Speedkill

That time of year:

10. Isis – Wavering Radiant. There’s not a whole to say about this one. Isis are good. They have to make a pretty bad album for me not to really like it. This is no Panopticon or Oceanic, but it’s slightly better than In the Absence of Truth. Best song: Ghost Key.

9. Porcupine Tree – The Incident. PT albums are automatically on my top ten lists, the only question is where. The double album idea isn’t a great one; there’s good material on both discs and the first is a coherent whole, but too much of that whole is uninspired. This is really disappointing, as they’ve backed off the heaviness of FOABP and mixed in some older PT sounds. Quality-wise, there’s maybe a top five album between the two discs, even if it wouldn’t be that coherent, but like I said, there’s too much less than interesting material. Best song: Time Flies.

8. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast. This album is missing some of the catchiness of his last two, which were leaner and more accessible, but it’s still a solid album. There’s a lot more layering and depth to the songs which makes up for the lack of hooks. It’s a slightly different direction for him, so it’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here. Best song: Anonanimal.

7. Russian Circles – Geneva. That was quick. Station came out last year and was good, if underwhelming. It’s hard to live up to something like Enter. Maybe it’s the added distance between that release and this one, but Geneva is a lot stronger than Station. Best song: Geneva.

6. Mastodon – Crack the Skye. Mastodon have never quite clicked for me. Their past few albums have been good, but not quite great. This one is great. It’s proggier than their past albums and has a ton of great riffs and melodies. Best song: Oblivion

5. Mono – Hymn To The Immortal Wind. Mono are not the most original post-rock band. Half the time, they seem to be channeling Mogwai. This doesn’t mean they’re bad, but they’re not typically a candidate for a top ten list. This one seems different to me. There’s less of the wall of distortion that Mogwai uses on occasion and more, almost Explosions in the Sky-esque sounds. Not that they sound like them. It’s hard to explain. It’s just a damned good album. Best song: Ashes in the Snow.

4. OSI – Blood. OSI still haven’t topped their debut, but this is a good attempt. Their last album, by no means bad, was more focused on the electronic aspects of their sound. This one is a little more in the direction of their debut. Plus, you can’t go wrong with Gavin Harrison on drums. Best song: The Escape Artist.

3. Riverside – Anno Domini High Definition. Five songs filled with up tempo prog metal wackiness. It is glorious. It’s always tempting to hope they go back to the sound of their first album, but full-on prog metal suits them and this album is a nice change of pace after the relatively laid back Rapid Eye Movement. Best song: Egoist Hedonist.

2. Amorphis – Skyforger. I sort of forgot Amorphis existed. I thought they’d broken up. I’ve never been their biggest fan, but they’ve produced some enjoyable music. This one I really love, though. It’s the same enjoyment I get out of Nevermore. Are they doing something completely different, something groundbreaking? No. Hell, Majestic Beast is an all out Opeth ripoff. It’s just a great metal album. Best song: Sky is Mine.

1. Katatonia – Night Is The New Day. This was the least anticipated album from one of what I consider my favorite bands. For whatever reason, The Great Cold Distance morphed in my mind into pure dreck, a colossal disappointment after a string of just fantastic albums. After the first listen, I was ready to consign NitND to the same unappreciated corner of my music collection. But then I got hooked on The Longest Year. Then Onward into Battle. Then The Promise of Deceit. I went back to TGCD and found that it wasn’t as bad as I thought, though it still doesn’t compare to Viva Emptiness. Or this. I’ve been listening to it almost nonstop for weeks. I think it’s better than Viva Emptiness and maybe Last Fair Deal Gone Down. And those are two of my favorite albums ever. It’s dark and depressing metal and it’s stellar. I only wish I could say the same about the video for Day and Then The Shade, which apparently is about a goth girl who lost her contact lens in the forest and starts bleeding and vomiting upwards. I hope Lasse Hoile goes blind. Best song: The Longest Year.

Biggest Disappointment:

Dredg – the Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion. And now we come to my most anticipated album from one of my favorite bands. Catch Without Arms has grown into one of my favorite albums. This…well, this is terrible. Ok, maybe not terrible. I Don’t Know is one of the best songs they’ve ever written (and an agnostic anthem, no less!). Light Switch is damned catchy. Pariah isn’t bad (but something feels off about it) and neither is Cartoon Showroom. But this is a sprawling, 18 track album. There’s not enough solid material to keep it from collapsing onto itself. There’s so much mediocre material that it drowns out the bright spots. There’s only around 25 minutes of solid material (out of an hour); the rest is b-side material at best. I don’t understand it. It’s annoying as hell. And Saviour can go die in a fire. Best song: I Don’t Know.

