Azzy Ranks Albums Series

 I think, starting next week, I'll do a weekly(or try to do a weekly) blog where I take a band's albums and rank them from what I consider the 'worst' to the best. (Worst is in quotes because there are some bands where I enjoy the whole discography, so 'worst' is relative here; something has to be last.)

I'll make sure to point out if I'm dealing with a band who's discog is all gold standard stuff, or if they have some great mixed in with mid, or if some stuff is downright bad(at least, IMO.) I think I'll start out with the bands that make up my top 10 albums, though not necessarily in order(as Darkthrone's discography is huge, and I think I'll start with something a bit more moderate-sized.)

I think also I'll keep it to full-length albums, noting any EPs the bands have on the side in an article. This won't be a numerical or letter-grading rating so much as just me discussing each album and why it is where it is. (Also, some of these can change depending on my mood, of course, though I'd say my top 3 to 5 with all of these bands are pretty well heavily settled.) 

For those curious, here are my top 10:

So yeah. Chances are, I'm going to either start with Bathory(who I might consider my fav band, despite them having my 2nd favorite album of all time), or perhaps Mercyful Fate or Satyricon(both of which I feel like have incredibly strong, consistent, high-quality discographies.) That said, I think 1349 and Emperor do as well, so they could also be in the running. I'd like to eventually do all of these. Some will be more obvious than others, while some bands might actually surprise people(particularly Satyricon and Sodom, though more the former than the latter.) 

I'll also try to come up with a catchy name for it. 

If it works out for me(and I don't see a shiny object and think of something else), I might try a Game Rank series after it! 

RIP to one Ozzy Osbourne

 The Prince of Darkness may have left the building, but he'll live forever just like Lemmy. 

There isn't really much to say about the man's influence, so I'd rather use this blog to tell how my life was formed by his music. I think we all have a story like that, young and old alike, given Black Sabbath formed in the late 60s; the band that basically influenced any and all genres and sub genres of rock and metal.

When I was a little kid in the early 80s, as many families we had family gatherings on holidays or just now and again, usually at my aunt and uncle's place. They had the big two story house with the attic with the pool table and dartboards and stuff, and the big dining room. (Me and my folks had a typical suburban 1 story home at the time. You know the type in every 80s suburb.) 

Of course like a lot of families they had the stereo system with the glass door on it. Usually they'd be playing whatever big band or easy listening stuff they listened to, but when my big brother would join for the events(which was usual, he was my half brother but I never made the distinction, we had different mothers but mine always treated him the same), he'd bring his records with him. Big Bro was a metalhead. He was 12 years older than me, and would always have his array of albums from the late 70s and early 80s; Motley Crue, Dokken, Kiss, all the usuals. 

And, of course, Ozzy. Ozzy was his favorite. When I was like four, I used to pronounce it "Ozzy Osburne." He got to see Ozzy on the tour right after Randy passed; in fact, one of those random, sparse early childhood memories that we all have is remembering hearing him talking about how Randy died at one of those gatherings soon after it happened(I think he was talking to his one childhood friend who always used to come over to those too.) He had some shirts, and a guitar that he used to mess with(I do remember him playing the Crazy Train solo.) 

I used to hang with him in the living room and check some of the music out, and despite being young, I remember liking it. I was pretty open to music at the time, as my parents raised me on a lot of stuff. They were big hard rock fans(my mom actually saw Black Sabbath on one of their early US tours in '71, the Paranoid tour, but I'll get to that more later), they liked classical music and played it a lot too, my dad was into the blues, and both of them also liked old electronic music-stuff like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis(I still like a lot of dark ambient stuff today and I think that + the metal formed my modern love of black and dark metal.) So I was pretty much open to whatever. I listened to a variety of stuff and metal was no different, I took to it quite quickly. Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley were iconic; the solo and the keyboard intro, respectively, stuck out in my mind. I remember thinking the album covers were funny(especially Speak of the Devil.) I remember later enjoying The Ultimate Sin, even if Ozzy himself wasn't fond of that one. The first time he saw Ozzy was I believe in 1983, on the Speak of the Devil tour, at the Atlantic City Convention Center. Unfortunately, my brother passed away about 11 years ago, so I can't ask him anymore(and I'm not sure his old friend would know.) But it was one of those tours not too long after Randy died. 

As I got more into metal as time went on, I of course got to the thrash scene(which was the next step for a lot of us before the extreme metal.) I remember one day my mother listening in as I was listening to Metallica, and she said how the guitars reminded her of Black Sabbath. I said yeah, they were of course influenced by them, and she said she could hear it, and then proceeded to tell me the story on how she saw them back in 1971 on their Paranoid tour. She even had floor seats! Mom still has me beat for concerts let me say that. She also said how she almost got hit with a flying bottle of Southern Comfort I believe it was(the security was pretty lax in those days, it was like Hell's Angels or nothing.)

And I of course had a lot of Ozzy in my collection, as did friends of mine. Ozzy was always one of those welcome acts to play in some format, since even our parents grew up with stuff like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. He bridged gaps, and Sabbath inspired pretty much every genre under the sun. At school, Ozzy/Sabbath was often on playlists of people who weren't into other types of metal(since Sabbath appealed to the classic hard rock fans, too.)

Again, nothing here is really groundbreaking what I'm saying. One of my oldest friends and I went to go see him the first time in '96; this was a hell of a gig since it also featured one of the last gigs of Sepultura in their old lineup. We were still teenagers and thought it was crazy cool to see the legend live(and had some pretty damn good near ground-level seats at the Spectrum in Philly, though I think at that point it was the First Union Center, affectionally known as the F.U.C., of course.) I saw him a couple more times after that in some format(Ozzfests, and some other festival IIRC that is escaping me at the moment), and he was always, even after I went way deeper into the extreme and black metal life(which was full on 'yeah, this is me, this is my life now, I was clearly built for inverted crosses and spikes'), Ozzy never ever went away on mine or anyone else's playlists either, that were into extreme metal.

