Valkyria Chronicles (some thoughts on the animated show)

I believe that it's healthy every once in a while to explore something that's not usually in your area of interest. I try to do this as much as I can because I think it can do either of these two things:

1. Broaden your taste
2. Strengthen your existing taste

And both are good; sort of. If you end up liking a completely new genre then great! You have a lot of new things to explore and learn. If you end up disliking your new venture then you learn something about yourself and you move a step further away from being a blob that just swallows up everything. You develop, you know, your character and opinion on things you find pleasing and of those you do not.

This summer I stumbled upon Valkyria Chronicles which seemed interesting enough and it's something that I would usually not go with. So hey, why not? I have a really cruel love & hate relationship with Japanese animation. Basically I'm really picky about the stuff I watch which is why I every once in a while, sort of, force myself to venture into something that I would not usually watch. Because if I keep being an elitist faggot I'll stop watching anime for a long period of time (happened a few times).

The anime itself is an adaptation of a video game so it's flawed from the start because it already has a predefined plot and everything that goes with it. I watched maybe half of the first season and then decided it would be best to stop or I'll have to repeatedly stab myself in the face with the rustiest barbed wire I can find. This isn't really because of the plot (it's fine for the most part but I'm not really in the position to judge since I didn't watch the whole thing) but the setting and the practicality of the system is impossible. Usually this isn't really something to bother with when it comes to TV logic but this bothered me so much that I just could not take this anymore.

First of all let's look how the cast looks like:

So without knowing the plot and the setting of the story could you guess what the anime is about judging from the looks of the characters? A lot of blue uniforms, lots of girls that apparently wear miniskirts, a nun of some sort, some guy in a suit, ties etc. Yeah, looks like your regular school/slice of life anime right? Except this is supposed to be a fucking paramilitary unit in a semi-fictional world war two.

The plot is apparently about a country that looks something like Netherlands which gets caught up in a war between two alliances. One is evil and one is good blah blah and everything from world war two is sort of changed but not really. The story is focused on a militia group formed out of citizens and farmers of the country that are trying to defend their homeland. The tanks look like they are from 1945 yet the rifles look like something from 1918. The plot is supposedly taking place in 1935; they didn't really work this through. But okay, things like that can still be overlooked for the most part because they are tolerable.

 

But the uniforms I can not overlook.

The sad part about this is that these are not their formal uniforms, they are wearing actual combat uniforms. BLUE combat uniforms in a land that's mainly LIGHT GREEN. That's like if all the SS divisions in the Ardennes forest decided to wear their black uniforms IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. Apart from the completely missed colors why are they wearing ties? Both males and females are wearing ties? What's going on? Is this supposed to be an allegorical outlook on the post modern society of Japan symbolizing that every worker on his day job is going through an ongoing war yet he can not do anything to prevent it? Or is it because it's supposed to be cute? -_- Those who wore ties know how impractical these things are. They get in the way all the time and are in no way practical on the battlefield. Except maybe in a very gentlemanly battlefield. And yes of course the big red bandana on the girls head in case they don't get spotted at first because of their uniforms from 10km away.

Sadly this just goes on and on. Some of the female characters even wear earrings and the worst part is that our protagonists aren't infantry they are a tank unit. They are cramped in a small tight tank in those uncomfortable clothes, ties and earrings because, hey, they need to look good while they are being dismembered by an artillery strike. All of these things (and I left out a lot of things) are tolerated because this is a high school anime pretending to be a serious war drama. That's all there is to it. Why not then just make a high school drama? Why bother with all this? Oh right that's why, because they are adapting a video game that's equally brainless. But wait, what are women doing here in the first place? Why are they in the military? In same units with men? Which brings me to another main problem I had with the series.


NOBODY 

GETS 

RAPED

Imagine you're in a warzone and things aren't looking pretty well for your side. You're getting punched on all sides, communications are down and there's less and less ammo around. Night falls, you and another companion are all that's left in the bunker. The first thing at dawn you'll hear are artillery shells and then a final push that will probably end in your death or imprisonment for the rest of the war. There you sit, thinking about your last hours and you look at your companion who's sitting there beside you like this:

In those lovely thigh-highs that match her miniskirt that give her that young look and with a frail, slim body slightly blushing and that fucking ridiculous bandana on her head as if she just came back from a 50s cooking show. Obviously the first thing to come on your mind is to play a chess game with her, right? If I were in her shoes I'd aptly volunteer for a tentacle rape just to avoid that situation.