Jeff Music

Because I’ve been on a sci-fi/fantasy kick all summer and am bored, here’s a meme from Tor.com, via Good Math, Bad Math. The last three genre books purchased.

As it happens, I bought four at once just about a month ago and since I’ve only finished two of them, I’ll mention all four. That evens out to three, right?

1. The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. I read Old Man’s War earlier this summer and thought it was decent entertainment. Mostly because his blog is so entertaining, I bought this, even though Old Man’s War wasn’t good enough for me to be really excited about a sequel. It’s military SF, standard colonization of space type stuff. Old people can sign up for service with the Colonial Defense Force and get their consciousness transferred to a new body. The CDF also engineers people specifically to be soldiers, using the consciousness of those who didn’t quite make it to the transfer part (hence the name “ghost brigades”). TGB follows one of those soldiers. It’s not as good as Old Man’s War, but it still qualifies as decent entertainment. The universe is explained a little more and some of it is interesting, but the book really drags. I liked the end, though. So it’s a book I’m not enthusiastic about, but it’s a quick, enjoyable read.
2. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. I love this book. The planet is put inside a sort of cosmic sphere where time is massively slowed down. This leads to all manner of reactions, which are all fascinating. As are the characters. Wilson’s writing is superb and the answers to the mysteries of the “spin” are suitably mind-blowing. I’ve not read anything like this, but my exposure to genre sci-fi is relatively small. It’s easily on the list of my favorite books and makes a strong case for the top spot (it’ll have to fight 1984 for it). There’s apparently a sequel (called Axis), which I’m too scared to read, lest it sully my enjoyment of this book. I’ll get to it eventually.
3. Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod. Maybe it was because I had just finished Spin, but I only made it through a third of this. There are two main storylines, one of which is a near future that deals with first contact with an alien race and the other a far future that has space travel and castles. The near future one was vaguely interesting, though the name dropping of “legacy” software was grating for some reason (I know exactly what he’s talking about, so it’s not that I don’t understand it). The far future storyline/world was just really unappealing. It was also confusing, mostly because I didn’t care enough to pay attention after a certain point. The writing is decent enough and I suppose if you find the world engaging you’ll like it, but it apparently isn’t for me and I decided to not waste my time on it.
4. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I’m not very far in this one (couple hundred pages), but it’s good so far. It’s more space opera and has an odd structure, with a few storylines that aren’t necessarily happening at the same time. It’s strange, but it’s working well enough. I haven’t really been pulled into it yet, but it’s engaging enough to keep me reading. Unlike Cosmonaut Keep.

Are these books “comfortable” together? Well, given that all but one is space opera, I’d have to say yes. I don’t know why I bought a bunch of space opera, but there you go.

Jeff Culture

Tor has lots of posts with various sci-fi types remembering the Moon landing. Recommended.

With all this comes people advocating a manned Mars mission.

I don’t know. I don’t think getting all starry-eyed when remembering the Moon landing is a reason to go to Mars. The space program is a good thing, but putting a man on Mars? Meh. I can’t bring myself to advocate for policies based on a sense of wonder.

Jeff Culture, Science

The number of movies I’ve seen based on Philip K. Dick books makes it difficult to find an unsullied PKD reading experience.

On the plus side, the A Scanner Darkly movie made little sense to me, so maybe that’s the way to go.

I heard Obama gave a speech at Notre Dame. How’d that go?

I’m going on vacation tomorrow to the land of the wood paneled K-Mart. I will hopefully have a report on the continuing struggle of the immigrant proletariat against the bourgeoisie’s corrupt tourist economy.

Needless to say, serious thoughts are scarce.

Jeff Culture

You knew that, but this is still strange, even for them. In response to Joystiq’s request for their thoughts about a seal-clubbing minigame for Overlord II, they said this:

In real life, seals don’t have helmets and can’t fight back, but perhaps you’ll soon see PETA-made helmets for baby seals in Canada.

I think PETA have finally reached the pinnacle of absurdity: a statement so ridiculous that it can’t be mocked. It’s almost a perfect representation of their lunacy, only missing their trademark offensiveness (holocaust on a plate, anyone?).

Bravo, PETA.

