First three Belphegor albums

Lately I've been going through some kind of weird nostalgia train of revisiting bands that I used to listen a lot during high school and earlier. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now might remember that Belphegor was in fact the very first band that got me into more extreme music (or extreme metal at least). Yes, the feeling of discovering something new and extreme was really great. What got me into it was their most famous album Goatreich-Fleshcult and after I played that album on repeat for days they kinda went downhill for me. Everything they released after that was samey or they just tried to relive/reinvent Lucifer Incestus or Goatreich.

But before they got famous they released a string of albums that were much more raw and much more fun. Now that I went through their discography again after all these years I find myself liking these early material more than my previous favorites. They had some really awesome riffs back then and the vocals were still top notch and they didn't seem like a joke then; just very blasphemous to a point of insane (see  front covers).

So I decided to share these albums for those of you who enjoy a good dose of black/death metal. Overall all three of these albums sound similar but you can really sense the growing and progressing with each new album. It's fairly standard stuff with very little experimentation but it's done well and it doesn't get boring. Also pretty much every gimmicky thing they do in later albums can be heard on these three albums but in a much more primal state.

Here are the albums:

The Last Supper (1995)

Blutsabbath (1997)

 

Necrodaemon Terrorsathan (2000)

Also I dug out their very first EP from somewhere called Bloodbath in Paradise, an extra treat if you liked the albums.

Alexey Tegin - Gyer - Sacred Tibetan Music Of Bon Tradition

Before Tibet (or general area of Tibet) adopted Buddhism there used to be a wide array of pagan beliefs. Bon is supposedly one of those religions but it also has many other meanings. You are free to read about it here.

This album recreates music of those traditions. Buddhist or not this Bon tradition music is similar (or even exact) to the usual Buddhist chants with the exception of percussion that mark ends and beginnings of chants.

The music was done or orchestrated by Alexey Tegin who is from Russia. I don't really have a lot of information about this release so I'm not sure if he did this or if he recorded this in some monastery or if he used some kind of orchestra for this. Whatever the case may be the music is still pretty much awesome. You can expect all the usual sounds that are present in Tibetan music. Lots of droning, throat singing and deep thunderous trumpets.

Download.

Blood the Last Vampire

Director: Hiroyuki Kitakubo
Country: Japan
Date: 2000
Runtime: 48 minutes
Format: .avi and with .sfv English subtitles

This was one of the first anime I saw so my opinion is probably a bit biased. This might piss some people off (perhaps purists?) but I really enjoyed watching this short movie. I admit that this has a lot of flaws but I still think it's a nice little messy vampire flick. Probably the biggest problem with this movie (or short, or whatever) is that it looks more like a pilot episode for some anime.

The good thing is that the characters (ESPECIALLY FEMALE) aren't brainless fetish objects that are just there to show you their schoolgirl panties. The usual shit that this type of anime tends to have (you are a special magical girl that has special magical powers and so on) is thrown right out of the window. What you get are gritty characters that are fed up with their lives and where it got them. So basically it's much darker in tone. They do sometimes try overly hard to look edgy but they pull it off for the most part.

In any case the plot revolves around a girl called Saya that's a vampire hunter and she infiltrates some school that's suspicious. That's pretty much it. There's not much plot but and that's okay for the main duration until the end when it gets kinda loose.

Concerning art this actually reminded me the most of Animatrix shorts. In fact there's plenty of western influence here (hence the purist hate) but I think it fits nicely with the tone and theme of the movie.

Parts: 01, 02 and 03.

In case you're interested there are spinoffs (sequels?) to this. There are a few novels/manga (one of them was written by Mamoru Oshii but I can't find it anywhere) and a few shows. I watched Blood+ and it was terrible. Characters are molded into the usual stereotypes (guess what, the protagonist got an amnesia and is now back in high school) and overall I didn't really like it. Another show is Blood C or something like that which I didn't watch.

Jûsan-nin no shikaku aka Thirteen Assassins

Director: Eiichi Kudo
Country: Japan
Date: 1963
Runtime: 2 hours
Format: .avi and with .srt English subtitles

Eiichi Kudo isn't exactly a known director, his Wiki page has maybe two sentences and this movie has like three reviews on Imdb. Those two sentences wouldn't even be there if Takashi Miike didn't remake one of his films (this one as it turns out) but that doesn't necessary mean he made bad movies. He's just not that known outside of Japan.

