Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for December, 2008
Best New Albums: 2008 Edition
01238 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
It's that time again…the time where I look backwards and reflect upon this years new musical offerings. In order to be eligible for this list, the album must have been released in 2008. I might post a best new discoveries list later detailing the non-new music that I've stumbled across this year.
As far as new albums go, 2008 was a fairly slim year. Not a lot of new stuff that I was interested in getting (although I still have to check out other people's top music lists to pick up the things I totally missed through the year) but what it lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality. There's some really awesome releases this year. So without further delay…let's get right into this.
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Opeth – Watershed
My top album of this year, without any doubt is Opeth's Watershed. If anyone isn't familiar with Opeth, they're claim to fame is blending death metal elements (growled vocals, heavy riffs) with much lighter elements (clean vocals, acoustic guitars, keyboards, etc) to create music that's all about contrast. Everything has a purpose, particularly the growling which isn't overused and adds emotional impact to the songs.Watershed is their first album after losing 2 out of the 5 members and replacing them, so I was a little worried about the direction it would go. As it turns out those worries were totally unfounded. This album is totally Opeth, but it's something different too. They're progressing their sound while maintaining the elements that make their music special and unique.
Probably the best part of this release is it's composition. It plays really well for listening as an album. It's very heavy up front (after a short acoustic introduction) followed by a very mellow couple of songs and then returns to heavy territory towards the end of the album. Heir Apparent has quickly become my favorite Opeth song.
So, in conclusion, this was far and away my favorite release of the year.
- Ayreon – 01011001
This was the first new album I bought in 2008 and I knew it was going to end up on the list as soon as I had my first listen to it.
For those not familiar with Ayreon…this band is the brain child of Arjen-Anthony Lucassen, a man who can do pretty much everything. he plays all the instruments on this release except for some guest spots, the drums and most of the vocals. In fact, Ayreon really is all about the vocalists…17 vocalists in this case. All of Ayreon's albums are concept albums, part of a much broader story. The music is very eclectic, pulling heavily from the progressive rock genre, but there's also a lot of electronic and folk influences as well leading to an interesting mix of sounds.
This album's story weaves it's way through all of the previous Ayreon albums, referencing past efforts and story events, becoming a thread that ties the massive storyline together. Interspersed into the main storyline are several songs that seems to be disjointed, referencing the doings of current humans, seeming to try to send the point that we're all trapped in our own little worlds and that we should look up and see what's really around us more. These sections are my only real complaint about the album as they don't really fit in with the rest of the storyline.
But overall, this is one of my favorite Ayreon releases and I'll be playing it in heavy rotation for some time to come
- Frost* – Experiments In Mass Appeal
I wasn't sure if I would get this album in time to include it on the list, but thankfully, it arrived just in the nick of time about 2 weeks ago.
As the last two picks, I'll explain the band a bit…Frost* is the result of a Pop music producer and songwriter Jem Godfrey. While spending his days writing and producing jingles and theme songs for various things, his free time is spent working on progressive music that sheds many of the traditional cliches that one associates with the prog rock genre.
Their latest album is different in feel than their first, but it has the same Frost* undercurrent running through it. A little off-putting to me at first, I quickly came to terms with the new, slightly more pop oriented sound and really got into the album. Jem's hallmark is a very busy "wall-of-sound" sort of production on his albums. There's a TON of stuff going on in there, but it's mixed in such a way that it's never confusing and never becomes just a bunch of random noise.
It's not quite as unique as their first effort was, and overall I like Milliontown better, but this is a very solid effort that went a little too far into standard pop structures. I also prefer Jem's vocals to the new vocalist, but Jem still does nearly half the vocal lines on th is one, so it's not such a big downside.
- Porcupine Tree – We Lost The Skyline
Ok, so this is the part of the list where I start reaching for albums. I told you this year was pretty slim. This album is a live album, of an in store appearance of part of Porcupine Tree, performing for about 30 minutes.
What makes it really interesting is that because it's only 2 members of the band (Steven Wilson and John Wesley), they did a stripped down acoustic set with just the two guitarists, which lead to some really interesting and unique arrangements of the songs. Some work better than others, but overall, it's a very solid album and I'd like to see some of these get studio treatment, maybe as a B side somewhere.
The best part is hearing Normal played live and hearing Steven Wilson talking about how hard it is to play on guitar. And in fact, he messes up once and starts the song over to do it right.