I wished I could've gone to see the final gig; it unfortunately wasn't in the cards(it was hard as fuck to get tickets for it and boy were they pricey), as it would've been awesome to let the little dude also see him once live; he's been starting to get more into some heavy music(though goes between requesting 'the fast drummer' and 'the deep voice' for now), and he showed some interest in seeing a gig. Between me and Mr. Azzy both having seen him, and my mother having seen him, and my big bro having seen him, it'd have been cool to sort of keep the Ozzy seeing in the family, but it can't go on forever, of course, and he has plenty of footage for him to watch. 

But more importantly, I think for me this marks a weird end of another era. With my mother and brother both gone(and my old man now, as well), Ozzy's passing feels like another string that broke away, in a sense. The music and the memories always stick around, of course, and I never got to personally meet Ozzy like I have so many other musicians, but there's still a bit of melancholy there that I can't help but have. Not deep mourning or anything, but still remembering how I continue to have a drink and play Crazy Train every year on my brother's birthday and stuff. 

Anyway, rest well king, say hi to Lemmy, Alexi, my buddy Jon, and anyone else you see over in Valhalla, and you better make that reunion hug you give to Randy count. 

Pandemonium and the Black Flame

I was overthinking music again and came to the realization that, at least to my strangely-wired brainpan, Celtic Frost's 1987 album Into the Pandemonium and 1349's 2009 album Revelations of the Black Flame have a lot more in common that I once might have thought. After hearing ItP discussed in an interview not long ago, I started thinking about this and Revelations and started to see more things. 

Kind of. In abstract sort of way. 

Despite coming out nearly twenty years apart, after time, growth, and my own musical maturity, I was able to see interesting connections here that I didn't before. Maybe not literal ones, but just that these two albums have some things in common that I couldn't appreciate until a bit later on(or I just started looking at things from non-Euclidian angles for some reason.) 

They sound quite different; the similarities aren't in the actual sounds of the albums, necessarily. Revelations of the Black Flame is still 1349 and has its brutal sound, Frost's relentless double bass, and other things they're known for, and Celtic Frost still has Tom's harsh vocals and trademark 'Ugh!', which if you know anything about Celtic Frost, you will know the 'Ugh.' If you don't, this particular blog is going to confuse the hell out of you, but before it does that, just know Tom G. Warrior has a very trademark "UGH."

Okay okay, I'll go into a brief history of CF to prevent such confusion. Celtic Frost was part of what generally gets nicknamed "The 1st wave of Black Metal." These are typically bands from the very late 70s to early 80s that went on to influence a lot of the 2nd wave of black metal(the stuff from Norway, and, well, everywhere else.) It's not black metal as you might know it, but often 'darker versions of some genres at the time.' Bathory, for example, was probably the most black-sounding, but had a lot of thrash influence. Sodom started out as more of a black/thrash combo before moving onto their more classic Teutonic thrash sound. Venom was a very dark version of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal(N.W.O.B.H.M. as its usually seen abbreviated to.) Mercyful Fate was a very dark and satanic version of what really was classic heavy metal. (Note that 1st wave black metal is different from OG Heavy metal like Sabbath, Priest, and other 70s bands, who were the influencers for like, ALL of it, but I digress. I'm just speaking a bit about the early extreme bands.) 

Then we had Celtic Frost, heavily inspired by Discharge and other D-beat hardcore punk at the time, with its driving, trademark beat and dark punkish sound on their first two albums(moreso on their Morbid Tales EP.) They were formed from the ashes of the band Hellhammer, who by the time they split, were already 2/3rds of Celtic Frost(Tom G. Warrior and the late Martin Eric Ein.) 

Okay, so with that brief background out of the way, know that Celtic Frost's original stuff sounded like dark, more brutal, hardcore D-beat inspired music. Very straightforward; To Mega Therion did branch out some more, getting even darker sounding than Morbid Tales, but still very raw. You can go check them out online; they're available anywhere. 

But then came Into the Pandemonium, and with that, instead of another more straightforward, punkish(like Morbid Tales) or punkish-groovy(like To Mega Therion), it has some stranger aspects. There's some orchestration, cleaner vocals mixed in with the rough, some female vocals, breakdowns...there's still those Celtic Frosts riffs in play, but the album is, for the best term I can use, "experimental" in many ways. For one, it opens with a cover of Mexican Radio. Yes, *that* Mexican Radio. From Wall of Voodoo, released in 1982, and not a song you'd expect Celtic Frost to cover. It was indeed a metal version, and a groovy one at that, but man, coming off of Hellhammer's stuff and Celtic Frost's early stuff, I wasn't really sure where it was going.

Really, I feel like this was Celtic Frost showing that they had grown musically quite a bit from their previous albums in their way. 

Now 1349 needs I think less introduction in terms of metal history; they are a 2nd wave Norwegian black metal band, known a whole lot for being the musical equivalent of being lit on fire and beaten to death with a bag of hammers. Put on Hellfire and you will hear exactly what I mean. They've consisted of vocalist Ravn, guitarist Archaon, bassist Seidemann, and drummer Frost(yes, the same one from Satyricon and, in the '90s and '00s, a billion other bands. He was a very in-demand drummer at the time. he still probably is, but just sticks to his main bands nowadays) for a long time now. They previously had a 2nd guitarist Tjalve, but he stepped out of the band after Hellfire, and they've been a four-piece ever since. (They have had an incredibly stable lineup, though, especially for black metal. Besides Tjalve leaving, they had one change back in their demo days, and that's it. Typically, this is a genre where a band's lineup is measured in Planck units instead of years before they swap members.) 