Thirteen Assassins is the first installment of the so called Samurai Revolution trilogy. It's one of those trilogies that aren't really connected by plot but by ideas or concept. The concept here is fighting for justice and telling feudal lords to go fuck themselves. I watched all three of movies and I have to say this is my favorite one. If anyone would like to (really, really) see the other ones I could upload them since they appear so scarce on the web.

The plot itself is pretty basic in structure. There's this colossal douchebag that did some really bad things and a group of people (samurais in this case) decide to do something about it. The plot is actually done really well when you look at its details. There's always something going on and it doesn't really get boring; maybe the plot goes a bit slow (the movie is 2 hours after all) but Japanese movies are kinda like that. Probably the only gripe I had with the characters and with this movie as a whole is that it has too much characters sometimes. You can get lost with all the names, motives and positions if you don't follow real close to what's currently going on and what's being discussed. Despite that it all resolves itself at the end and it's not really that hard to connect the dots. There are a lot of subtle hints and critiques of (then) Japanese society thrown out throughout conversations that are in the movie which I thought was a nice touch.

As far as cinematography goes the movie looks really nice. It was made during the golden era of samurai movies and it really shows in its design, locations and costumes. What I like about this the most is probably that it's far more realistic in its style. There are no one man armies here. Everyone is very human here which is a nice change from the: Mifune's beard kills everything in one hit.

If you're into these kind of movies I highly recommend you watch this, you won't regret it. If you don't like slow, black and white Japanese movies: feel free to pass this up.

Parts: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Advantage Lucy - Station

Since summer is starting to fade away I thought I might share one of my favorite summer time bands called Advantage Lucy. They're a three piece rock-pop band from Japan that released three albums. They're still active (I think?) but they didn't do anything new for a while now. I shared one of their albums before but that was a very long time ago so why not share another one?

This album is pretty much along the same line as the other one. It was released back in 2000 and I think it still sounds just as great. It's so happy and carefree that it makes me just sit around and watch birds shit on my window or something useless as that.

The melodies are very light (as expected of such bands) and quite catchy. The trio arrangement fits quite well with this sort of music. Too much instrumentation tends to bog down the melody so this is to me an optimal arrangement of instruments for this type of music. While the album is a bit samey it doesn't really feel all that long so I don't think that's a real issue here. Everything is nice and mellow in the land of Advantage Lucy and they help to bring that mellowness to the listener as well.

Get.

In the summertime.

Now that I'm finished with fucking up everything that was possible to fuck up during the autumn exams I have decided to leave the country; for a few days.

While I contemplate about mass murder outside the country posts will pop up every day up until the 18th of this month (when I'm coming back). Therefore I won't be able to moderate any of my usual mistakes (bad link and so on) or publish comments.

Also more or less importantly:

I'd really like to share some comics i.e. western comics. Last time I posted one it was quickly brought down by the watchful eye of its author. How rigorous is the comic industry about sharing stuff online? I see torrents all the time but I dunno. I'm kinda reluctant to start sharing just to get shot down by Marvel or something. If you have experience in this let me know via comments or something. I'd like to know how dangerous are the sharks in the shark pool where I'll be swimming.


Another thing that I would like to point out is this website: Noise Archive

"this website is a collection of underground / independantly released cassette tapes from the days when the audio cassette was the standard method of music sharing, generally the mid eighties through early nineties. 

material represented includes tape experimentation, industrial, avant-garde, indy, rock, diy, subvertainment and auto-hypnotic materials... most of what you are about to hear is rather difficult to file under any one category, and thus has not been."

Have fun!

Oh and this is really cool.

Sorhin - Apokalypsens Ängel

Time for some sweet black metal. This band comes from Sweden and they released just two albums during their time. This being the second one and it was released back in the year 2000.

These guys really knew their craft, from start to finish this one of the most tasteful energetic black metal that I have heard. They just rip like hell through every track telling you in Swedish about this dude Satan and how hating people is good with some furious riffs in the forefront. So yeah, the style and sound is firmly rooted in the second wave of black metal. The riffs are nonetheless very enjoyable and fun to listen every time you spin this album. What more could you want?

Get.

"The Imminent Demise of Hydra Head Records"

Sadly gravity will be weakened due to the closing of the excellent Hydra Head Records. In case you haven't read their announcement you can here.

They had a great run but I guess they got bogged down by shitty resource management and so on. Stuff like that happens and it sucks. They'll be selling everything they have so keep an eye out if you want to get something. They'll also be selling packages of stuff (America only) that seem really, really cool and you should not miss it.

Spread the word and help them earn some money to repay the debts!

Best of luck in the future for everyone involved there.