- Apocalyptica – Worlds Collide
The only thing you need to know about Apocalyptica is contained in the opening sentence of their wikipedia page: "Apocalyptica is a Finnish cello metal band." All of the music is created with the cello and, these days, drums. They got their start working on metallica covers but eventually they started writing their own material. This album is almost entirely original material from the band, aside from a cover of David Bowie's Heroes done in German.The band shines on their non-vocal tracks, creating really heavy riffs and emotional melodies in a very unique way. Songs like Dreamer and Peace really showcase their beautiful melodic side whereas songs like Ion are really all about being very heavy. It can be hard at times to tell that all of the music is done with the cello and not an electric guitar, but…it is.
The downside of this release is the vocal tracks. They lean very nu-metal and are my least favorite part of the album. They could really do something special with vocal tracks but instead when vocals are introduced into the mix the music automatically swings into the generic nu-metal spectrum. The lone standout is the cover of Heroes which ended up quite nice.
While I really like this album, the vocal tracks dent it's awesomeness enough to where if there was anything else released this year that I had purchased, it would probably get dumped off the list.
Monday Of Fail
01239 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I had a little bit of a late Christmas present yesterday. I woke up at around 2 am with a very unhappy stomach. I sat in bed for a little while until it felt like I could move and then went to get a little glass of water. Obviously that was not a good decision as I ended up making a mad dash to the bathroom instead. I ended up not going into work because I was still feeling a little off and very tired. As near as I can tell, something I ate disagreed with me violently, since after that it was a steady progression of getting better all day. Nothing else which indicated that it was an actual stomach bug.
While I was home though I decided I wanted to start my macbook into Windows so I could play some Civilization 4 to pass the time. Before that I had installed the demo for a game a friend of mine (Jay) recommended (Overlord) and…I'm not sure what happened but that seemed to trigger my windows install to totally melt down. So I spent the morning reinstalling windows XP and calling microsoft to prove that I wasn't a pirate.
And the print for my new piece of artwork that has been previously referenced was delayed by UPS due to a late trailer, so that didn't come yesterday either.
Oh, and then I totally screwed up the chicken I was making for dinner, making me get take out.
So pretty much the best thing that happened yesterday was that I didn't end up with a cripling stomach ilness. This week is going to be looong as I'm really looking forward to doing a lot of hanging out with my friends this weekend. Is it friday yet?
My Christmas 2008
01243 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Phew. Finally have time to sit down and catch my breath after all the christmas related activities over the past few days. So far things have been good. There's one more holiday related gathering coming up on Saturday so there's still some more holiday left for me to go through.
Things started off on Christmas Eve for my family. Because my sister does stuff Christmas morning with her in-laws, we've started doing our main Christmas celebrations the day before to make scheduling a lot easier. I went over to my parents house early to help with the food preparation. Lots of vegetable slicing for salads and stuff like that. That caused the 3 hours before the rest of the family arrived to go pretty quickly.
Once my sister and her husband arrived, we did the gift exchange. I received a bunch of new penguin-y stuff from my parents including a set of penguin mugs that will be excellent for tea, as well as an embroidered penguin towel that my mom made (and was given to me by the dog…because she thought that I would need a towel to clean up with after she licks my hands whenever I come over). Other highlights include a swiffer wet jet (You seriously don't realize how much you appreciate these things until you move out), a hand mixer (because I borrowed one from them a while back) and a bunch of stuff for my 360 (extra controller, some battery packs, and Guitar Hero: World Tour guitar pack).
My parents dog enjoys stealing my dad's socks and shoe laces so my mom wrapped up a bunch of socks individually and included inside each package a pair of shoe laces to give to my dad, labeled as coming from the dog. So he was having fun matching individual socks to each other and pulling out shoe laces. Also, one of his gifts hadn't arrived yet, so my mom took an empty bag closed it up with as many clips as she could stick on there (so the air wouldn't escape) and gave that to him. Hopefully that one gets here today, but the way she did it was funny.
After the present opening, we played a little Wii. Specifically a Mini Golf game that my sister opened earlier that day. The best part of the game is going to be totally impossible to reproduce through text. But it had the most over exagurated announcer guy ( "PLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAEEEERRRRR OOOOOOONNNNNNEEEE… CHOOSE YOUR GOOOOOOLLLLLFFFFFEEEEERRRRR!!!!!") and the courses were very strange, but it was fun playing through them. After that the family sat down and watched a couple episodes of a TV series that my sister also opened earlier.
Meanwhile I headed to the kitchen to start making the macaroni and cheese for later. It was the first time I made it for other people, so I was a little nervous as to how it would end up turning out. But, as it happens, it seemed to have gone over great, and my mom appreciated having some time to sit down after running around all day. So that's a good thing too.