I mentioned how I started to feel how Revelations of the Black Flame has some strange things in common with Into the Pandemonium(indeed, this is the reason why I decided to write this blog-article-thing.) While Maggot Fetus...Teeth like Thorns is probably the closest to what one might expect from 1349(it is an incredible song, too!) it's not quite as fast as some of their typical previous songs(which were generally far more blistering.) It's got an almost galloping beat that goes with some intricate yet still fast double bass and blastbeats in there. It's a 'pit song' for sure, but they do add more layers to it. But then there are other interesting tracks; Uncreation is a seven-minute-long(note: 1349 is no stranger to long songs), mid-tempo atmospheric affair, and Serpentine Sibilance is a dark and grinding, also mid-tempo song that the rhythm section carries in a primal way. 

There are musical interludes as well, in between the songs. Creepy, actually somewhat freakishly demonic sounding interludes adding more to the atmosphere. And "atmosphere" really comes out here, from the production down to songs themselves, it feels more like a ritual sometimes than their previous albums where their goal was to seemingly administer savage beatings through music. 

I would say Into the Pandemonium took me a bit less time to really sink in, but it still took it awhile to move up the list for me. As someone who just could not really get Cold Lake or Vanity/Nemesis(the latter just doesn't make me feel anything, and, well, the band even denies Cold Lake, lol), for awhile my fav Celtic Frost albums were, well, To Mega Therion(a top 5 of all time for me!) and Morbid Tales, with Into the Pandemonium after those. Then 2006's Monotheist came out and was one of the finest 'final albums' from a band before their split that I've heard, and that album eventually became my 2nd favorite Celtic Frost, due to its absolutely stifling, heavy evil atmosphere. 

But then one day(I forget when it was, it happened quite a long time ago), ItP kinda clicked hard with me; I think it may have actually been after Tuska 2006 and not even that long after Monotheist dropped. And you know something, the more I think about this, I don't know if we would've gotten that stiflingly evil album of Monotheist if Celtic Frost *hadn't* decide to go experiment the way they did on ItP. 

I think I thought to write about it NOW, nearly 20 years after the fact, because I started to see those similarities with Revelations and I started to line it up. I wanted to know why I felt that way about the albums the first times I heard them. It wasn't youth(I was 31 when Revelations came out), but perhaps my tastes in the 2000s and before were a little more hardline(as many can be when they are younger in a scene.) 

1349 was, at least at the time for me, a very big left turn. Maybe a bit too much for me at first. Hellfire is often seen as their magnum opus(and for good reason, I do think it's their magnum opus.) It took everything they learned from the previous two albums, added excellent production value, even more blasts and crushing sound. Hellfire is one of the most brutal black metal albums around and often even offered up as "Essential Listening" for those who like their black metal on the harsh, unforgiving, and brutal side. But I also think the experimenting they did on Revelations did actually allow them to add some more grooves and atmosphere to their later albums, as well. The more I think about it, after Hellfire, I'm not sure how much nastier they could've gotten. I feel like they perfected that sound with that album, and perhaps really had to go somewhere else, lest they just release Hellfire II. And while Hellfire II might have sounded awesome, would Hellfire III? Or IV? I'm not so sure. I can't blame the band for not wanting to be one-note. 

But the more I listened, I mentioned I saw those similarities. Experimental albums, both of which swapped previous styles for something different(yet not complete departures.) Both include some very strange cover song picks, between Mexican Radio and Set Controls For the Heart of the Sun(Pink Floyd, if you didn't know.) Revelations went for a very dark, more stifling atmosphere, Pandemonium went for some more groovy metal sound(though with it's own eerie interludes. Both in ways somewhat challenging to get into if you come at it from the wrong angle, almost like trying to line up a shot in the wind. Come at it head on, and you're going to get blown off course, but approach it from a different angle, and it might hit that bull's eye. 

Oh yeah, they both involve Tom G. Warrior, amusingly enough. Did I mention he was one of the producers on Revelations? Now I have. So there's that tie-in, which I do find pretty interesting and awesome, as well. 

I do feel they share that other aspect of "Peaking with their previous sound." To Mega Therion I think was the summit and crowning achievement of the original Celtic Frost sound(which had advanced from Hellhammer, remember), and Hellfire perfected 1349's "set on fire and murdered in a dark alley with hammers" sound. While CF would continue experimenting(perhaps not that successfully until the monumentally good Monotheist, which just nailed everything), 1349 would start mixing what they learned from Revelations with their unforgiving, brutal sound and start creating even more layered albums that were nonetheless journeys in lightning fast percussion and crushing guitars, only with more atmosphere this time.( FWIW, 2019's The Infernal Pathway is my 2nd favorite album of theirs, which I feel like really did capture the brutality, speed and the evil atmosphere pretty perfectly.)

I also think they're interesting in that neither album necessarily became a favorite from either band for me. This isn't a story of "Now these albums are my favorites," but "I 'get them' so much more now and really enjoy them for what they are because I examined them under a new light." 

ItP, again, I'd rate third(not bad for a band with only 6 albums), and I do probably put Revelations at the end of 1349's discography, BUT I appreciate what they did on the albums, a lot more these days. I can genuinely say 1349 has an 'all good' discography if someone asks me, where some years back I'd have said 'You could probably ignore Revelations.' Now, I would suggest that folks actually give it a listen. Hell, if their other stuff is too fast and brutal, or if Celtic Frost's first couple of albums are too raw and punkish, it may be these albums might click with you more for all I know. 

