Duke

Santa Cthulhu regrets to inform you that Cthulhumas is cancleed due to oversleeping. Sleeping for aeons until the stars align causes the alarm clocks in sunken R´Lyeh to malfunktion now and then. It´s probably the damp. However, Santa Cthulhu would like to inform you that pink anymals are perfectly acceptable if the pink comes from arterial spray from the slaughtered millions in The Great Old Ones´ blasphemous rampage across helpless humanity.

Can´t be bothered to start a new thread and it´s kinda connected...

 

Next Maiden album will end with an 18 minute song written by Bruce. He´d better surprise me. Maiden´s decline into prog wannabes is starting to get sad.

And of course the SOB did surprise me. The new album is amazing and "Empire of the clouds" is the best of the bunch. I stand happily corrected.

BÖC are terribly hard to cover, Metallica failed completely as well. Only good cover I´ve ever heard was by Swedish garage band The Nomads, they did a terrific version of "This ain´t the Summer of love".

Damn, I never realized that I victimized everyone here by posting in English! Förlåt som fan då!

That's the loneliness of a long distance runner. ***rimshot***

Thanks for reminding me of probably the most boring song from the first seven albums. I worship this period of the band. EXCEPT that damn song! I guess that´s the blueprint for all the post reunion albums as well. And I AM a long distance runner, but imagine having this in your head for an entire marathon? Physical pain would be the least problem in the last few miles.

Oh I´m fine with hits and misses. It´s the ten minute songs with choruses that repeat the title of the song 16 times in a row that are bugging me. And that Maiden has made the same album four times in a row now, this looking to be the fifth. Not to mention that if you really, really have to make a ten minute song (not to mention an 18 minute song), it´s nice if something, you know, happens in it. I love epics just as much as the next guy, but Maiden just can´t make the dynamics work for all their extended tracks with a few notable exceptions like 7th son and Paschendale.

Can´t be bothered to start a new thread and it´s kinda connected...

Next Maiden album will end with an 18 minute song written by Bruce. He´d better surprise me. Maiden´s decline into prog wannabes is starting to get sad.

For underrated, how about "Flick of the switch"? Nice and dirty album, second best with Brian in my book.

For overrated, "For those about to rock". Does anyone ever listen to anything here except the title track? The rest is really, really boring.

To be honest, I´d rank "Fly on the wall" pretty high among the Brian albums as well. It´s a bit poppy and clean for my taste, but at least has 3-4 memorable tunes which is more than can be said about most of the albums that came later.

Let there be Rock

This would be the correct answer. But out of the two, given that we´re talking about the European/American "High Voltage" (with only two songs from the Aussie release and the rest from "TNT") I´d go with "High voltage". Just barely. I never liked the production on "Highway to hell", it´s just too nice and clean for an AC/DC album.

Both rank below "Powerage" for me. That´s the big underrated album in their discog.

The good kinda villian that you´re really cheering for is my take on it. Amazing album by a seriously underrated band and one of my all time faves. The beautiful harmonics makes it even more sinister - cheerful and violent just like the Piranha Brothers liked it.

This was probably one of the weirdest internet rages in all the long history of internet rages. A contract that says that film-Peter Parker has to be a lot like comics-Peter Parker? The horror! The homophobes! The racists! The non-smokers!

Frank himself isn´t a very compelling character, no. He´s almost not a character at all. But with the right company he makes for a great story anyway. He can give Daredevil or Spiderman or whoever a look at what they might become if they cross the line. Or he can be the straight man force of nature as Garth Ennis wrote him with an insane rouges gallery around. His Frank was basically a new version of the Saint of Killers from Preacher. Totally without a sense of humour which made him all the funnier in weird situations.

Even the few pages Frank got in "Original sins" made me laugh out loud. Especially after hearing the long and shocking (well... kinda) explanation for all the killings and Frank shrugging it all off with "I don´t see the problem".

Of course, with Frank around there´s also a useful deus (diabolus?) ex machina for when a villian really needs to be offed without using the old Batman and Disney copout "OMG the bad guy fell off this tall building just because I punched him 300 times! The horror!"

The only bad thing is that Frank will get his ass kicked. I prefer him messing up the boyscout like Garth Ennis let him.

Here´s hoping for a spinoff!

Heh...

Still no word on a European tour. But lacking that I´m pretty curious about the R40 ten (!!!) dvd box. Anyone take out a second mortgage to get it yet?

I´d say that there is quite a lot of Bathory´s "viking" era in Taake´s sound, except with much clearer production. But that´s almost a given for the folk influences metal bands. Darkthrone had a good run with their early albums but nowadays I really can´t listen to the silly punk ditties they turn out.

Ever try Summoning? "Dol guldur" is probably the best place to start, ambient BM at its best!

Taake´s lyrics are pretty silly in general when they write in Norwegian, little ghost takes or tributes to old folklore badly written. At least they stay away from the usual saaaaaaaataaaaaaaan stuff.

Damn, I missed this thread...