Jeff Culture, Silliness

I’m not much of a Star Trek guy. I’ve seen a few of the more recent movies (First Contact being the good one I’ve seen) and a smattering of TNG and DS9 episodes. This is due mostly to laziness, not any dislike of the universe. With that out of the way, the movie was fantastic. It’s not particularly deep (which I’ve seen complaints about), but it was thoroughly entertaining. There’s very little in the way of plot (we must stop evil bad guy from reaching Earth!), so it’s essentially a story about the characters. It’s amazing to me how much I know about these characters simply from pop culture. I’ve seen just a part of one episode of TOS and I rarely felt lost when the ST fans in the audience laughed or applauded the references to the series.

Now that they’ve started things off with a bang, I’m looking forward to where they go next (assuming sequels).

Other assorted thoughts: Nokia! Dr. Cameron is Kirk’s mom! Carson Beckett somehow managed to sneak into Starfleet’s barracks. Sticking Scotty in some kind of water tube contraption was dumb.

Jeff Culture

Matt Yglesias tries to defend using Twitter for political commentary. Is it just me, or is “blame the user, not the medium” pretty weak? No medium can make a bad commentator good, but it can certainly be ill-suited to a task. No one is tweeting investigative journalism.

Claire McCaskill claims she uses it to “drive thought and discussion.” I dare you to reconcile that with what’s there right now. There are comments about her schedule, personal comments, and approximately four comments that you could claim drive discussion. One of them is a one word comment on Specter (”Wow”) and another is a generic statement of support for Kathleen Sebelius. So I see two defensible comments. Out of twenty.

McCaskill also claim it’s a way of staying “connected.” That’s dubious and has a significant downside: her followers are more connected to her. Personally connected, given the contents of her feed. That makes them less objective when it comes to evaluating her job performance, which means she can get away with more. Maybe it’s a small effect, but being connected isn’t necessarily a plus for rational evaluation.

I don’t really care if members of Congress want to use Twitter. I have a (seldom used) Twitter account. It’s amusing. But let’s not pretend it’s a useful source of information from politicians or political commentators.

Jeff Congress, Culture, Tech

I realize I’m like a month late, but I just got around to reading Dirk Benedict’s rant about the current BSG. You can’t not love an article with a line like this:

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Hans Solo as Hans Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women “hand out” babies. And thus the world for thousands of years has gone’ round.

Lots more craziness. It’s great.

If you’ve run into the Internet “movie” by the name of Zeitgeist, you should give this a read. It’s a take down of the first, anti-Christianity, half of the film, where the creator tries to claim Christianity is some kind of astrological cult. It’s almost as silly as the rest of the film, but I hadn’t seen a good rebuttal until now.

Jeff Culture, Religion

The Corner is counting down the top 25 “conservative” movies. Number twenty two is Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

Labeling a movie conservative for depicting a totalitarian society seems like a pretty broad use of the term. Which is fine, but it give me an excuse to note that Terry Gilliam renounced his American citizenship because of no-longer-President Bush. So the director of one of the top conservative movies is apparently anti-American. Silly people.

Jeff Culture, The Right

Because you care, my favorite albums (except for the two EPs) of 2008:

1. Calexico – Carried To Dust

This is one of those albums I just don’t have much to say about. It’s just good. The kind of album I select on my iPod or my PC without thinking. My exposure to them is still pretty limited; I have their previous album and A Feast of Wire and that’s it. Best song: Victor Jara’s Hands.

2. God Is An Astronaut – S/T

These guys have always been close, but never quite there for me. Post-rock isn’t exactly a sparsely populated genre and I have a habit of listening to post-rock albums constantly for about a week and then discarding them. This one is different. They seem to have finally shown more than glimpses of promise. Best song: Shadows.

3. Agalloch – The White EP

Yeah yeah, this isn’t an album. I don’t care. It’s too good for me to leave it off here. The conspicuous absence of folky acoustic pieces was the only downside to their previous album, Ashes Against the Grain. This EP somewhat makes up for that. Best song: Birch White.

4. Opeth – Watershed

I was nervous about this one. Two new members and a previous album that showed some worrying problems (but was still pretty good). It didn’t look promising. In the end, however, they released an album that had some new elements (keyboard solos!) and better songwriting. There’s an over-reliance on abrupt soft LOUD dynamics and they’ve had better metal riffs in previous albums, but overall it’s an excellent album. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that they’re not going to make another MAYH or Still Life, but I’m interested to see where they’re going now.

5. The Decemberists – Always a Bridesmaid EP

Another EP that I think is too good to leave off the list. Less epic than The Crane Wife, but more of what makes The Decemberists so good: catchy songs. Valerie Plame has been stuck in my head for a good two weeks. There’s only one weak song in the bunch (I’m Sticking With You) and even it’s not too bad. Best song: Record Year.

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Jeff Music