This sort of problem never comes up. Nobody really notices that an army that's mixed like that can't work because of obvious nature restrictions. Everybody just goes along with it. This was just too much to tolerate.

This anime actually had an really interesting premise. Not a lot of anime series tackle our past like this. This could have been an interesting look on paramilitary forces, how they operate and the role of women in the army. How they handled the frontlines? How desperate must a country be to force all of their citizens into fighting? But no, they had to make another school anime with stenciled characters.

I am disappoint. Maybe it gets better afterwards?

Part of the scene(ry)

(Post-drunk contemplation about music.)

When there are a dozen of people who have similar or same taste in music we call such collectives "scene". Local scene, international scenes and continental scenes (or not?). With popular bands or not it still is some kind of scene even if its just 10 people with two bands or something like that. Collective of friends or mainstream machinery oiled by capitalism.

So lets propose that there's a certain city or communion where the dominant music is jazz. For about three generations now this particular music is the dominant genre and you can find gigs, bands and records plenty to go around. Everyone is happy; except for those who don't like jazz. But considering that this certain genre is going around for a while now the new people are immediately exposed to the genre. So you grow up in such a place and you're exposed to jazz ever since you are born. I believe that there's a great deal of chance that this certain person will grow up and enjoy jazz for the rest of his life. His/hers "favorite genre". It's all fine and dandy but isn't this hampering the persons creative ability? The murder of ones will to explore and venture into something new and different. What if that person discovered electronic music like Autechre at a young age and became one of the greatest electronic musicians of our time?

I chose jazz as an example because the older variation of jazz which we now call hot jazz (swing and others included as well) was basically the only music you could find during the first half of the 20th century. The snobs and the rich would listen to opera and classical while the common man would listen to jazz. Or so went the stereotype. Only a handful of people (futurists for example) tried something different. Their work eventually did pay off but years and (musical) revolutions after. Sadly in the period during second world war music, like many other things, was nationalized. Jazz became a symbol of American and British democratic nations while orchestral and "more serious music" was pushed by the axis powers. This choked down any forms of experimentation and exploration with music. It took a decade more after the second world war for music to start evolving. Evolving in the west that is. The communist states started participating in the world scene with greater effect about ten years ago from now. China is still stuck behind. I wonder what's happening in North Korea?

Are things better in this day and age? Is someones creative mind being spent on something he never really liked but was sort of willfully forced into because everyone else was doing that. I think it's just a little tad bit better. There's more free will involved and things are more accessible but people still fall into patterns set out by those who defined the genre. It's just that propaganda ministers from the last century are now replaced with scenes and its "set of rules to follow".

I had the unique opportunity to be born in a remote place (even for my country's standard) that was musically dead. Dead as in sense that nobody really had any interest in music, no one really cared what you listen and nobody forced their tastes. Along with that nobody really (except one person that I can remember) expressed their musical identity through clothing and similar. The local music was basically something everybody would listen at default. Without any knowledge of what was in or out and without someone telling me what I should listen and what I should not I explored music carelessly. When I got something called "internet" only then I started to realize that there are scenes and groups of people that listen to music similar to mine. But it all seemed so distant from me so I filled myself with delusions that such people are just like me and that they would talk about music all day, go to concerts and buy stuff (something that was nearly impossible for me at the time). But they never really affected my way of exploring music without any predefined judgment.

In high school I had my first experience with being stereotyped and connected with a certain group. A group called metalheads. I was thrilled because I thought I would finally fit in somewhere and have people to talk to. I thought I had my "scene". I was torn to pieces when I found out how limited these people were. Everybody was uniformed and had very little knowledge of music they were supposed to represent. All they talked about was how they got drunk and what stupid shit they did. And those rare few who had more extensive knowledge had their head so far up their ass they wouldn't hear anybody else's opinion nor mere different thoughts. Well I could have overlooked all that if the bands were any good. Sadly that went down the shitter as well because they were all simple imitations of mainstream bands in the genre. I'll never forget when I went to some high school concert where I was the only kid around who didn't had an Iron Maiden shirt.

Scenes are like that. They dictate what's good and what's not. What should be worn and what should not be, who should be praised and who should be ridiculed. I am sort of glad to not be part of any scene. I don't think I'll ever fit into any group and I tried several of them. It just doesn't work; they limit people. What is sad is that like in the 40s this chokes down certain people who want to do something different and something that is not dictated by the collective will (so to speak). Only this time you can choose not to be a part of something and you won't be shot for it. Why should black metal be just about evil? Alcest proved that it can just as well be something completely different and it sounds great. So did John Zorn slapped the shit out of jazz. So did Whitehouse prove that you don't need heavy guitar riffs and drums to sound extreme.