Once that was all done, some of the members of the extended family arrived for dinner and cards. Because my grandma is getting a little older and doubly because she just had some minor surgery, we didn't have the traditional gathering at her house on Christmas Eve this year. Instead the family kinda broke up into smaller groups at various houses and we're planning on doing a family reunion sort of deal sometime in the summer. So Mike, Stacy and Elizbeth (uncle, aunt and cousin respectively) ended up coming over to our place. That was a fun evening.
Christmas Day was a bit lower key in comparison. Like last year, my grandparents were going to come out to my parent's house for an early dinner and talking. I arrived early again to learn how my mom makes her lasagna for future usage myself. It seemed like after all the activity the day before, their dog was totally tired out and very sleepy. So I ended up carrying the dog around for a while and letting her sleep on me. My grandparents arrived on schedule and the afternoon went pretty well I thought. As is tradition, throughought the day we were watching bits and pieces of the A Christmas Story marathon on TBS.
Oh, another thing that should be mentioned. Thursday morning I was going to go play with my toys but, I ran into that eternal delima of Christmas day…Batteries not included!!! Of course the toy was my swiffer wet jet, but it's still the same general problem! The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that. I just thought it was kinda funny.
So, so far, so good as far as holiday stuff goes. Today is a little breather between family activites. I'll be home most of the day (although I might go out shopping just a little bit later as there's some stuff I need) but later I'll be headed over to my friends place for some Guitar Hero-ing, pizza and general hanging out.
Snowy Weekend
01246 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
This weekend was, on a whole…very good. And very snowy. We had two winter storms roll through the area this weekend. The first started on friday and made my drive home from work a little bit interesting. But it was made up for it later by the unveiling of my newest piece of artwork done by my friend (Wassy). I should get the print either end of this week or, more likely, beginning of next week and I really can't wait to see how that turned out. One of the coolest parts of it is that it's a digitally colored piece that doesn't have that overly digital look to it, and that usually translates really well when it gets printed. Really looking forward to seeing it, and I'm very thankful that she did it for me.
Saturday was going to be the day I went out to my friends for our regular weekend get-together deal but it ended up not happening so I spent the day basically screwing around. I'm nearing the end of my first playthrough of Chrono Trigger and I'm really enjoying it so far. I do think I will purchase it from gamefly so that I can keep my saved games for future playthroughs. There was also much gazing at the new art hotness through the day.
Sunday was snowstorm number 2. The plan was for me to head out for some hanging out with my friends in the afternoon once the worst of the storm had dumped it's stuff but due to some windshield wiper car related troubles they were having, I went out around 10 to help them fix the issue and provide some transportation for the purchasing of a new windshield wiper. That was kinda in the middle of the storm, but my Rogue handled the snow well (really, really like all wheel drive and traction control. Oh, and anti-lock breaks. How did I survive without you??) and I managed to get there with a delay of about 10-15 minutes.
After doing the shopping, the rest of the day was spent just hanging out. We watched some stuff on TV, I played a game of chess with Jay, had some spaghetti with a meat sauce… We also marveled at the total lack of quality of the people trying to clear snow from the parking lot. The worst bit was when they plowed half a sidewalk and left the gigantic pile of snow in the middle of it, blocking the rest of it. It was just a very good, very classic hanging out with your friends sort of day which is always welcome.
So all in all, on the weekend quality meter, I'd score this one as "very good"
Vox Hunt: Pet Project
01248 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Show us your pet(s). If you don't have one, show us one you'd like to have.
Submitted by munchorz.
Well, I have my Betta named Fish:
Plus another tank of fish:
But what I really want right now is a cat. Specifically THIS cat:
But right now, I'm living in an apartment with a no pets policy. My next place I'm specifically going to look for somewhere that will allow me to get myself a cat. I used to be very anti-cat, but I have been brought around to the dark side recently.
Wow…
01249 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I mentioned a few days ago that Wassy was working on a piece of artwork for me. Well…it's finished.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece is a pin-up piece of my main city of heroes villainess. It is a bit risque. Tasteful, but risque. It's pretty tame as far as these things go, with nothing really showing (lots of stuff almost showing, but nothing really showing. Probably the most revealing part is she's wearing a thong to give you an idea). However, artistically done as it is, I would apply the label NOT SAFE FOR WORK to it. So if that kind of thing bugs you, I would recommend not viewing the piece.
With that said…the piece is here (EXTRA NOT SAFE FOR WORK WARNING). I really, really love it. The subject is one of my villains from City of Heroes (well, City of Villains more accurately). Wassy had come up with a really awesome idea for a pose and I agreed (after a little persuasion) to let her do the piece. A couple months later when she got to it (she was VERY busy for a while there)…it was just totally worth the wait.
