Ooh! I like it when Chris dislikes something just to hear what he has to say about why he dislikes it.

I suspect, Chris, you have no great beef with Focus but find the post-reformation stuff irksome?

Definitely more about where they came from than where they have wound up, yeah. I have probably ranted on it before.

They brought interesting angles to violent music, but their angles on light rock are fucking tired/cliche/shitty/boring/ and take too long to do too little.

Not even a truly amazing drummer can save them. Which is saying a lot from me. They used to be like fusionmetal wizardgeniuses, now they are like a Dave Mathews Band support act.

Also: if this is what the fucking guy i has been singing all along (it is.), i want the vocoder back!

Ooh, ouch.

I am currently quite enjoying this and feeling halfterrible about it:

I am so fucking out of the media loop I had no idea that fucking Lou Reed and fucking Metallica collaborated on a record. (Seriously, the only news I read is politics, I don't own a television, I have not knowingly heard Adele or Skrillex or any of the shit Kids These Days like, etc.)

The brief clip I heard was a letdown, as the "avant-garde metal" and "noise rock" in the wiki article got my hopes up dammit. (Drum intro did certainly sound stellar though! Jebus that kick is gigantor.) And I always did like Mr. Hammett in noise mode. (I like him in general. Effects-fucker and a good melodist. I don't care about the things actual metal guys like about metal, like being all precise 'n' shit.) In theory this would be cool- big dumb riffs, noise freakouts, random ranting- but in practice I am expecting to be let down. The cover art and subject matter is at least quality though.

Just listened to all of NIN - The Fragile again. I do really like this album. What's another good one of his/theirs to get? I think I tried The Downward Spiral before but I didn't get on with it as well as I am with The Fragile.

Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, in that order. Then try the newer stuff. No two are quite alike.

Slowly making my way through their library. Took me too long to look into them... this is the grind I was waiting to hear.

Also, with the coming of the seasons, my music listening becomes grimmer.

Just seeing Hellhammer in person creeped me the fuck out. It's like, he's just some guy, he's in this band opening for bands no one in The States gives a shit about, I'm in some Quonset Hut outside of Cleveland with like fifty people who have traveled for hours and hundreds of miles, most of them, but I know the Mayhem story and goddamn, it's one of the great rock stories because it's just so fucked-up. I've read Lords Of Chaos, too, which is good, but I gave it to a friend years ago.

Hellhammer is unrivalled at what he does.

If you listen closely to some of the slower blastbeats, you realize they're actually fucking hyper speed thrash beats. His ride hand is going like 300 bpm.

Song is available on their site...

Gotta say, I don't really "get" this one. I have seen/heard a lot of people list it as their favorite MM album, I honestly have no fucking idea how that can be.

Gots to love KMFDM.

My massive love for Stevie Nicks really disturbs me. Not for just the music, but like, the lady herself.

Because it is really fucking good


It is probably their "slowest" album though, which may be why you don't dig it as much. It is one of my favs, but for a completely different reason than why I like MM.

In fact, I like it as just an album, and not as an album by MM. I like MM for the dancey beats and riffs and loudmouth screaming old man vocals. Also a lot of the fast paced guitar quirkiness. M&A is like a shift to a sort of psychedelic trippin'-on-drugs sound that I really don't associate with the band. But on its own, I like the album. Gravity Rides Everything and Third Planet get a good bit of rotation on my playlists.

I like both of those tracks (though not nearly as much as many other MM tracks), but some of the other stuff is completely lost on me. It's just.. Boring to me. Like "The Cold Part" makes me want to sleep. It sounds like Isaac Brock listened to a bunch of Radiohead or something. It's just not my thing for now, I guess.. Maybe it'll grow on me but I remain fairly skeptical.

Oh and A Wild Pack of Family Dogs gets points for good lyrical content, and I can dig The Stars Are Projectors for good background noise. Oh and Cities Made of Ashes is a good one too.

I couldn't name another track off the album though.

Because you just mentioned all of the (IMO) memorable tracks off the album. You mentioned the only ones that had any effect on me at all.

I wish I had the hi-hat mastery this bitch ass bitch does.