Fuck groups and fuck your fake "collective of individuals". The less you are influenced by others the more you are influenced by yourself.

Flying Teapot year 2.

You probably didn't notice (but I did :<) but "we" didn't celebrate Flying Teapot-s second birthday. This was due to several factors which I won't really bother to explain. Well, we'll celebrate it today. Why? Because my birthday is today so I guess the analogy could make some sense. You know, the blog is 2 and I'm 20. So it's kinda similar, the difference is just one zero to me.

Despite being inactive as fvck I think the blog pretty much remained the same as it was the year before. I like it this way so I don't really see any need for changes. Recently the followers numbers have hit the 200 mark but I still get the exact same feeling of being a small unnoticed blog even though whenever I spew something out here 200 people will eventually will see it in some form and 200 isn't a small number unless we're talking about ohm resistance and we're not talking about that.

I won't hold any long speeches, words would only spoil things. I would just like to thank you all for being here and reading/downloading everything I put up. It fills me with joy to share stuff that make me what I am.

And of course what better way is to celebrate this occasion other than to download? :D

So here are some presents:

Since its my birthday as well I thought I should share something with you that marked my entire childhood. I grew up in the 90s and I didn't really have any consoles and crap like that. I grew up on PC so DOS games were pretty much all I played. Now that I think of it everybody treated me as an outcast because of that. Every kid my age had a Nintendo but I didn't care. Me and my dad used to play Lucas Arts adventure games and all that crap all the time. He would translate and I would direct actions. It's how I learned English in the first place haha. But there was one game that I played over and over and over. And that was:

Commander Keen

 Yes this motherfucker drained several years of my so called life. I played these series all the time firstly because I didn't need dad around to translate and secondly because it's one of the best platform based games that I ever played (yes that's right, I don't like Mario games ;P). I knew all the levels, all the secrets and all the cool jumps. It was my first addiction. That terrible sound when you loose a life still haunts me. I actually hear it sometimes in my dreams when somebody dies.

There are seven titles that got out for PC. 1, 2 and 3 have one, really old, engine and 4, 5 and 6 (dreams) had a better looking one. When I was little 4, 5 and 6 were the popular and active ones so I overlooked the first three for a very long time. Eventually one really boring high school summer I went through the first three and I can't really recommend them. They are pretty much inferior versions of the later ones. I uploaded the games I played so you get here: episode 4, 5, and 6 along with Dreams.

The story is about a boy who is at night Commander Keen! He goes around saving our galaxy and slacks off from eating vegetables at dinner. The story isn't very important. The important segment here is the gameplay which is rich and diverse. Diverse as dos games go so I can't really recommend this to someone who can't enjoy nostalgic old games. The last sequel called dreams is actually the weirdest one. Apparently some potato troops trapped him through some dream like machine so he has to save himself by running around in his pajamas from potato soldiers and mad carrots. Never quite understood it. :D

TWO MEGABYTES OF INFINITE FUN

I'll post more stuff tomorrow. I don't want to cramp everything into one post.

New Deathspell Omega coming out in november.

Fuck yeah! It will be released on November 8th in Europe. For those of you who live in the US it would probably be a good idea to know that Ajna isn't their distributor anymore. Season Of Mist took the job. This is probably because the scale of distribution is too big for Ajna this time.

The album will be called Paracletus. It is also the last part of the trilogy (first being SMRC, second FAS).

This is how the cover will most likely look:

Speculations on my behalf:

- what does the title mean and what will the album be about?

From what I researched Paracletus is some sort of advocate or lawyer in a religious context. It's a Greek word and is fairly difficult to explain. If we look retrospectively the SMRC album was about relation between God and Man. Kenose being the appendix of SMRC also covered that theme to some extent. I didn't do much research about Kenose so I can't say much. Fas was about angels and their revolt against God. The appendix of Fas was Chaining the Katechon. Katechon was/is someone/something that keeps the antichrist from manifesting. Paracletus then could be about the Antichrist or the devil himself. Not to mention that on the cover is something that looks like it's going to murder the cosmos. And it has 7 heads?

- how will it sound?

