Zero Credibility

After rather long silence here’s sonic storm. I’ve got 14 new music CDs I ordered quite some time ago. Here they are:

I got to hear Antlers Mulm from my friend and got immediately hypnotized. This is the kind of music I fall in love instantly. It’s quiet but rather various and always interesting. First album “Silbergrauer Staub” is one of the first of the project so the music there is more ambient and somewhat simpler than in later works, but still, music is multilayered and attractive to listen to. Second CD is “Reverse” this one is very cool, here you can hear all strong sides of the project, and get hooked already. And the latest album, released on german Loki is “Withered Sparks”. This is the last work of the project and it’s the most mature. This is the album that introduced me to Antlers Mulm, it’s the most solid work I think, though I’m eager to get as much past albums of the project as i could because it’s really interesting and original. Also I’m gonna dig other projects of the Hans Johm’s label Sonderübertragung!. If you’re tired of the music you’re listening to at the moment and need something fresh, don’t miss this project.

Second comes good old power electronics Control with its very first album “Control”. Released on american Malignant Records (Black Plagve division) back in 1999 this CD still kicks. If you scroll to the past music posts you’ll see that I’m fan of Control and started gathering its discography. This is excellent example of proper death industrial. Since it’s first album it’s more raw than the later ones, this doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s otherwise more severe.

Second CD of Control I’ve got is released on Italian Eibon records “The Means To an End” in 2005.  The sound on this album is of the quality that makes me love Control. Dark grinding background and various kinds of grim atmospheres on top of it. If you like death industrial, you already have this album in your collection ;)

Next CD is a collaborative work of two awesome projects Herbst9 and Z’ev “Through Bleak Landscapes”. This is dark ambient from the masters of this genre. You’ll get everything what you expect from Herbst9 meaning, proper dark ambient from the darkest abyss, Z’ev mostly did percussion job there adding massive background to the music.

Next album is from my favourites of technological dark ambient Land:Fire “Incandescent”. This mini CDr sounds almost the same as Live at Sonic Lodge, with the difference that it’s studio recording but not live. When I hear this CD I wish these guys come here with the show again. I remember their performance two years ago with this program, it was one of the best dark ambient shows I ever attended to.

Der Blutharsch comes next with their next work which wipes their past style completely. With the “Philosopher Stone” Der Blutharsch completely abandoned martial themes and turned to some kind of a grim rock. Being a genius, Albin Julius never stagnates and goes forward. With this album Der Blutharsch proved they’re ready to live 10 more years successfully without becoming boring. Very cool album! Hopefully their future works will develop this trend.

I’m continuing gathering Southern Lord releases, and this album is the next in queue - SUNN O))) & Boris collaboration with the album “Altar”. Of course it’s slowest and heaviest music possible, but it’s mixed with female vocals on some tracks and almost wall of guitar noise on another. You won’t fall asleep in the deep droning dream because this album is not monotonous like pure SUNN O))) releases.  Still it’s of the same dark and heavy quality.

In the idle mode I’m getting Con-Dom releases. This one is “Live in Japan 2003″. What can I say? Proper Con-Dom release with its cold relentless music. Add here atmosphere of the japan (you won’t be able to escape it knowing the show was in Tokyo) and you’ll get nice power electronics release.

After some pondering I finally decided to get this live DVD “Cold Meat Industry Live in Australia”. This show features live performance of the bands like: Brighter Death Now, Deutsch Nepal, Raison D’etre, Bocksholm, Shinjuku Thief. It has very nice quality of video, not like that of BDN’s “Disobey” DVD. Sound quality is questionable, but this doesn’t matter as you get to see rare australian show of the good old CMI people. Btw, Lina isn’t drunk there, wtf?

Next CD is pure weirdness in terms of the label, and all that official shizzle. I still didn’t figure out full history of this release, only thing I know is that it’s mastered on Cyclic Law Records. Anyway this is a compilation called “Juche”. It all dedicated to the North Korea and its leader. Cover design is red with cold embossed korean letters. The music is ambient/power electronics from the acts like, Con-Dom, Operation Cleansweep, Genocide Organ, etc. Every track is good there. I like such compilations that are indeed quite useful and show best sides of the artists presented.

Nazi Ufo Commander’s last CD before his departure from this planet. “Radiant Entropie” features the same wicked ambient and sinister whisperings and chants. Here’s more vocals, some of the vocals are absolutely mad like woman moaning on 3rd track, or looped man voice on another track. This all brings even more confusing atmospheres to the music making it weird beyond reality like nazi saucers themselves could be. Listen this album and be ready for the grey invasion from the stars!

And final release is monstrous wooden box entitled “Wilde Jaeger”. This 2CD+3″CD compilation features european artists of folk and ambient nature. It dedicated to alpine mythos so this box is all full of images of the ancient gods and demons masks which are used in rituals or old pagan celebrations. Almost all tracks are worthy and opening a full spectre of the unknown artists for me as I’m not specialist in the folk genre. From the known artists there’s Allerseelen with some kind of grotesque track (I quite liked it). Being very various in presented music, this compilation promises to be in my player for a long time. I’m gonna explore some of the presented artists as well as I liked them a lot.