Indeed a great album, definitely their best. The balance between sheer aggro and creating suspense is impressive and to me the most important thing in BM, the all-blastbeat bands get boring, not to mention just silly, so fast. I wouldn´t rank Taake or any of their albums up with the best from Bathory, Burzum or Summoning, but they´re just one step below along with Enslaved and early Samael in my book.

Ah, gotcha!

Little bit dark yes... I´m glad that I don´t know what a "Harvester of eyes" is but I have some nagging suspicions. The nice melodies and harmonies always made them creepier to me, celebrating the horrible stuff they wrote about instead of warning for them. Late-day classic "Harvest moon" (I gotta know if that was an intended Neil Young parody, I sure hope so) is a perfect example of a nice, clean cut, nostalgic song about child murders. Way more disturbing than some Norwegian 18 y o with his face made up like a fraking badger screaming incomprehensible stuff about entrails.

Skull possessing different bodies - including Steve´s - was a major part in Brubaker´s Cap run so yeah, he could do that.

Well, Boston, Styx and Kansas are/were about as good as in goody-two-shoes as bands can get and that´s not very rock and roll in my book. BÖC on the other hand did some of the most spine-chilling, cheerfully evil songs ever. So I guess in that case it was the good ole fashioned part that was missing while the other three weren´t much rock and roll?

Owen Reece/Molecule Man would be a good fit for Freeman. Civil War needs a real villian and he´s powerful enough to warrant a truckload of heroes.

That said, I prefer the idea of sticking Red Skull as the real villian of the story. It worked in the comics and with Crossbones in the movie it makes sense that his boss should be around as well. End it with Steve shot on the staircase, throw Bucky in as Cap for a while and then let him come back with the Reborn storyline and Skull´s comeuppance. Yeah I know, they don´t care much about the comics and left Skull´s part out of the Winter Soldier storyline but anyway.

Indeed. The few songs that don´t follow that formula have been great though. "Paschendale" and "Ghost of the navigator" are without a doubt my fave songs since the reunion. Both are long and epic but escape being repetitive. The last two albums have been incredibly forgettable. I guess "Coming home" was good on the last one. It sounded more like something from Bruce´s solo career. Funny how the Big Two of British metal have taken totally different roads since the classic singers came back. Maiden have lackluster albums but are still a force of nature on stage. Priest have done much better albums but have lost most of their power live.

Well, you did start out with the two best songs on the album there! Unfortunately, it´s back to the old Priest sin (after sin) of being terribly uneven. I might change my mind after seeing them live at SRF this summer, but I doubt it. Last few times it´s been painful in the wrong way to see Halford hunched over a monitor trying to reach his old wails. Pain-KILLLAAAAAAAH and "Angel of retribution" were IMO exceptions to the rule of being almost totally complete albums. Otherwise, you have to go back to "British steel" to find an album that doesn´t contain too many fillers. That said, I take failed experiments over the last few Maiden albums with sticking to the same formula: making the songs way to long and have a chorus that consists of repeating the title until you wanna puke. A brave new world, in a brave new world, a brave new world, in a brave new world, a brave new... SHUT UP!

Who knows what the status quo after Secret War will be anyway...

Yeah. That´s the elephant in the room for every "shocking" Marvel development right now. It can always be returned to the old way after The Big Crossover.

I´m mostly upset because this run of X-Men has art like a kid version.

I´m with you on "Angel of retribution" - funny, I´m wearing that concert shirt right now! And "Nostradamus" is underrated, as a single disc it might have been as good. Not that fond of "Redeemer of souls" though - and shame on you for ranking it over the mighty "Painkiller". Couple of great tour though, even though Halford´s voice couldn´t crack the toughest songs. Guess I was a bit disappointed when the albums came out since Halfords "Resurrection" was so much better than any of them. Same goes for Maiden, nothing after the reunion has been close to Bruce´s (and Adrian´s) "Chemical wedding".

I´m really not counting "Psycho circus" as a reunion album. Ace plays on a total of three tracks and Peter on one... the crap one he sings, "I finally found my wheelchair" or whatever. Title track and "Into the void" are great, the rest is lackluster. I actually rank "Sonic boom" higher. Live, it was a gas seeing them together, first time for me! But listening to the bootlegs now I wonder how much was wanting it to be great. Peter especially was terrible. Not as bad as the "Dynasty" tyour, but bad enough. The setlist was unbeatble though and at least for the first tour, Ace was on fire. Sometimes litterally.

NEW THEORY! THE ENDOR WAVE!

 

Jaku is actually Endor. It was just decimated as all the debris from the Imperial Fleet and Death Star feel to the ground, killing Ewoks, burning down trees and turning it to a wasteland.

Aaaaaah those were the days! I really, really can´t explain to my staff why I started laughing my ass off there.

NEW THEORY! THE ENDOR WAVE!

 

Jaku is actually Endor. It was just decimated as all the debris from the Imperial Fleet and Death Star feel to the ground, killing Ewoks, burning down trees and turning it to a wasteland.

Aaaaaah those were the days! I really, really can´t explain to my staff why I started laughing my ass off there.