Probably in a direction that FAS took but hopefully we won't get a FAS clone. Since they have Mikko Aspa on board with them I'm sure he'll provide a lot of non-metal music in the album  and since his forte are noise and similar atonal genres I'm fairly certain it will contain a lot of chaotic noisy/ambient intervals between their common black metal arrangements. Katechon to me seemed a lot calmer and far less atonal compared to FAS so I'm guessing this time around the songs won't be screaming all over the place like The Shrine Of Mad Laughter for example. It will be more brooding and darker since it (again I speculate) deals with a far more darker and sinister being than mad angels stricken with jealousy.

- since the trilogy is going to be concluded, will they split up after that?

I highly doubt that! There are so many themes to cover in religion and the occult so there's plenty of material to work with. They have proven (to me at least and probably to a lot of you people as well) that they are highly creative and innovative people so I'm sure they will continue to surprise us with more releases every few years and I hope they will not stagnate (or do a live show, that would kill everything :< ).

What are your thoughts about this whole thing? Are you looking forward to it?

I'll be buying it the moment it comes out and preferably in some pretentious elitist limited format. :3

Journey through grindcore - Part 2

Here's something to spark your lack of interest.

FOOOZZZZZZZYYYYYYY BEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR

So here we are at part two of the grindcore journey.

Here I'll mention a bit more bands that someone out there might enjoy them in a way that I do (or in some different way; pervert :P). They are all great bands so obviously I recommend to check them all out. Especially if you're into grindcore duh. :D


If you're reading this blog on a more constant basis you probably noticed I have a fetish for female vocalists in most areas of music but especially in more extreme genres. I'm not trying to sound chauvinistic or something like that. I just like when a woman screams. It warms my heart (sometimes pants). Bands with female singers usually get distinguished fairly quickly from the rest of the bunch simply because there's a female in it. That's a bit disgusting but hey, people are like that. Most singers in the scene are male so it's kinda natural for female fronted bands to get noticed because they are different in a way despite the fact that they play the same crap as other bands do.

Last female fronted band that made an impression is Lycanthrophy. They come from Czech Republic which is currently flourishing with great new bands. I saw these guys live a month or so ago and they ripped shit up. They don't have a lot of releases but I manged to grab their latest split while I was there. Sadly I'm unable to rip vinyls (yet) but I do have their somewhat older 7'' split with Kursk.

I can't really say anything about Kursk. They play Iron Lung~ish grindcore but a bit more faster I think. It's nothing special really. What does shine on this split is Lycanthrophy which is why I decided to share this release. Production is also far better on their side as opposed to Kursk who didn't do a lot to improve the sound of the recording but that's not really something to look for in grindcore anyway. I'm sure a lot of you out there will enjoy this, I certainly did, but it's too damn short. Longer run is actually the only thing I'm bothered with haha.

Eat children, shit holocaust.

Another band I'd like to mention is Punch. I already posted their EP not long ago so check it out a little bit down from this post. I'll still share their short but sweet self titled full length.

While Lycanthrophy is more of a face melting fast grindcore type of band Punch leans more to the punk side of things. Their riffs and style of playing is slower, there are those sudden pace changes and furious female vocals to back it all up. It's a thing called powerviolence. Some hate it and some love it. I personally disliked a lot these sudden pace changes but I grew to like them. And you will too; eventually. :P

You'll love it. Trust me, I'm from the internet. :D

While female vocalists and all that is great there's a vital part that I do not receive a lot from these bands. Perhaps I haven't found such band but I'm actively looking. What I'm talking about is ferocity. By ferocious I mean something that's so fast you can't scrobble on last.fm and so distorted that it rings in your ears hours after you listened to it. I honestly haven't found a female fronted band that could deliver me such feeling. Males do it better I guess. A prime example of a ferocious band is Threatener.

Look how happy he is! Can't you feel all the groovy energy coming out from this picture? This is how Threatener sounds for the most part. It's short, it's sweet and it melts your face with its speed. They slow down from time to time but that's just so that your ears can rest for a few seconds because they are nice people. There are also guitar solos sometimes inside this fun mess.

The Hammering, the Fastening and the Bending of Throats

But there are others like them but not quite the same. I'm talking about Spoonful Of Vicodin and their epic beards.

Bushy beards are known for making fast music. I have seen similar beards making fast grindcore and I was not disappointed. Beards also tend to scream like there's no tomorrow. They carry a message which is:

The 60's Changed The World I'm Sure You Will Too

Yet there is more! Another band decided to keep evolving things positively and that band is Exclaim! They sound like this:

They come from the land of the rising Sun.

