I've Got Another Confession

Since I'm overloaded with work and other stuff like university-applications I haven't had much time to waste over here but here's a short updater.

It's now been finalized that I'm going to at least two great concerts next year and those are Foo Fighters at Hovet in Stockholm and Robbie Williams at Ullevi in Gothenburg. Next year seems to be a good one. I'd love to go see Franz Ferdinand as well but money-shortage will put an end to those plans, shamefully enough.

I'm falling in love with Calle Rydberg. His cover of NIN's "Hurt" is a magnificent little piece.

And finally I have to mention Savage Garden. Why? Because the collection Truly, Madly, Completely should be used as a textbook for every mainstream-pop act anywhere. It's simple, but not banal. It's catchy, but not irritating. It's perfectly balanced. It's sweet as sugar with a pinch of salt. It's brilliant.

God Is Wearing Black

System of a Down - Hypnotize
Sony, 2005

This might be the first legal review of Hypnotize, thanks to the delightful little store called Record Hunter that was sneaky enough to sell a very early copy of this second half in System Of A Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize-album. Mezmerize is easily one of this year's best albums, and since the guys themselves claim that the second half contains the best songs the expectations on my behalf have been hard to hold back.

The beginner "Attack" stomps the foot down immediatly. This is an overall even more hardhitting and uncompromising journey. It feels more straight-forward and accelerating than it's older counterpart. Mezmerize was the start-up and beginning of flight, Hypnotize is decent and dropping of the bomb. Throught songs such as "Kill Rock 'N Roll", "Tentative" and "Stealing Society" we get guided into a landscape of war, terror and lies. Our world, more precisely. Mezmerize was to soften us up for the message, to get us ready for the blow. Now Hypnotize is here to finish us off. Beautiful riffs transport the silly but strangely poetic lyrics forward, and snatches the listener with them. What's so odd is that it works just as well to listen to while sitting perfectly still, while headbanging and while dancing and that has to be a fairly unique thing.

It would be so easy for anyone to compare Mezmerize and Hypnotize, analyze the differences and decide which part is best, but that shouldn't be done. Each CD is a half-circle and together they form a unity that's extreme, scary but at the same time it lives up to the name more than anyone could have thought. You get mezmerized, and you get hypnotized, and you open your eyes. System Of A Down gets closer than many other bands when it comes to changing the world through music. Unless we stop them, they probably will. There is so much to be said about this album, but I will stop here and just let you all listen to the finished product yourselves. I feel a bit weird for saying it, but right now it feels unfair not to: Hypnotize is the best metal-album of the year.

ten out of ten

Wait, Wait For Me

Later today I will post a very, very special review of a very special album. But before that I just wanted to give some words about Limp Bizkit's recently released best of-collection entitled Greatest Hitz (sigh). The album contains a broad variety of Bizkit-classics and many of my favorites are on it. I was surprised to see that many really good songs very represented even though they aren't huge hits. Such songs as "Boiler" and "Build A Bridge". Out of the 17 songs on the album 3 are new unreleased ones. These are slower, radio-rock:ish tunes. Competent, but pretty boring. But I must mention the last one of the trio: the mash-up between Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" and The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony". I cannot decide whether I like or dislike this song, and it feels so odd. I don't know if it's built in because it's Fred Durst that's doing the vocals and because it's two such great songs... It's definelty a check-out to make though. It's an interesting, however slightly boring, version.
But all in all I should advice people to check out this collection since it does feature some of the band's best songs, and it goes to show what underrated musician they are, standing in the shadow of the always-all over the place-Durst.

And don't forget to check in tonight. Then the big bombs will fall over planet Hackneyed!

Breaking Guitars

Here are some of the better photos taken by me during last night's concert. The band is called King and are apparently working on getting a site with songs online soon. Until then this is what I can offer for you. I'm sorry for the blurryness but my camera sucks and the lighting in there was not very good. I hope you like the photos.

Tomorrow I will try and toss up a new review and I haven't decided for what album yet. But I think you'll like it anyway. I'll do something different. In the meanwhile: Calle Rydberg - "End". If you ever thought you knew what sadness was and how it translated into music, you're world will be overthrown. If you can find it, that is.

If You Don't Mind, Don't Mind, Don't Mind

Just got home from King live at Mondo. Really really awesome gig, and they seem like a promising band. I can't wait for their site to open up and mp3-goodness to unload. Pictures from the gig will be posted tomorrow I think.

I got Gackt's new album Diabolos. It's going to be sweeeet! More on that later.

Afraid Of All The Science

Somewhere inside me it hurts to admit this, but it has to be said. Start From The Dark by Europe is a much better album than my first impression lead me to think. It's not a masterpiece like Jarno thinks, but a handful of songs are of a very high quality. Amongst those "Flames", "Hero" and "America".

Hyde has released a new solo single called "Countdown" and it's rockier than L'arc~en~ciel's usual material. It does, however, resemble Hyde's own album 666 which I've also listened to a lot today. I still think that Laruku generally are better but I still can't ignore Hyde on his own. His first album Roentgen is extremely dull and I lost patience after just listening twice, however both the follow-up 666 and this new single interests me a whole lot more. I hope the upcoming album will be just as good.

Also, Hyde's hot. Oh, so hot.

Nothing Starts, Nothing Ends In This City

I went to UppCon:05 last week and had oodles of goodtimes. It's always nice to get away and do something with your friends that's a little out of the ordinary. Read more and see some pictures at the official or read my article on the whole thing at Spel².

Not much new music to talk about really, except I finally found The Drama's EP Nothing Can Tear Us Apart which I've been searching for for a while. It's very good but the best song is still "Feed It To The Dogs". Also, I've discovered Autolux, which sounds like a mash-up of loads of different genres. Industrial, odd indie-rock. Future Perfect is a very neat album, especially for people who like Kill Hannah and similar stuff.

The TRAX has released a new single called "Blaze Away" with one new b-side and a re-release of "Over The Rainbow... (Rock Version)" retitled "End of The World". Funnily enough they seem to have dropped their visual style already, which I don't mind really. They didn't pull it off anyway. The songs are all very competent and catchy. Very good hard pop, indeed. Yoshiki can be very proud.