The weird and the wonderful

For those of you who have forgotten (and if so, shame on you), Art By Numbers released their debut album, Reticence: The Musical, on 29th May. It's a really catchy album which would be a great gateway for people trying to get into prog metal and even metal in general, but still manages to stand tall in terms of technical skills and writing. They decided to mostly drop the screamo from their Reyes and Minotaur days (those songs make a comeback in non-screamo versions, by the way), which is not necessarily bad, but just different. I've listened through the album about 4 times already and I'm still trying to decide on my favourite song of the album, so instead of giving any recommendations I'll just link directly to their full album stream and you can decide on your own.

Now that we're done with the wonderful, it's time to talk about that other thing. And if you think that I'm being judgmental by calling out a whole other genre of music as "weird", then I assure that what you're about to see and hear is objectionably weird. Say hello to BabyMetal:





It's kawaii-style J-pop... With death metal... I'm not sure if I need to say anything else. But all things said and done, "weird" does not necessarily exclude "good", and I can't say that I outright don't like this music; the metal parts are decent enough, and the J-pop parts are bearable. But then you get to actually watching the music videos, with the 3 girls acting sickeningly cute enough to give anyone diabetes against a backdrop of blast beats and guitar riffs, and I find myself getting goosebumps every time I force myself to sit through them. I'd hate to jump on the "WTF Japan" bandwagon, but seriously can you blame me in this case?

BUTTERSAFE

Alright, after all that jazz, the SAT is finally over. Some things went quite well, some things could have gone better, but overall I don't really want to dwell on the past anymore. Instead, I have focused my attention on hilariously retarded webcomics. And here is where I present my bountiful find of the night: http://buttersafe.com/. I actually wanted to post some of the funnier comics here, but then I realised it would be pointless because it's all funny. So instead, I will post the URL again with an extra-large font.

http://buttersafe.com/

There you go. Now get off this blog. Buttersafe is waiting.

Art By Numbers

You know that feeling when the lead guitarist from your favourite band decides to give guitar lessons, and two of his students decide to set up their own band? No? Well, last week I found out what that feels like, and it is AWESOME.

The favourite band I'm talking about is The Human Abstract, and their lead guitarist AJ Minette was giving out guitar lessons at one point (in fact he's still doing that now). The newcomer band that I'm totally impressed with is Art By Numbers, and although you'd think that they'd sound too similar to THA, they surprisingly manage to distinguish themselves pretty well, preferring to go slower and let the classical influences sink in.

Here are a few songs for you to hear for yourselves:











I'd embed more songs, but unfortunately this is literally all there is... As a new band, this is all the material they've ever released. Their Facebook page says that they have an LP ready to be released, but they're not letting it out so soon, presumably to see how long a person can writhe about in agonising anticipation before collapsing from exhaustion.

Moonlight Sonata

The Human Abstract decided one day that they were not being awesome enough since the release of Digital Veil, so they decided to release a cover of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and you can bet that it's every bit as awesome as "amazing neo-classical progressive metal band covers famous piece from genius composer" would imply.



On a related note, after last year's flurry of amazing albums from The Human Abstract, Protest The Hero, Last Chance To Reason, Iwrestledabearonce and Mastodon, the music scene in the months ahead seem depressingly bleak. It's time for me to start looking out for new bands to get into to fill the void. Suggestions are welcome and I promise to be open-minded enough to give every band a listen, at least for 2 or 3 songs.

That's right, let's just keep soliciting feedback from my amazing readership of awkwardly loud crickets.

I used to want you dead, but now I only want you gone

Sometimes, I like to hunker down for a heavy dose of introspection and retrospection, examining what went right or wrong with my life and myself, and figuring out how I can make myself a better person from those experiences. Other times, I like to watch stupid videos on the Internet while chuckling to myself while family members scramble to find the IMH hotline. Right now, it's the latter.

This first video has a deceptively tame title. Seriously, you need to watch this, even if you don't play the game (fyi I've only ever played MvC 1 on the original PS)





I've always wondered how I can stare at nyancat for what seems like several eternities without being able to turn away. The answer, of course, is awesome subconscious hallucinations. And did I mention that I LOVE this new nyancat song?




Yup, a ten-minute loop of the song. But you probably already guessed that it was coming.



This last video is the ending credits of Portal 2, coupled with yet another great theme song from Jonathan Coulton, Want You Gone. It's weird how I've fallen in love with the ending credit songs of both Portal and Portal 2 while having never played either of those games before. I know I'm missing out on a lot, but in case you didn't know, I only trust my laptop to run games with Plants vs Zombies-like graphics intensity, so I'll grab a copy of Portal 2 as and when I feel like my laptop would be more awesome with a self-destruct function.

YES THERE IS MORE THAN ONE TYPE OF METAL

For some reason, I decided on a whim yesterday that I'll start listening to more non-prog metal. That meant stuff other than Protest the Hero, The Human Abstract, Last Chance to Reason and Cormorant, which eliminates a pretty big chunk of my top 25 most played on my iTunes. Thankfully, I stumbled upon this band called Machine Head :)



I know what y'all real metalheads are thinking: this kid knows about obscure bands like LCTR and Cormorant, but he's only JUST DISCOVERED Machine Head? Well, I'm not your usual metal lover I guess.

Not metal

Recently I find that my music taste has mellowed a little, going from metal to more altern-rock or maybe just altern in general.