They use distortion like there is no yesterday or today nor tomorrow. It's pure sloppy chaos we all like. Something worth living for indeed! It goes on for ten minutes because their throats and strings along with your head would explode if they lasted longer. Exclamation very much so!

We covered female fronted bands, ferocious bands so now let's get pissed off. :[

This is it. This is the moment of your death.

"Pissed off" grindcore is what I like to call bands that are generally atonal (no punkish riffing or melodic sound) with either growling or shouted vocals. They all pretty much vary in speed. My favorite of the bunch is Iron Lung and their album Life. Iron Lung. Death..

Iron Lung at first was something that foolishly overlooked. This was mostly because of the rapid pace change and somewhat radical riffs that I could not enjoy in the beginning. It very quickly grew on me so I started liking it more and more. Today I think it's pretty much my favorite pissed off band. It's a legendary band and it's fairly well known so I won't babble much about them. They sound like a broken down coal factory or you breathing through the iron long.

After I found out about Iron Lung others soon followed like The Endless Blockade which is definitely faster but somewhere near as brutal as is Iron Lung. They pack similar vocal styles (they both sound like they have some serious flu issues).

93 93/93

Shed no tears though for I have more! Here's Thousandswilldie and their short swift demo which is as br00tal as it can possibly be in its short 3:15 minute demo and it's so brutal that it makes you shower in menstruation blood.

Stillborn.

Another pissed off band that I'd like to mention is Swallowing shit, which is less similar to thousandswilldie but somewhere there between Iron Lung and some sort of humanoid machines that operate on raw oil. They come from Winnipeg and they don't like that. Just like Aaron Funk.

OIL WILL MAKE YOU EARN MONEY

And I almost forgot to upload Final Draft from Inglewood!

Their style is also "pissed off" but are probably the fastest from the bunch I mention. As we all know; who is the fastest is the bestest. Or something like that. It's one ripping little EP. It's actually that fast that I won't use any pictures.

Crucifying the Earth.

And so our journey comes fairly near the end. I covered most things and avoided the popular things, until now. Well somewhat popular I think. Perhaps I'll call this part: the part where I post things I forgot to post last time.

So besides all the things I mentioned there's still brutality to cover. Brutality is where things are very much relevant in the science of blast beats and growling, preferably screaming and a bit longer songs (minute or so).

Last year the scene was swept away by a little known band called Wormrot. They ate everything including your unborn children. It's what I call brutal when people ask me what's so brutal in grindcore. I adore them and so do a lot of people connected to the netsphere. Their album is Abuse.

Good times.

Personally I consider this band as what would Insect Warfare be if they became even better (because I like Insect Warfare so much that I fuck my pretentious vinyls with their music on it). Everyone already heard this so I won't bother much with talking about it.

Another brutality that deserves mention and praise is Kill The Client. They kill clients by request. They also have a video on youtube to summarize their sound. Sadly their other album is not that much of a success. Very generic. Cleptocracy on the other hand is pure gold and should not be missed. Even metalheads should enjoy it me thinks.

You'll like it, trust me. Tool of the state. :P

And here I'll partially stop. I say this because I don't want to let Magrudergrind sit alone in the last post. That's why I mention two similar bands! First one is Dropdead which has been around for a while and an interesting one man band (I think) called Ulcerrhoea. Dropdead I think is more superior from the two but they are both great fun. Screaming at its near best!

Enjoy them:

Dropdead and Ulcerrhoea!

This is the end I promise. All that's left is for you to get married and enjoy some German fast würst grindcore.

æ

Journey through grindcore - Part 1

Due to mediafire massacre all the link in part 1 and 2 are dead but all the links in the conclusion post (right after these two posts) are alive and well (reuploaded: April 20th 2012).

I've been planning to do this for a while now. Basically it's an attempt to avoid 20 or so grindcore posts in a row. I decided to just make a two part post where I talk shit and post some of my favorite grindcore releases along with its similar counterparts (murder me for saying this if you wish) like powerviolence and hardcore punk.

For those of you who might not know about what I'm talking about here's a quick course: grindcore is something like (death) metal but a lot faster with more screaming as opposed to growling (but not excluding it) and often followed by blast beats (jackhammer time!) and rather simpler guitar riffs more leaning towards punk. I can't explain any simpler than that.