Thanks to the almighty briton Pauk “the busy” Healey I’ve got alot of disk space for my photogallery. There’s no new images so far, only old archive. But I promise to add new images from my Thailand and Croatia trips as soon as possible, stay tuned!

On a side note i’d like to thank the development team of the Plogger engine. This engine is indeed not bloated and heavy. It’s very functional and easy to use thing. It’s not that mess of the gallery I used ot have before. Plogger is highly recommended for those who’s looking for the proper image gallery.

Finished this amazing game last week during the vacation. This one is another example of top quality game for PSP. The game catches from the beginning with non stop action and various combat situations, like miniboss fight rapitly switching to the proper bossfight without time to relax. You move forward smashing skulls of the enemies, destroying environment and moving objects. Add here one of the best graphics on PSP I’ve ever seen and cool story which forces to play till the end. Upon completion there’re new challenges and God Mode (very hard) becomes available. And when you complete God Mode there are even more goodies will be opened in the game, from “the making of ” movie to the new secret levels. So, what do you think? I started replaying this game in God Mode now, yes it’s so cool and has awesome replayability. Highly recommended!

Finally I’ve found the game for PSP that’s really worth its money. It’s Final Fintasy: Crisis Core. The game is very varied in terms of gameplay and story. As in every japanese story or movie, it’s far from any cliche thus not boring. The characters’ development is very intriguing. Also characters design is one of the best in the games in general, especially animations and costumes. This game is beautiful in all aspects, from its weird combat style, which might be confusing in the beginning but then you get hang of it and it becomes really cool, to the minigames that are scattered across the game like little gems of fun. I also liked that the story is very important there, this is the main driving force of the game. Attention to details is top notch there, this also makes this game perfect. Designers put additional thought to remove all boring and routine moments from it. If you got PSP, I strongly recommend you to buy this game, you will not be dissapointed.

Being under deep impression of stoner doom I started digging Southern Lord label bands. This time I’ve got Earth’s “The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull”. This is the same slow rock like Hibernaculum. The music so relaxing and dark, that all my nature reverberates with its low frequency guitars. I think I’m gonna dig more of this stuff, this music is like drugs, you constantly craving for more. Same goes for SUNN O))).

Next CD is by Deutsch Nepal’s “Dystopian Partycollection”. This is a compilation of the various releases of DN that were released on vinyls and cassettes. This is quite valuable release for those who has no turntable but loves Deutsch Nepal, i.e. it’s exactly for me. This is quite nice release featuring alot of tracks with Lina’a cozy vocals and industrial dronings. Get it if you like Deutsch Nepal!

Decided to write about my adventures in the game that I play all this time in the background. Our guild took a nice pace in progressing through the game. Last time I made a post about WoW we were starting doing Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep dungeons. Oh my, that was 16th October I just looked! Time flies fast! For this day, i.e. 8 months later, we fully cleared Black Temple and Mount Hyjal and have them as our relaxing playgrounds now, taking challenges in Sunwell Plateau. But what’s most funny that happened last night is that I’ve got the weapon of the true nolifer - the legendary sword of Illidan (main bad ass guy in the game) - Warglaive of Azzinoth. This sword is considered to be very rare drop and having it is a big digital joy. So you can congratulate me and my guild in achievement of proper noliferism status. Now I look all asymmetric and need the second one! Damn this game! ;)

Got three grim releases from the swedish master of evil sounds today. First is a reissue of the old Maschinenzimmer 412 album “Macht Durch Stimme”. It sounds surprisingly fresh even being a recording of the end of 80s. The mix of distorted guitar and electro noises, ritualistic kind of rhythms and satanic kind of vocals make this album really remarkable. It’s clear that Nordvargr had a talent in creating dark atmospheres 20 years ago already. He’s hellspawn indeed :) It’s very good that the record got reissued by the old german label Dark Vinyl, otherwise I’d miss it completely.

Second is the newest work of Nordvargr - “Interstellar”. Issued in 444 copies on the polish label Beast of Prey. This is kind of space dark ambient. The album reminds releases of the canadian Cyclic Law label - quite amorphous and spacious sounds. Not the evil dark ambient we used to receive from Nordvargr lately. Still it has its development, climax and ending, not just a chunk of faceless ambient. Might be good for the fans of far space atmosphere and Astronomy Pic of the Day site fans.

The last CD is Nordvargr - “Helvete” released by the russian label Eternal Pride. This one is more structural and has that lovely sinister moods all over the album. Hellish themes and dark drones pierce whole work submerging you into the darkness of Hell. This is what was actually expected from Nordvargr this summer. I’m not satisfied customer. Consider this yet another proper release from this master of darkness. Waiting for his another new album “Pyrhulla” released on Coldspring.

