Daily Archives: March 7, 2023

Reviews

(review) Big Batch – ‘The Last To Fall’

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Big Batch are hailing from France and this is their sophomore full length release consisting of eight songs. The music of Big Batch can be described as a mixture of punk rock and rawer dirtier side of rock n roll, yet retaining enough melody in vocal lines and anthemic guitar riffs to be counted as melodic punk rock. Vocals are great, rough and raspy, but singing at the same time and fit perfectly to the anthems like one of my personal favorites ‘Dance with Me’, having that beautiful melodic chorus and lyrics. Smart songwriting and lyrics are what makes this great punk rock record. If I must compare this band to some other bands, it would be to Bouncing Souls, Off With Their Heads and The Menzingers. I can also hear Motorhead in couple of song parts. Backing vocals are important in bands like this, they are immaculate here with harmonies, oooohs and aaaahs just made for singing along with these anthemic punk rock songs. One other song that I must also mention and whose chorus brought smile of satisfaction upon my lips is ‘Even Alive’, also the title song is one of the definite highlights of this album. This is great band, have a listen.

8,5/10

Reviews

(review) Death Crusade – ‘Znów Płonie Niebo’

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Death Crusade are coming from Gdansk, Poland and this is their new release consisting of eleven songs. As the cover might lead you to the conclusion, Death Crusade are playing mixture of hardcore crust punk and death metal and they do it really well. This means apocalyptic distorted bass, chainsaw cutting loud guitars sounding greasy and dirty, d-beat drumming with excursions to grindcore blast beats in some songs and barking, growling angry vocals. Mix all that and this record is sure to tear your head off with its intensity and force. Lyrics are in Polish but there are English explanations and they talk about being too passive and ignorant, alienation, against hatred, media lies and fear created by media, religious hysteria, stereotypes and depression and they are written good, not some Doom like haiku poetry, but good lyrics. There are also classic fast hardcore punk influences and I can hear some thrash metal in some quick guitar solos and I love the use of samples for intros of the songs. Polish is such beautiful language for extreme music. This is great and energetic record.

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Reviews, tv series

(tv series) Breaking Bad – the best series of all times?

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It was a long time until I started watching Breaking Bad, but now that I finished it, besides Lost who is number one series to me, Breaking Bad holds firm second place. How you know that a series is great? When you finish the last season, last episode, you are left with feeling of sorrow and melancholy and realization that it is over. This five season series revolves around how simple chemistry teacher good guy, namely Walter White(played by phenomenal Bryan Cranston), became Heisenberg criminal mastermind and meth cooker par excellence who managed to balance between criminal empire of cartel, neo nazis, DEA and above all his own wife and son. Until the bittersweet end that is. What I love about this series is that there were no filler episodes, each and every one of the episodes are superb and interesting in its own way. Actors are superb, Cranston as White/Heisenberg, then Aaron Paul as his partner in crime Jesse Pinkman, Dean Norris as good yet sometimes annoying brother in law, DEA agent Hank Schrader, of course Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman and bad guys, especially brilliant Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring, kingpin of drug cartel who became one of my favorite actors playing bad guys from Mandalorian to Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, Godfather of Harlem and more. When I finally watched this, all i can say to the creator of this series, Vince Gilligan is hats off, sir!

10/10