Please take note that this is only my personal opinion and I don't really bother to distance hardcore, powerviolence and grindcore from one another. I consider them all equal (okay, maybe less intense hardcore a bit less from others) so don't get pissed off because I mistagged your favorite band.

I personally was avoiding this ~core genre (as I called it) because I was a metalhead purist and thought there's not much talent or point in genres such as grindcore. This is obviously wrong and childish to say but then again I was a child back then so fuck you. :D As I grew older (but not that much older hah) I kept looking for bands that went faster and faster. Black metal quickly became something that I considered to be the fastest and the extremest type of metal that I could find (all those tremolo riffs) so after that I kinda went into a complete opposite which I later on learned that it's called drone. At that point I felt that I discovered all the levels of possible speed and ferocity in music so I decided that it would be somewhat a good time to explore something out of the realm of metal and find something in between those two extremities. Lucky for me I had a (very good) friend (hi Zmaj!) who was far more fascinated with grindcore and hardcore than I was at the time. So I started attending gigs with him. At first I wasn't very impressed and didn't think much of it. On one particular gig I decided to buy something from some random band to have some kind of a starting point.

This release was Wolfbrigade In Darkness You Feel No Regrets on cassette tape from 2003.

Download it!

It's more of a crust punk thing but I consider it as a starting point for my journey of ~core things. Actually I bought it because I thought it will be something Endstille judging it by its covers. Nevertheless it did pique my interest to dig deeper so my initial plan worked. I still had no idea where to look and what to look for so I turned on the internet and decided to check stuff out. This was in a time when I had limited bandwidth so I didn't have much room to maneuver with downloads (perhaps 5 or 6 downloads a month or movie a month). I (sadly) stumbled upon goregrind/porngrind bastard children of grindcore.

Back then I enjoyed it quite a lot but this didn't really stick for me after a while. Everywhere I looked I found really awful bands that didn't appeal to me at all. From that period only two bands went along with me. One was Ballgag which I posted a long time ago and the other one was Splatter Whore with their album Kaviar Die-Hards. Cock And Ball Torture was here as well but all their songs just blend in with one another and it's the same deal all the time.

Splatter yourself with downloading.

This was the pinnacle of my adventure in goregrind. I practically listened to this album every day and it was so good at the time that the only reason I searched for more bands is to find bands that sounded like this album. I still find the album largely enjoyable. It has everything I need from goregrind. Gurgling vocals, awesome catchy riffs and totally idiotic track names and lyrics (if there are any). The title track is very cute. :3

But my hunger for speed and ferocity was not satisfied!

Lucky for me (again) my friend told me: "This goregrind crap you are listening is shit, don't listen to that, it's not real grindcore. Start listening to some real grind." Or something like that, I only partially remember that sentence. So I did; I was blown away. I can't remember exactly which band was my first but I think it was 62 trax of thrash by Magrudergrind.

YES! FINALLY SOMETHING FAST ENOUGH! WHOOOOSH

That's pretty much how I reacted. This album does something to me like nothing else. It makes me go jump around the room like an idiot and hitting my head into shelves and pictures (happened a few times). It's fast, it's noisy and it has one of the best vocalists around. Perfection which lasts through 62 tracks!

I can safely say that this album and band cemented my interest in the ~core scene. From there on it was pure pleasure and a pleasure that I could actually experience very near to my place of living. I found out that there are many bands in my beloved (actually not that beloved, but still) Balkans. I shared few releases like that AK47 split with Senata Fox which is really something but Panaceja is probably my most loved band from the entire scene. I don't know why but I just love it so much and I have no idea why I didn't post their releases sooner. They didn't last very long but I appreciate everything they did for me and for the scene. There's nothing but love that I can give to this band. I'll share you one out of two albums from them. The other one is similar to this one so there's not much of duality in choice.

Panaceja - Kad aveti proslosti razaraju mozak,strah i bijes postaju opsesija


I really don't want to translate the title but lets just say it's not the happiest title around. It's not that fast like, say, magrudergrind but it still has its own unique ferocity and intense riffs. Sadly since you don't understand my gibberish language you can't enjoy this album to the fullest but you can try hah.

Later on I was filled in with new bands and discoveries of old bands by my friend Zmaj on a regular basis.

I remember Swarrrm making a huge impression on us. Swarrrm is a Japanese grindcore that had, for a while, a complete nutjob of a vocalist. I don't refer to his behavior (although he was supposedly in a mental institution) but to his style of singing. It's, just, something, that, must, be, heard. It's total chaos. I don't think anyone can top his style. The album Thee Imitation Messiahs is where he shines the most. I strongly advise you check this out, because you won't be disappointed!