So...yeah. This wasn't so much a review of play-by-play of each album(I wasn't planning on it to be exactly that), but for those who haven't listened to them yet, you can listen for yourself and make your own decisions. Perhaps if you're from the outside you might not hear the weird similar aspects; if anything I almost feel like this is me overthinking music again like I am wont to do. 

'Til next time, when we'll see what I talk about next(and when that might be!) 

My ode to one hell of a game-changing album

 Alright, let’s do this! Be prepared for a lot of rambling and lots of bonus thought parentheses.

As many who know me know I used to write for a webzine, I was the 'zines resident "Very Wordy Writer" at the time, and I suppose this carries over to a lot of things. It's probably one of the reasons I miss forums so damn much. It's a lot easier to be wordy on those than short-form social media and I don't have the patience to write threads.

So, I decided to have a little fun and write an ode to one of my favorite albums -- underrated at the time, but grew to be more beloved, Rebel Extravaganza.

In 1999, black metal had already gone through a lot of shifts in the 2nd wave. (We won’t go into all the crazy stuff, that’s been done to death by this point, I focus on the music.) Between the old rawer stuff into the heavier, melodic but still cold stuff, in the later 90s it started to transition to a much more ‘big’ sound. Big, bombastic, and maybe just a little bit pompous.

Lots of bands started adopting a more heavily symphonic sound. It wasn’t any one band; it was a lot of them. (Keep in mind some bands already had some bits of symphonic sounds in their music; Emperor’s In The Nightside Eclipse, for example, had some of it, but it was a lot less…prevalent, perhaps might be the best way to say it.) Melodic sounds in black metal were nothing new; there’s a difference between that and full-on symphonic. 

If the bands weren’t going symphonic, then some started to edge more toward the avant-garde. You did still have some bands doing the harsh, lo-fi stuff as they always did, but when you were listening to a lot of the albums in that late 90s time, you did start to hear more and more big, bombastic, heavily produced black metal. More and more bands were starting to adopt the sound; it WAS very successful, to be sure. Understandably so; it was generally more accessible. Emperor’s IX Equilibrium was even slightly more symphonic on a few songs(though they still kept the more proto-symphonic sound, rather than going full on to the bombastic, overwrought stuff.)

So where does Satyricon and Rebel Extravaganza come into play here? They actually(for as much as people -- as in, the more stickler types -- like to say ‘Their First 3 albums only'), had more variety in those first 3 albums than a lot of people really credit or remember. All three had melodic aspects, with DMT indeed having a raw sound but also experimenting with other instruments; it had, like it’s name suggested, a medieval vibe to it. The Shadowthrone was, probably their ‘closest sounding’ album to the Classic Black Metal Sound(I’d argue even more than DMT which was pretty experimental for the time in 1993), with Nemesis Divina oft being seen as their crowning achievement(I mean, I’m not alone here, it is my 3rd favorite album of all time for a reason, and it does have the song which might as well be considered Norway’s National Anthem.) Melodic, cold and heavy, though still with a slightly rough edge to its production.

So you had a time in the late 90s where black metal started to be drenched in the aforementioned big, bombastic and symphonic sound, as well as more avant-garde stuff, and there’s nothing wrong with switching it up, but after a strong, well-produced and melodic album in Nemesis Divina(as well their previous albums that had some arguably beautiful melodies mixed in there), they decided to push *completely* against the grain and make one of the ugliest, nastiest, heaviest and coldest black metal albums they could, changing up their own sound, as well as throwing something in the face of the current ‘prettying up’ of the genre. If you look back at the releases of '97 to '00 or so, it really did get heavy with the strings-and-big-production sound.

And so they did, with Rebel Extravaganza. And when it was released, boy did fans push against it. The thing was, *both sides* of fans pushed against it; it wasn’t raw and lo-fi enough to please the ‘trve’ crowd, nor was it big, accessible and symphonic to please the crowd that grew to like that sound(sometimes that's how people got *into* the genre at that time.) People looked at this thing and wondered what the fuck it was. It was over an hour long, opened and closed with songs over ten minutes long(to be fair, black metal wasn’t a stranger to long songs or anything but still), and just SO dirty. It was very well produced and had wonderful sound, but it was still icy cold. Some called it ‘industrial sounding’ but I could never figure this out, except for a couple of samples, there’s not much in the way of an ‘industrial sound.’ There WERE a handful of people that thought the album used a drum machine, but no, that was just their inhuman drummer playing at speeds not meant for human limbs. But it also had these complex musical layers to it that were also not too often heard at the time, hostile guitars and riffs which still managed to drop in a groove or three beneath the filth. 

Everything about the album was nastier. The photo shoots took place in alleyways in London, with what might even be daylight shining into one or two of the pictures -- almost post-apocalyptic, rather than the usual eerie scenes of nature at night. The more forested corpsepaint pictures were replaced by urban decay and some bloody scenes of mayhem(almost like the two band members were murder-zombies; both of them had tattered, shredded clothing, the frontman Satyr was sporting his newly shaved head look and dirt smeared everywhere, and Frost, the drummer, was holding what seemed to be fistfuls of guts, his corpsepaint taking on a more horror-like feel.) They just purposefully set out to make something very, very different, and really, to me, they succeeded. To this day I consider it one of their finest albums(sometimes I think it’s even better than my favorite album of theirs, but that goes back and forth.) Even the name of the album told a story; “Rebel Extravaganza,” the album that was rebelling against much in that particular scene at the moment. 