First up, there's Muse, which I'm beginning to appreciate more and more. The Resistance was a bit of a disappointment though. I'd say my favourite album would be a toss-up between Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations. In any case, here's Map of the Problematique from BH&R:



So now going into the more altern stuff, here's a pretty good song I discovered from a band called MGMT called Kids. I honestly don't know what genre you'd call this:



And finally, here's an altern-hip-hop interpretation of the previous song by Chiddy Bang, rather unimaginatively titled Opposite of Adults (but the song is still good :) ):



Also, while I'm on the subject of embedding stuff, here's a funny webcomic:

Oh, and remember what I said about my music taste mellowing? Yeah, that's probably not true, because I'm totally looking forward to some sweet sweet melodic death metal from Cormorant on 6 December \m/

WubwubwubBOOMBOOM

I have recently become very VERY addicted to dubstep. Come on man: killer bass drops, pounding beat, changing rhythm patterns, dubstep is to electronic music what metal is to rock \m/ (and if it's not then sorry for only being able to come up with this comparison)

Viridian Forest (Pokestep) by TeoAcosta
(pogeymanz hehehe)



On a side note, I'd highly recommend anyone who's interested in electronic music in general to go look up Monstercat Media on Facebook or Youtube for an awesome music feed :D

Cool stuff

see more Failbook

Hehehe.

Also, I really REALLY want to try this. Probably during Wallaby, since it will be either that or counting the grains of sand in the outback:

It's not a typo if it's foreshadowing

Just because I haven't done this in so very long...

AN ENTIRE POST DEDICATED TO VIDEOS!!! :D


I know what you're thinking: you're thinking that you have better things to Do than to watch thrEe And a half minuTes of a cHildren's television programme. Well, you can just watch the whole thing first and reserve your condescending remarks till then.





New band w00t!!! Anyways, Cormorant are supposedly a melodic death metal band, but I don't really care what genre they are outside of "awesome". Oh, and when people ask me about my music taste I can no longer reply "Relax man, it's not like I listen to anything too crazy like death metal." In any case, this is Uneasy Lies the Head.


And finally we reach the star of this post... JON LAJOIE!!! This Youtuber is the absolute funniest comedy song writer/singer I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, even more so than The Lonely Island if I do say so myself (please understand that this is purely a personal preference). First, watch this video which was what caught my attention in the first place:

The part that really won me over? "I don't give a chainsawwwwwww"

Here's another great song. In fact, it's The Best Song:


Lastly, I just have to mention his two WTF Collective videos:

Remember your manners

Wow, it's been waaayyy too long since I did this.

Anyway, I have officially become a fan of Iwrestledabearonce (yep that's one word). Great technical skills, refreshing and sometimes even comedic "genre spasms" (a banjo hoedown interlude in the middle of a song, like wut?), and a female vocalist with the voices of an angel and a demon within her are all great plus points, but general opinion on them is crazily polarised so I wouldn't blame most of you for hating them to the core.Still, it never hurts to take a listen:

And now you can run along and tell your friends that you know what Karate Nipples sound like :D

Not just a game

Try reading this post while listening to the video at the bottom of this post with the lights off :)

While reading up on Lavender Town Syndrome (supposedly the screeching noise in the background of the theme music of Lavender Town in the original Japanese Pokemon Red game caused the deaths of hundreds of Japanese children, majority through suicide), I came across something more believable and more disturbing.

I'm sure that a game that carries as much symbolism as this has different meanings to different people. Personally, I feel that it is a statement on the tempting and corrupting effects of power. When we are equipped with such power that we can take down anyone who opposes us without breaking a sweat, we tend to forget the moral implications of utilising such strength, until the consequences of our actions one day come back to haunt us.

And in case you were wondering what the Lavender Town theme sounds like:

Just so you know, I've heard this theme a few times these past few days and I have to say that while it's certainly pretty creepy in the wee hours of the morning, I'm certainly not contemplating suicide at the moment.

NEW INTERNETZ???

So apparently while I was gone a few new memes popped up. First, of course, is Rebecca Black and her so-bad-it's-funny single, Friday:



Which of course leads to stuff like this:

And this:

And also, the Dating Site Murderer meme, which I personally found hilarious the first time I saw it:

I miss being up to date with teh interwebs :(

More new music

And apparently Protest The Hero also released a new lyric video while i was gone, so here it is :D


Protest The Hero - The Reign of Unending Terror (Official Lyric Video) from Vagrant Records on Vimeo.

Digital Veil

So Digital Veil was released while I was in the forest doing my sit-test. LISTEN TO IT. I'm serious, it's freakin' amazing. Here are some samples:

Gunslinger

Just thought that this is an appropriate song given my current situation. This song keeps me awake during sentry duty at 3am man.

Songs that happened while I was gone

So I came back from Tekong and was greeted by awesomeness.

Two from The Human Abstract:





And one from Last Chance To Reason:

Coded to Fail by prosthetic

Prog Metal March (and a bit of April too if you count LCTR's release) is going to be epic beyond words, so I won't even try to type out my feelings now.

DO MATH; BECOME UNSTOPPABLE

The gold here is in the fine print, it may be TL;DR but it's totally worth it.

Truth in advertising

Rabbit

Boom. I just gave you a nightmare.

[spoilers]
But seriously, I find this animation short mesmerisingly good. The use of 1950s children's book stickers and illustration style to represent the corruption of innocence; the insatiable hunger of the idol to represent insatiable greed; selling away quill sets to represent rejecting intellectual pursuits for wealth. The twisted, corrupted beauty of this short really is in the details.
[\spoilers]