Go apeshit!

Musically as well this albums rips to shreds. Songs are fairly long for grindcore which surprisingly isn't much of a bother. Well at least not for me. It can get too much if you aren't in the mood for loving love thrash.

Another band that blew me and many others away was Insect Warfare. Pretty much everyone now knows about them and they should because they shook up the scene quite a bit. You can get their World Extermination anywhere so I won't bother uploading it my self.


I will share though their a bit less known release called Endless Execution Thru Violent Restitution. It's still the same Insect Warfare but with less production value so it sounds much more raw and fierce which is always good! And they cover Razor on this album and also Celtic Frost which is fucking awesome haha.

Smash ears from here!

Something similar that came along the way with Insect Warfare was Mumakil (which I mentioned a long time ago) and Pretty Little Flower.

Pretty Little Flower is something along the lines of Insect Warfare but far more raw in my opinion and more br00tal.

I have their some kind of compilation/discography of their early works which rips shit up. They later on turned to a more melodic sort of sound on Pulverizing Lethal Force which is also great but not that awesome as their early sound (kinda like Magrudergrinds self title story, OH SNAP). They slowed down after but on this record it's just hellish anger and fury. Like they said on the first sone, pose in hell!

Smash capitalism!

That's all for part one. As you probably noticed I covered bands that made some kind of bigger impact on me during my life but I missed out some bands like Phobia, Assuck and Discordance Axis because I can't really make this post 10 meters long. You can read all you want about them on Cephalochromoscope though along with shitload of other great grind bands.

Stay tuned for part two where I'll be naming some great recent discoveries and some underrated bands. Popular bands will be included as well (|IRON LUNG| |IRON LUNG| |IRON LUNG| |IRON LUNG|).

That will happen next week when I get back from Pag.

Funny how I did a grindcore post and didn't mention Napalm Death or Horrorfied. That's because they never made much of an impact on me. Sure Scum is great, I even have it legally but they never sparked my interest to look further into the genre.

Observation on certain anime trends

This post will be a rant, of sort, kinda like what normal bloggers do. It does not contain any links so skip this if you came here for downloading; you strange person. It's also about anime so you might as well skip it if you aren't into it or if you hate it then read it because it will supply you munition for insulting nerds like me.

During my short summer break I did some experimenting. My anime taste (yes this is relevant to the subject) is somewhat centered to shows that are usually focused on adult audience or so called seinen series. So for that reason I tried to watch just the opposite of the usual things that would interest me. I started watching series that are more focused on younger ages and ones that are more light hearted. In short I watched comedy/slice of life type of things. From what I observed this seems to be the mainstream flow of series currently in USA and Japan (I'm a bit oblivious about the rest of the anime fan world outside the netsphere so excuse my bold statements). Watching these, to me new, shows made me notice one interesting thing. They all have the same female characters.

Now let us observe this statement. For starters let us take one of the paragons of mainstream anime which is of course Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya. The plot is focused around several high school students who are a part of an SOS club. For the purposes of the discussion I will not dig deep in the plot because I'm here more interested in the behavior of characters.

The have the following three main female characters:

Haruhi
Mikuru
Yuki

Now these three characters have distinct personalities.

Haruhi is a tomboy character that is not exactly the brightest of the three but not completely idiotic either. Always energetic, molests other characters and has a fiery personality packed with a stubborn attitude.

Mikuru is what I usually call "let's be friends" slut. An innocent and shy person that will always accept everything that is thrown at her. Usually in hentai they are the ones that do all the weird shit. She is also insecure of her abilities, always apologizes and is always voice acted by someone who has a high pitched voice. She also blushes a lot.

Yuki (which means snow if I remember right) is a cold and calm person. Doesn't talk a lot and usually acts very rational and is the common sense of the group. She isn't very social but is dragged along by her friends which she met mostly by accident.

So these three characters along with Kyon and that other guy that I always forget the name have adventures and they have their own club etc. I took this anime as the main example because I believe that by now pretty much everyone who visit the net more than three times a week have heard of this show.

Now let us take another anime of similar if not the same genre if we exclude the supernatural. It's not as popular as is Haruhi but it's something along those lines.

It's called Minami-Ke. The story is focused on three sisters who live in one apartment alone. They are all in schools. One is in elementary, one in middle school and one in high school.