But with all of the pushback, there were people like myself defending it. I wasn't alone; there were a few of us who loved what it offered. It was, IMHO, exactly what the scene needed. See, it was cold and nasty, but there were also mad riffs and the album had those grooves floating around, too. It is also, and I’ll die on this hill, one of the best drumming albums of the 90s. There were ten tracks(with three of them shorter instrumentals), opening with the super heavy and groovy “Tied in Bronze Chains” and ending with “The Scorn Torrent”, a testament to percussion stamina everywhere. “Filthgrinder” remains one of my favorite black metal songs to this day and it's somewhat of a mainstay in their live sets(they often swap up their setlists, but if they play something from this album, it's often Filthgrinder.)

Over time, people gained more and more appreciation for this album. And when you really look at black metal in general, in the 2000s+, while the symphonic bands stuck around(it was, again, a quite accessible sound), things did start to get ‘nastier’ again, bit by bit. Was it because of this album? Maybe not only this, I’m not sure, but I do feel like Satyricon did the scene a favor by dropping this thing how and when they did. Maybe it planted some subconscious seeds somewhere. The symphonic black metal didn't go anywhere, mind you, but I did notice an uptick of brutal albums in the 2000s.

I really, really would love to see a game-changer album like this done by a young band nowadays, in this world of cleanly-produced modern metal(much of it deathcore inspired), but it feels like the young musical revolutionaries are hiding. Algorithmic streaming(and those Damn Phones) really has put a damper on things and I feel like this album, when I think about it, is a perfect example of how. It might just be the way my brain sees it, but I see an album that was made in response to a musical world that started shifting a certain way. 

But when young folks(remember this album was being written in ‘98 or so? Recorded and released in ‘99, I’m not sure of the exact writing dates, but about that, which meant the guys were still pretty young, in their early-mid 20s) are constantly fed only things they like due to algorithms, and never get exposed past a song or two of things they don’t like(and it’s far too easy to just shut out things you don’t like nowadays), I can’t help but feel that stifles that sort of creativity to really push back against things. Today’s young musicians often grew up on stuff that formed in the 90s and 2000s(and of course you get some young folks into the classics as always), but I feel like rather than ‘Inspired by X’ some newer material sounds more like ‘very very directly inspired by X to the point where it shares the sound a little too closely.’ 

Mind you, there are plenty of bands that have younger folks in them that are talented and they’re not making *bad* music or anything, but there’s not really been anything that I’ve seen that really blew things up, like, say, Black Sabbath did during their time, or Motorhead did, or Bathory, or the thrash bands both from the Bay Area and Germany, and bands from the Norwegian scene in the ‘90s….after the ‘90s it really started to slow down I noticed. Far less really ‘stands out.’ 

Anything that felt stunning post-90s seemed to come from the bands *from* the 80s and 90s, at least for me(or members of bands from the 80s and 90s that formed other projects) rather than another generation of young bands that started in the 2000s+. Some metalcore-like bands started to push things in the 00s and got pretty ‘big’ for the genre, but it swiftly started to become a bit too sanitized feeling after that and they got a bit lost in the mix. A lot of bands that got their start in the 2010’s +(made up of relatively unknowns before that) don’t sound terrible or anything to my ears, and I’ve genuinely tried, but there’s a definite stagnation there; a lack of growth or pushing the envelope.

 And I – and many others – are waiting for someone to try to break out and pull another Rebel Extravaganza out for the extreme metal genre. (Not in the same style, of course, but the idea behind it.) 

There’s a fair amount of talented young bands, but not much in the way of young musical revolutionaries. There’s a difference. Maybe they don’t *want* to be revolutionaries, and while that’s fine – I couldn’t, nor wouldn’t, want to force that – I am still kinda disappointed in it. 

Okay, I digressed a bit there. But coming back around to this album; it was a game changer because it was one of those times where a band brought back, in a way, the original ‘spirit’, the way black metal before was raw and uncompromising, only they did it their way, by adding a coat of polish, production, and excellent, progressed musicianship and songwriting on top of it. They didn’t strip it down naked like Under a Funeral Moon, but they weren’t afraid to assault everyone with something completely off-the-wall what they were getting used to over the past couple of years of more and more of the prettier, symphonic music(or, if you skipped that, the very raw and lo-fi sound, which was your other main option, and they didn’t even go the avant-garde route that a few bands did.) They didn’t care that people pushed against the album, either; and that’s the way it has to be done, I think. If they cared, we wouldn’t have gotten this album(nor the rest of their excellent discography, of which they never cared what anyone thought.) 

That said, I’m not a musician(I was for awhile, but decided behind the scenes was the place for me, but I did spend some years bashing on a kit in a very mediocre manner), so I’m kinda wondering even what something would SOUND like that pushes against the grain these days. I’ve heard one rather excellent black ambient band from Germany called Von Jeglichem Wort, which is very cold, slow, dark and atmospheric; in it’s way it IS something that breaks far away from the current sort of ‘popular, ultra-clean deathcore sound’ in metal a lot, which I appreciate, but it’s I’d say it’s own genre, which for me(if I had to describe it) blends atmospheric black metal with old 70s German dark ambient/electronic type of music. It’s rather beautiful in its stark way. 

I do urge anyone curious about the genre to listen to this album, though(and dig into the band’s whole discography, for that matter!) and if you’re just getting into extreme metal, grab it. It’s by no means pretty as I’ve said several times here, but it’s so fucking good and I find myself coming back to it just as much as I do my favorite album of theirs(Nemesis Divina.)

Here’s Tied In Bronze Chains for a teaser:

I’m really not sure where I was going with this whole thing, I think this particular blog turned into a mix of praising a game-changing album while at the same time lamenting the lack of other game-changing albums(from new, young bands. Hell, I think some of those 80s and 90s bands are still trying and evolving!)