I especially love her face, in particular her eyes. They're very intense. Along with the stray strands of hair And also the coloring job she did on her skin. It's absolutely perfect. Everything is so soft and sensual. She really nailed the feel that I was hoping the piece would have.
As she was doing the coloring she was making comments about how good it was turning out, and even then..this just exceeded my expectations. This week had been kinda long and dragging quite a bit towards the end, for a lot of different reasons, but seeing the finished piece made it all worthwhile.
Where'd That Gym Come From?
01251 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Last night when Wassy and I were headed out to Applebee's, she was driving past what I thought was an empty shopping center that had been closed forever. However, something was different this time around…this time there were cars in the parking lot and lights on one of the buildings. In fact, it was a brand new Planet Fitness location!
I had been really wanting a gym in the area for a looong time, so I'm pretty excited to finally have a decent option that's about a 10 minute drive away. Close enough where I'm pretty much guaranteed to actually go if I get a membership. Which I'm planning on doing very soon as their prices are really affordable too.
The weird part is…I never saw them constructing the place. I was even in the city on Monday and never even saw the place. Then suddenly, it's there. I think somebody just dropped it out of the sky and it happened to land there. So yay to having a good gym in the neighborhood now!
Heroes…You Are Dead To Me
01252 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Last night was the final episode of Heroes before the break and…wow, was it totally lame. The show started in a bit of a rut this season, and if you recall, I put the show on notice back in October. Since then, it seems to have gotten a little bit better. Until the last couple shows.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that they're just stealing from every popular movie and comic book idea in existence and mashing it all together. Including previous seasons of Heroes. The storyline seemed to have improved only because they railroaded it back on the tracks of the first two seasons. It really feels like at the beginning of the season the try to break out of the mold, fail horribly at coming up with something original and then pick up the pieces and push it towards what they know they can do right before the mid-season break. It's utterly predictable.
In addition, they're playing with laws of physics that just should not be played with. For example, solar eclipses only last 5 minutes..tops. Not a couple hours like the one in the show did. Also you cannot run so fast that you travel back in time. Not according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity anyway, but that was the explanation they used.
I understand it's a show about people breaking the laws of nature and physics…but if you're going to bring in real world science to your show, at least try to get it right…Dah!
I'm not coming back after the break. I'll watch it if it's on or if i'm really freaking bored, but Heroes has officially lost me.
The Weekend. A Retrospective
01254 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Another weekend, another huge retrospective post! Although as far as activities this weekend was a little slim on those. Just a lot of relaxing stuff going on.
Friday was the day that would never end. I had been looking forward to doing some old fashioned hanging out with my friends pretty much all week which was causing time to slow down to a crawl. But once 5 hit, it was all good. My dad came over to play some Madden 08 on the Wii, as we've started to do the weekly football games again. This week was a repeat of the last week because the game froze just as I was saving our progress when we got done. The highlight was probably the first play of the game where the first thing the commentator said about my dad's team was "They're in field goal range!" It seems he didn't have too much confidence in my dad's ability to score on that drive (and he didn't score actually)
Saturday was the hanging out day with my friends. I went over there with my Xbox 360 and Rock Band and we were just going to hang out and have a good time. Which we did. Rock Band was sorta spoiled by a crappy song selection by the game, but in the future we're just going to pick songs and not worry about the career mode.It was fun for a while but probably better off just going through the song list. We watched some Justice League Unlimited which was really fun (except for a couple episodes) and then saw the Dawn of the Dead remake which was really good and caused me to be afraid to sleep. Was just classic hanging out stuff that was very relaxing and fun.
Sunday was the usual get out and take care of all of my errands for the week, laundry and grocery shopping. After that I played some Synergy with Jay (basically lets us do a co-operative play through of Half Life 2) and got a little cleaning stuff done in the living room, trying to make it not look so much like something exploded in there. I tried to do the dishes, but realized I was out of dish soap and had forgotten to pick some up. Dah!
All in all, a really nice weekend. Ahhh, needed that relaxation after the alternating stress and awesomeness of the last weekend with the TSO concert.
Vox Hunt: Holiday. Celebrate.
01257 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Show us a picture from your favorite vacation.
Sitting by the large fountain at the sculpture garden in Washington DC in May 2008. This vacation was probably one of my favorites of all time. Especially this particular day of it. Just hanging out by the fountain and then taking a relaxing walk across the national mall (and getting ice cream/popsicles from a street vendor) was just awesome.
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