Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews, Various

(record review)SPILL YOUR GUTS-“Hungry Crows”

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Spill Your Guts is a band made of international crew, based in Shanghai, China. After releasing a couple of ep-s, this is their first full length studio album.

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Spill Your Guts play pretty darkened hardcore punk with some black metal and rock n roll influences. The guys really know how to play, they recently returned from the extensive Russian tour. I would love to see them and hear them live one day. The album has 9 tracks and it is an energetic bomb so it will melt your face off and make your ears bleed with pleasure.

The lyrics are all in English language and I love how they are written, kinda deep but with a sharp edge. Thematically, they deal with some personal issues like being far from home, but also a lot of political stance, like fighting against prejudices in modern society, then again about friendship and how to keep it, and these guys have a really big heart and it is in a right place. This album proves that hardcore has no physical boundaries. The music is metal influenced and very dark, but also has some very fast blastbeats in song structures that kinda slow down in almost sludgy passages in some parts. Vocals are screamed and nicely done but there are also some clean melodic sung parts like in “Satan 3(some)”

This album is really good and if you love your hardcore punk with some dark stuff, get it and support these guys, I am sure that every support means a lot to them!

8/10

https://www.facebook.com/spillyourgutsband/

https://spillyourguts.bandcamp.com/

 

Reviews, Various

(record review)A PALE DECEMBER-“The Shrine of Primal Fire”

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I am impressed, I can say frankly. Many todays black metal bands tend to be boring or too generic or repetitive, especially many bands consisting of one or two members.

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Fortunately this is not the case with A Pale December. This duo is hailing from mighty Italy, namely Milan. This is their debut album consisting of 7 songs. A Pale December play black metal that I would dare call symphonic melodic black metal. The structure of the songs is nothing new, but that mix of aggressive blast beat parts and atmospheric acoustic  parts backed with skillfull and nice synth parts suits me just fine as I am listening and writing this warm Autumn night. The vocals are harsh but not high pitched and you can actually understand a lot of the lyrics. The song lyrics themselves deal with nature, evil and some personal demons. The drums are programmed and you can actually hear while listening that the drummer is the machine but it is nicely done and I loved every single bit of this album. I did not hear a good symphonic black metal for a long time. I am happy I heard this band and hope that their next releases will be event better.

7,5/10

https://www.facebook.com/apaledecember/

https://apaledecember.bandcamp.com/

 

 

Reviews

Some Stephen King and Neil Gaiman books I have read lately!

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October is the right month for reading some darker horror and fantasy books, so I have been reading some stuff from one of my favourite writers of all times, Stephen King.

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For starters, there is one short novel/story that I finished in one day, namely Dolans Cadillac. This is not a horror story, it is rather thriller with a classic theme or motive and it is revenge. The main characters wife sees a mafia boss murder someone and for that she gets blown up in her car. Her husband seeks out revenge, and plans to do it on a remote desert highway when mafia boss will travel to Las Vegas in his cadillac. Although short, this is a nice piece of tense thriller with psychological stuff thrown in for good measure. It was really nice to read and feel the main characters rage and anguish in his efforts to avenge his innocent wife. Whether he succeeded or not, read it yourselves!

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This was a short ride, so I decided to stay for a while with Stephen King, so I have read another one, namely Cycle of the Werewolf, upon which was made Silver Bullet, great werewolf themed horror flick. Little town is under siege by the horrible nameless beast. Every full moon the beast comes out and kills people untill it runs into a boy in a wheelchair who manages to guess the real identity of the beast. Who will win in this battle? A boy or the beast? Wow! This one was a great nostalgic return to my childhood years when I was at the same time fascinated and scared by the movie that I mentioned above. The movie follows the book almost to the letter, so if you saw the movie youll know what I am talking, in fact writing about.

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Untill American Gods, Neil Gaiman was practically a mystery to me. I have heard about his works and many of my friends spoke to me about his books, him being one of their favorite writers. So, I decided to read one of his books and it was okay. The epic story about ex con Shadow caught in the war between old and new deities was for me a combination between dark fantasy and road novel, Americana. Since I love heroic sword and sorcery fantasy along with my Star Wars this kind of dark fantasy took some time to work for me. This was an okay novel but for me nothing more. I will of course give Neil Gaiman a chance and read more of his works to get the real picture of him as an author.