Hell, I think in a way this blog is my way of sort of pushing back against things. Rather than post giant threads on social media that get lost, I’ll post here. I don’t mind using social media as a tool(and it’s nifty for keeping in touch with friends and family these days), and posting links to things, but perhaps going back to some of this is my way of being like ‘Yeah I’ve had enough of what’s going on right now.’ 

'Til next time, or whenever I get an urge to word vomit again!

Blogging is Hard

 Straight up, what the title says.

I can be very talkative when I have things to say, but then sometimes I shut up for a long time. But in this day and age, it's hard to keep readers if you aren't 'churning out content.' I guess I don't make content, I just sort of ramble about various topics. 

Been doing a nice job of replenishing the CD/LP collection; for those who don't know, I had moved overseas...well damn near 20 years ago by now, but I still only kept a select bunch of favorite albums, since moving overseas is hard enough as it is. Then streaming became a thing. I'd still grab a favorite here and there, and always tried to buy games hard copy, but I've gone full on back into the hard-copy-of-everything itis. Tabletop RPG books(I had gone mostly digital with those), LPs, CDs, DVDs, books, everything. 

(Another reason I had slowed down was just that we had a Lot Of Stuff(tm), that we've since given away/donated that was some stuff that we realized we hadn't used in years; this freed up room to buy New Stuff We Use. I also used to live in a house in the US; there was endless more space for stuff, even a large flat has more limited space, but now that we've done some big work on the place remodeling over the past decade and stuff I realized hey, there's lots more space now!)

I'm probably still never going to be the way I used to with music(where I'd haul home massive quantities every week thanks to employee discounts and dirt-cheap used places near us in the 2000s), but owning a nicely-sized collection to DJ with is certainly on the cards, as well as a shelf of like, top 20 movies or something and my Shadowrun 1st-3rd book collection. (Retro games take up quite a bit of room, but I like having systems.)

Hopefully I'll figure out some sort of posting thing. Maybe I don't need a straight up schedule; if I feel like chatting about something, I'll upload something. I prefer to do it here than on social media(more room to info dump, which is always a good thing.) 

I DO have plans to ramble about Rebel Extravaganza and how it's a game-changer at some point soon, though. 

Tabletop RPG Musings: Different Eras for Different Moods

 I was sitting there, going over stuff for both old and new TTRPGs, and realizing that sometimes I was in the mood for the new, and sometimes I was in the mood for the older. 

I feel like TTRPGs have definitely changed over time-mostly for the better, mind you(my favorite system right now is Pathfinder 2e; I think it does a whole lot of stuff really well), but I also, once in awhile, occasionally find myself missing some aspects about the older systems, as well. Again moods.

I mean, moods can hit for lots of things. Sometimes I'm in the mood to play one of my modern MMORPGs(FFXIV, new WoW), sometimes I want Classic WoW, sometimes I want my straight up older games-PS2, PS1, even NES or SNES. (I don't consider playing old games 'nostalgia'-I never stopped playing them.) Music, as well. One of my favorite bands is a black metal band, Satyricon(any metal fans probably know them, non-metal fans, probably not), and one thing I really love about the band is that they change with every album a bit; they're still *them*, they're still black metal, but I get a little something new every time, so they have an album for my every mood. Other times I'm in the mood for stuff from the 80s-Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Venom, or the like. (And then other times I want some dark industrial metal, and then other times I want something that's not metal, and I turn to synthwave.) 

TTRPGs are the same. I realized over time that each type of RPGs-new-school, I guess 'middle school'(huh, maybe post 3.X stuff from the D&D side? Or maybe the 3.X stuff is middle now, I can't say), and older school(early-mid 90s and before), all offer up something different that I like.

One of the best thing about the modern times is, 100%, the amount of variety and choice one has for concepts. If you have a concept, you can probably make it(especially in something like PF2e.) I had mentioned the band above-their song, Black Crow on a Tombstone(listen to it, btw, it's amazing), actually inspired a character concept of mine. I was able to mix and match mechanics to come up with a corvid-themed barbarian from the northern regions, who dipped into druid to get a crow animal companion(the crow's name is Nero, btw), and the character follows Barzahk, who is a deity associated with the dead and travel(who has a tombstone lock on him and does often take a corvid form.) He's Animal-aspected with 'bird' taken, which is open to whatever you want; it doesn't have to be a hawk or eagle. Through backgrounds, skill choices, and everything, he was able to be crafted just about perfectly. He's by no means the only character I've managed to craft just about perfectly, either; I've made a few through class, free archetype, skills, feats and the like who I fine-tuned toward what I wanted. Oh, and not to mention weapon choices. I swear the books have an extreme variety. Some are more locale oriented, but are usable if you come from there or visit there(or just dependent on the GM, there's very little in terms of items that I restrict.) 

                        (Here are some model examples of Einar from Heroforge, just because I like showing them.)

Another great thing about modern times-at least IMO-is the games are MUCH more fair. There's more 'save or suck' instead of 'save or die', and instant death in a like-leveled fight is exceedingly rare. There might be some mathematical combination that might result in one, but it's likely not going to be in just one attack and more of a result of some very bad luck a few times in a row(either rolling poorly, or the enemy rolling really good, and probably both together.) No permanent level draining or anything like that. Solid HP at lower levels. You do need to at least try to play somewhat smart(running up in an enemy's face with a poor Armor Class and/or more middling HP means you can get knocked down for the count way more often), but in general, you are at much less risk of Insta-Exploding. 

Alignment is also basically not a thing anymore, or when it is(like in D&D), alignments aren't nearly as stringent. Neutral paladins? Sure. Neutral Assassins? Sure. No need to be good or evil. PF2e just did AWAY with alignment and has people pick something called edicts and anathemas; basically you have your characters follow things. Or if you're a cleric, follow your deity's things. And even before PF2 dropped alignment, things were generally more lenient than later. You could have optional rules like 'multi-step alignments' where a character could be 'Somewhat Chaotic, Somewhat Good'. Basically it once again leads back to choice, and letting you play the character YOU wanna make. There IS a push toward playing more heroic or neutral characters, mostly just due to the logistics of mixing bad guys in with non-bad groups, but you can at least play 'kinda naughty' types if you work with your party and GM that your character has some codes(a monk I have who follows Akuma has the whole 'Strong Opponent' PoV where he's unlikely to really bother with picking on anyone under his weight class, even if he's pretty merciless otherwise, and he'll even go after people picking on those under their weight class since he thinks they're weaklings themselves for doing that.) In any case, no alignment means you can put together a pretty complex, layered array of a character's codes and edicts that a strict alignment system had trouble with. 

(3.X/PF1 still used alignment like the older days, though it was still a little less strict. But they were still stuck in the whole 'Assassins must be evil' mindset and such, which of course we houseruled right under a rug.) 

While minmaxing and optimizing is certainly a big thing, you do kind of have to *try* to make something that doesn't work. It IS possible, and I have had a couple of concepts that, after scribbling them down, didn't quite gel together as much as I'd have liked mechanically, but it's relatively difficult to go completely useless. And even if you do have a weaker concept, I feel like hashing everything out as a group, with a GM, can be helpful. All in all, though, you will likely at least manage to make something that's 'good enough at something.' 

Now, with all of that, as I'm someone who does like talking about things I like-I wanna point out that yes, there are things that I prefer in an older game like D&D 2nd edition. Since as much as I praise some of the newer design things, there are things that I do indeed like more. I mean, that's what this whole blog is about. 

For one, while you can minmax(trust me, I was good at it)-there really isn't all that much you CAN do. Besides juggling a couple of scores if you do a 4d6 drop low rolling, or the Points Plus Dice method(in 2e, everything started at 8, you roll 7 dice, and add them onto the scores to get what you want-it was a nice way to qualify for the harder classes with a lot of prime reqs like a ranger, or really high ones like a paladin or specialist wizard.) But not needing to minmax is not a bad thing. Newer games almost sort of *push* you towards optimization a bit, the way the math and mechanics work. This is fine, since I think we usually gear toward that ourselves, but I can't lie that it's not fun to just kinda cut loose and do something less optimized without worrying about screwing with the rest of the party(since teamwork is very, very emphasized in newer games. Again, not a bad thing, but it puts a level of character creation pressure on folks, even if subconscious.) The 2nd edition character I have is a fighter/death cleric multiclass with the points + dice, who I did manage to get an 18 and a 16 in his Str and Wis respectively(even rolled a 94 for his percentile!) but his other scores are pretty...okay? he gets no other bonuses with Dex 10, Con 14, Int 13-and one is slightly below(his Cha is 8-he's a little creepy and weird, though not unable to function in society by any means.) But he's fine and does his classes well. I didn't minmax his weapon loadout-he does have a scythe(Death cleric, again), and he swaps this with a morningstar + shield. I probably could've given him a better weapon that Clerics can use, like a flail to trip with or a warhammer for a better chance at finding a magical one-but I liked the morningstar on him. 

Besides this, you kinda minmaxed a bit in terms of taking spells, or maybe some weapon or non-weapon choices(Longsword vs. Bastard Sword was a common one, mostly due to longswords being the most common kind of magical weapon, but bastard swords just being awesome mechanically), but even then there was only so much you could really do. When it came up, it was often just a case of X vs. Y, and the difference was likely on the more minor side. 

Then there are times where it's kinda fun to play the concept of "Ordinary people becoming heroes" to quote a late old friend on this. Throwing 3d6 down the line, or 3d6 twice down the line and coming up with a concept from what you get has its own kinda fun. It might not be good if you have a specific concept in mind("I REALLY wanna play a Ranger"), but if you really dunno what you want to play, it can be a lot of fun. 

Math nowadays assumes a certain level of bonuses and penalties; this becomes difficult without a lot of GM fiat. In the old days, typical enemies were made in the monster manual assuming the standard character creation system, which usually resulted in one above average/good score, one below average score, and four in the more average range. Luck could change this, of course, but generally that's how the monsters were tuned. And for me-I dunno, I always found it easier to add a few HP onto an enemy for a party that had a bit higher stats(even then I didn't have to do that often.) I did a character like this; a pretty average dude who ended up a dwarf cleric(his Con was high so I decided to go dwarf, and his 2nd highest score was Wisdom at a whopping 13, everything else was like 8-12) who was a brewer, who got the Call from Gond, one of the Dwarven pantheon, so off he went. He had Brewing as a non-weapon proficiency along with Religion. Definitely a pretty average dude who became an adventurer and probably will join some other average folks in a tavern to go clear out a kobold lair or something and then see where fortune takes him.  

There's also this level of freeform, chill adventuring in those days. Now, 1e, maybe not so much, that was cut-throat dungeon crawling Dark Souls stuff(yes, I just called 1e the Dark Souls of tabletop), but in 2nd edition? You could just kinda meander along, fights weren't overly tactical(I don't mean ToM vs. grid-hell, lots of folks used grids back in 2e-I just mean they were less...mathy and crunchy?), and just the general design of the game was 'Group of hearty adventurers poking around places and chatting a lot.' It had dangers(like I said above, the old days were not kind in terms of insta-kills and some really unfair mechanics like the godforsaken level draining), but....it's difficult to really put into words beyond "A laid-back atmosphere." 

Another cool thing is that there's far fewer abilities in the old days, and there are times where I kinda like that. Because a lot of modern games give all classes lots of abilities, that have like ranges, durations, properties, traits and the whole nine-almost like a video game-that's a LOT to keep track of sometimes. Like, your average mid level fighter in PF2e has probably to keep track of than even a higher level wizard or cleric in the old days. You had spells, spell slots, the occasional ability like lay on hands or a druid's shapechange, but in general, your character sheet was not 20 pages long(unless you wanted it to be.) I'm looking at an example 5th level fighter in my collection here, and he has quite a bit to keep track of already. Sometimes, when I play something, I just want to be able to have 2-3 pages in front of me and maybe a piece of scratch paper. 

At the end of the day, though-there's room for old and new. that's why I like the fact that all the books still exist, just like I like the fact old CDs still exist. Can always pop one in no matter what the mood.

(2e/3e Shadowrun is still the best, tho.) 

Why I picked the platforms I did

So after a nice healthy dose of cloud-yelling, I figure I'd do a shorter bit here discussing why I picked the platforms I have. I touched on it a little bit in the other posts, but I thought it'd be worth it to go into the ones I picked and why. 

I have not unplugged completely from social media. I've simply curated it down to a few platforms that I know work the way I want to-at least, for the most part. Also keep in mind a couple of these platforms are...somewhat debatable about how 'social media' based they are. If you squint hard enough, you could consider an old message board a form of social media, but it's way, way different than, say, Tiktok or IG. I'll go into my little ideas and such in each section.

1. Bluesky. Bluesky I like because it allows me to keep my feed as my feed. it does have a 'discovery' place where algorithms come into play, but I don't have to use it; whatever I see on my feed is from my followers, or whatever they repost. And on top of that, I keep my collective relatively small there. It's definitely 'hard social media' (for lack of a better term), but it's relatively easy to curate, and keep my interests as my interests. I don't fall into that algorithmic complacency(a term I used that I quite like.) 

2. Facebook, TO an extent. It's friends and family only-I have to know you to add you, and preferably know you pretty decently, and trust you on top of it. I use it to keep in contact with friends and family for meetups via messengers, or abroad, and to keep in touch with what events(concerts, conventions I'm interested in like gaming related ones, and so on), since I don't use IG. FB is generally an alright place to keep in touch with these. I generally keep my posting light, however. I'd like to break away from it completely some day, but trying to convince my older family members to swap to SMS or Signal or something is...trying, to say the least, heh. 

3. Reddit. I consider Reddit "Soft Social Media." It's still social media because it sneaks an algorithm based on stuff you like, but you can also just make it go away(you can turn off recs) and keep yourself to a heavily curated bunch of subreddits; from there, you can just treat them like a light version of internet forums. They aren't as cool and personal, but it's something. 

4. Discord, which to be honest isn't so much social media as it is a big chatroom. IRC does a similar thing. Not much to say here except that you can just chat with whoever you want, set your profile to private so you don't get bothered and whatnot. Not really a big deal(you can spend too much time on this like any computer thing, but it's just...basic.) THAT said; Discord utilizes some stupid things, and I'd sooner swap to something else-but for now 'it'll do.' 

I am not sure I even want to count Whatsapp, since I *only* use that to contact the minion, since he doesn't have a FB messenger. It's just there.

Then there's stuff like Youtube(which might be my most active entertainment site, but I use it for music, podcasts, recipes and the like-BUT, I also try to keep it to Stuff I Know rather than randomly scroll). 

I don't think I can call myself a 'digital minimalist', so much as someone who is just being more mindful of what they use and how. I know some people who feel better getting rid of all of it, but what I am attempting is to more or less dial my use back to something resembling the midlate 2000s. (I might go back to the earlymid 2000s sometime, who knows.) What this means is "If I could do it on something like a Blackberry in the late 2000s, I'll do it on my phone." So pictures? These are cool, but I'll wait to upload them(unless it's necessary at that moment, like for directions, or if I need to buy something and I'm in a messenger.) I can surf websites, but I don't have social media apps(with the exception of messenger stuff, which, again, you could message people from that.) 

If I'm out and about, I don't hit up the social media I do use(Bluesky is from the browser), again, with the exception of messenger. If I have a particularly boring doctor's office visit, sometimes I'll bring a book with me, but if I don't have my backpack or whatnot then I might read a few websites or listen to music. 

I like the idea of using a phone as a "Swiss Army Knife" that you choose what goes into it. Having cameras/camcorder on my phone? Good stuff for when I want to use it, carrying around a minicam? Look I'm not a luddite-I don't mind technology at ALL. I mean I'm a computer and game nerd. I just don't take pictures of everything and upload them all the time. Music? I was considering getting an ipod again, believe it or not-but for now, I'll use it for music. I think it's fine to keep the amount of stuff in my pockets down, plus I DO like my bluetooth headphones. Books and reading-it's better for my eyes to do it without the phone, but I don't have all of my old cool RPG books back, so I do read PDFs sometimes. But as I reacquire them, I read them more and more, and I try to read regular books whenever I can. 

I go between Google Drive notes, and handwritten ones. Depends on where I am. If I can, I'll take a small notebook around with me. If I'm just out on a fast errand, I'll use the phone. At home, I just use notebooks, OR a PC. Mostly, what I'm trying to do is ask myself "Can this wait until I get home, like I used to?" And if the answer is yes, then I'll just do it at home. Essentially doing not "Minimalist" so much as "Digital Balance?" I've always liked taking a measured look at things when possible, and while I think going pure minimalist is great for some, I think I like that balanced late '00s approach as my favorite. 

That said, I fully plan on continuing to re-acquire my CD/LP collection for DJing, since I DO want to do that mostly hard copy, and continue buying hard copy games and books as much as I can, too. 

Anyway, I think that's enough dedicated to cloud-yelling, I might make my next post about games and music, heh.