Quite alot of time have passed since the last update. The reason is ismple: lack of time and inspiration to write something. Or you can call it general laziness. Anyway, the May turned to be unusually cold here, we were trying to survive chilling winds and rains here during the last two weeks, but seems things slowly turning back to normal summer schedule and one can go outside without thermal suit. And it seems nothing is able to push me to restore my photogallery back… I know the real reason of this, apart from laziness, I just don’t have new pics to show, so I really hope when I get new ones during my vacation two months later, I’ll just have no excuse not to revive my gallery. Until then, take it easy :)

But the point of this update to tell you about the last 4 recordings I’ve got recently. All of them (except DI6) came from the grim Southern Lord records. Lately, I became big fan of stoner rock and ordered some music of this kind. Southern Lord is considered the father label for such type of music and projects like Earth and SUNN O))) are the flagships of this genre. The first CD is Earth “Hibernaculum”. This is very slow rock, yet it’s heavy and moody. The first track is very catchy, it embedded itself to my head quite seriously, so i’m now walking with it sounding in my head looped all the time. Very nice album in general it also suits for the cold spring which passes beyond. There’s also compaion DVD with the interview and some bits of live of the band. Might come handy later when I’ll be serious fan of Earth.

Next CD is SUNN O))) - “Black One”. One of their top albums, very dark, slow and heavy droning… The music that fills everything within you with thick riffs and hellish darkness. This type of music always touched me by its primitivism and grimness. It’s not usual type of industrial electrodrones, it’s guitar based noise, which is always more alive you you can tell so. And if it treated with proper touch this guitar drone might become really heavy and nice sounding. I think I’ll start gathering SUNN O))) bit by bit in the future, though I’ll select carefully their albums as they’re quite varied by nature.

The next project atteacted my attention just because it features two types: Lee Dorrian of Cathedral and Stephen O’Malley of SUNN O))). This toxic mix resulted in uber heavy doom project. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine - “Rampton”. The music is the extra slow and heavy doom, that sometimes goes to kind of infra frequencies and destroy my ears. Lee’s vocals also add that special Cathedral’s atmosphere of bizarre. There are just three very lengthy tracks with somewhat funny titles like “New pants and shirt”, but it’s kinda hard to connect the music with such a funny title. Very cool project with just one single album. I think there’s no need for the second album as it will be impossible to outmatch the original.

And the final CD is by the good old Death in June - “The rule of Thirds”. This last album of the DI6 is quite light. I mean there’s just guitar plus some additional handmade thumps and sounds and of course nice vocal of D.Pierce. There’s no noises and all that stuff, just pure neo folk without any additional spices. Quite good and relaxing album for the DI6 fans.

Just a little note to those who’s wondering where the heck is my photo gallery - I took it offline because I ran out of space on this miserable hosting (just have 400megs) and not sure where to put my pics at the moment. Also, there was nothing new for the long period of time and that was another reason I took the gallery off as the old pics bored me immensely. Sorry to those who came here from the other sites that have links to my gallery…

With the release of Wordpress 2.5 I decided to post in this dusty “blog” and test new Wordpress which is now looks so leet that I feel out of place. Anyway, since the last site’ update almost 2 months have passed and it feels like 1 week. The life is quite monotonous work-home cycle here, with sporadic fun blasts like parties with friends, etc. I’m pulling myself out of the winter with the last effort. The spring is always quite depressing period for me as I fight two things: from the one side I’m kinda tired of the dark cold winter but from another I feel approaching summer sunny hell. And I’m not sure what to do to survive this collapse. The snow have melted. The mud, dirt and dust is now uncovered and lay all over the city, making me feel even worse. I’m craving for cleaning rains, but I know that there won’t be any heavy rain soon. Just sun that exposes all the old dirt making me feel sad. I wish this weather condition ends soon, making green leaves and grass cover ugliness of the world. But everything will be properly green in May or something, so it’s entire month or more to wait yet.

Living under these circumstances I’m still enjoying life as much as I can. I’ve finally read Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” which proved to be very close to the movie thus making movie indeed brilliant. I like Thompson’s style and enjoyed the book a lot. The book I’m reading now is Douglas Adams’ “Hitchiker Guide to the Galaxy”. This one is also very funny book with proper English humor which I’m fan of. I have a desire to re-watch the movie too.

In the gaming part of my life there’s hardcore raiding in WoW. We‘ve entered Hyjal Summit and Black Temple dungeons and raiding them constantly, which is really challenging and fun. I’m also very glad that there’s all Unreal Games available on Steam now. I was unable to buy UT3 here as it’s only russian version available (i hate translated games), but Steam gave me possibility to try proper UT3 and replay classic old Unreals if I ever will have spare time.

So this is basically what’s happening now at this end of the sewer. Nothing seriously exciting but not boring at the same time. Months sneak by while I’m busy performing my daily routines…