and obviously my favorite track on the album. It appeals to me in a way that most songs appeal to most people, it has a bit of personal touch to it that certain people can relate to. He talks about having alcohol being a muse as I did at one point in my life, and that made me realize that this guy has a lot more to offer than what I initially thought. Ever since then, i've been keeping an eye open for his new releases and each time, I can feel the personal touch that he puts into his music to appeal to those who need it most.

Key

So, I work at Value Village, and no, I'm not one of the people who stands up front and manages the cashier all day, I actually have a job in the back where we receive the donations. We call it the "Community Donation Centre". At first I was thinking this job would be sort of boring and it'd get old fast, but boy was I wrong. This last week, I came across something that was pretty cool, I mean...we get a lot of cool things in, like antiques, records, etc, but this one really got me excited:


Columbie GP-3 model portable record player

At first, I was looking at it and it looked like a standard portable record player, so my first instinct was to price it between 5$ and 7$. However, upon further investigation, I noticed that the controls were not in English, so I decided to look up the brand and the model number that was located on the bottom of the record, low and behold I find a few links providing pricing details ranging between $95 - $150. At that moment, I decided if I had priced it as low as I wanted to, it would have sold super quick, but for the wrong reason. I decided to price it at $29.99, which to some is still a steal, but we are required to price our items less than half of the worth since we are still a thrift store. Before pricing it and bringing it out to the floor, I figured it'd be nice to see if it even worked. I plugged it in, grabbed a Def Leppard album that was sitting on the book cart, and at my surprise, it was working, and it sounded fantastic. It was shocking and amazing to find such an interesting piece, but it was also surprising to find that it was a vintage piece that was worth far more than what I thought. I bet the person who donated it is kicking himself in the butt, especially if they decide to walk into the store and find that it is located in our showcase. Every day at my job is different, but finding these sorts of treasures is what makes it worth getting up in the morning and going through the day. Needless to say, I love my job, and this is just one example of why.

Key

Tesseract - Altered State (2013)



Of Matter
| Proxy
|| Retrospect
||| Resist

Of Mind
| Nocturne
|| Exile

Of Reality
| Eclipse
|| Palingenesis
||| Calabi-Yau

Of Energy
| Singularity
|| Embers

So, I picked up this album because of two things, one: it was released this year and I have been trying to both get into new bands and listen to the new material / catch up with music this year, and two: it was released by a band that I had never heard of, but they were labeled as progressive metal, so I was instantly interested.

This album wasn't something I was super excited to listen to right away, so it's been a few weeks since I got it. I listened to the full thing yesterday, and I was really hoping I had listened to it right away. It's a fantastic prog album, and everything about it oozes with jazzy proggy influence. The vocalist also does a great job in keeping the line between vocalist and musicianship very small. It basically all goes together very well and nothing really seems to out of place.

I was thought it was curious as to why the album is split up into 4 separate categories, but than I noticed as I was listening, the sections are very different from each other, they range from very fast paced proggy goodness, to slow melodic acoustic-esque musicianship. There's also a lot to be said about how well the album flows as a whole, so i'll go ahead and hit on that next.

I was sort of expecting to hear just a normal prog album that had a lot of thought musically into it, but I wasn't expecting to feel as though I was in a musical journey whilst listening. I ended up really getting into the music, and at some points, I was sad to know that the album was going to end soon, because some of the songs are short, but they are not in anyway filler, which I think this album does a fantastic job at. No filler. Just straight to the point, progressive rock.

Overall, I am really satisfied with this band and this album and I wish them oodles of success in their future endeavors. I don't know much about the band so I hope I didn't just butcher this review. I will however be getting a hold of their other records, even though they only have one other studio release, titled "One", so I guess it won't be all that hard to get caught up on their music. They also started in 2007, which was also shocking since it seems like they've been around for quite some time. I really do hope they keep up the good work because if they continue to shine as they did in this album, I see a lot of great material coming from them in the future.

Key

I remember about a year or two ago, this band was on my list of bands that I had to give a fair listen to, fortunately I had a friend on another forum who was absolutely crazy for them, so the recommendations he suggested helped me form a proper opinion about them. I was also told to give them a listen based on the fact that they have a similar sound to The Pineapple Thief, whom I have a huge liking for. I heard the similarities both in the instrumentals and the vocalists at some points, however in The Smashing Pumpkins case, there's one thing I cannot stand and can't seem to get my mind around it, Billy Corgan. He's not a great vocalist from my perspective, the experience I had with him was the same experience I had with Radiohead where I found the music to be awesome, the vocals were absolutely terrible. It didn't fit the music as well as I was hoping, but I really wanted to give it a few more listens, so I gave Siamese Dream a good few listens before I moved onto their other albums hoping something would change, but I wasn't too surprised when they didn't. My overall experience be it not the greatest, wasn't too much of a waste of time since I went out of my comfort zone and did my best to see what it was that people went so crazy about. I'm just not big on the whiny-esque vocals mixed with alternative-rock. I can stand it when it's a genre like emo or screamo because it's something to expect. So my overall opinion comes down to...



I do find it unfortunate that I find them to not be worth the hype they receive because they were a band that I did want to like, which is saying a lot since I don't normally go into listening to new material hoping to like them, I usually keep an open mind and decided later on, but I was giving such positive feedback when I said I was going to listen to them that I just felt it would be necessary to go into listening to it with the mindset that I will like them. Unfortunately I was wrong, but it's ok. I just don't think they're as great as people claim that they are. They sit on the same pedestal as Radiohead, so I don't see myself giving these guys a listen in the near future.