The three characters are:

Kana
Haruka
Chiaki

Kana is a tomboy character that is not exactly the brightest of the three but not completely idiotic either. Always energetic, molests other characters and has a fiery personality packed with a stubborn attitude.

Haruka is an innocent and shy person that will always accept everything that is thrown at her. She is also insecure of her abilities, always apologizes and she also blushes a lot.

Chiaki is a cold and calm person. Doesn't talk a lot and usually acts very rational and is the common sense of the group. She isn't very social but is dragged along by her friends which she met mostly by accident.

As you can see I pretty much did a copy paste job and if you watched these shows I'm positive you would agree with me that these character are similar and perhaps even the same. They have, very similar patterns of behavior. These three also have adventures along with some other random characters but let's face it they are the ones who drive the story just like in Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya with the exception of Kyon and supernatural elements. But I don't see Kyon that much on the net compared to the female characters from the show so I guess fans don't really drool about him.

So is minami-ke just a ripoff? Well let's take another show, K-ON!.

K-ON! is a story focused on four high school girls that have a band and lead some sort of music club.



The characters are:

Ritsu
Yui
Mio
Tsumugi

Ritsu is a tomboy character that is not exactly the brightest of the three but not completely idiotic either. Always energetic, molests other characters and has a fiery personality packed with a stubborn attitude.

Yui is an innocent and shy person that will always accept everything that is thrown at her. She is also insecure of her abilities, always apologizes and she blushes a lot.

Mio is a cold and calm person. Doesn't talk a lot and usually acts very rational and is the common sense of the group. She isn't very social but is dragged along by her friends which she met mostly by accident.

Tsumugi is the fourth part and it seems like she's some sort of Lucky Star mutation of multiple side characters from what I saw from watching both of the shows.

Restate my assumptions: One, Mathematics is the language of nature. Two, Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature. ;D

I think three examples are enough to state my point. These three types of characters seem to appear in so far all the animes that I watched from this genre (comedy/slice of life). I'm not mentioning Lucky Star because I haven't watched it except for only a couple of episodes but I have a feeling that I'll recognize such characters there as well. I also believe Kannagi has such character patterns as well. It seems to me that every time they make an anime such as this they make one fetish object for each type of fan. You can clearly see this when browsing anime and related forums. Every one of these characters will have a fan because those three types of females are the most common types that attract the masses. Some like calm ones, some like naive and innocent ones and some like the ones that are in control. To cater such needs people make animes like these. All this is great but the fact is people like these characters in reality can't nor do not exist.

It would be ok if the stories are good and everything but the more I watch such shows the more I have the feeling is that stories only serve as something like "HEY LOOK AT YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THIS SITUATION. LOOK HOW CUTE SHE IS AT WHAT SHE DOES. MOEMOEMOE". This reason is possibly why I like Azumanga Daioh the most from this bunch. It has all the mentioned above characters. Sasaki the calm one, Chiyo the cute and innocent and Tomo the wild one. There are more characters which are fractured into more smaller personalities. Osaka the confused one, Kagura the more serious version of Tomo and Koyomi the childish version of Sasaki. But there isn't any fanservice, the characters provide neat little fun and aren't portrayed as some fetish objects. They just are; dumb and plain for your entertainment. If you would combine all Azumanga Daioh characters into one you would get a normal whole person. :S It's like they take each personality that one person has and then make a character out of it.

In seinen shows things are a bit different. Observe:

Teenager in K-On!:

Teenager in Legend Of The Galactic Heroes:

Now which one of these two look like a 10 year old child? :D

Do you see the difference? Katerose von Kreutzer has all the personalities a person has AND SHE ALSO HAPPENS TO HAVE A FUCKING NOSE. She is calm and rational but at the same time she is also shy and playful when the situation for such emotions arise. She isn't cold and she isn't playful all the time, there is a balance. Something which characters from K-On, Minami Ke and so on seem to lack, for me they are not complete persons and I'm unable to understand nor relate to them. Another good example of a proper female complete character would be Faye from Cowboy Bebop. She is the femme fatale of the show but she also has her cold and playful side. There's a balance, she isn't always the same which helps people to relate with the character and make her more real and not just a fetish object.

So in conclusion I find characters from such comedy shows very shallow and I'm under the impression that they are made with the same formula. It seems like they only serve to fill in the imagination of the fans. I don't like that. It's not cute at all. ;( Or am I just watching the wrong shows?

In any case: