Potential Awesome Weekend Alert

Call of Duty 4 came in today, driving up to Verona, NY to see grandma, gamble and see Jonathan Davis in his first ever solo tour at the casino. His set list is 21 songs of mostly rare stuff, I’m really excited. The potential for a completely awesome weekend is off the charts.

The Black and White Album

Some more impressions:

To cut to the bone, this album is over produced. The last 3 albums sound like The Hives are just going crazy in front of some mics, this album the sound like they planned on recording an album and carefully crafted and cleaned up and layered these tracks. So it does sound different. But there are still some great songs on here. The lead single “tick tick boom” is classic Hives. Great tune.

There are a few producers on the album and you can tell…pretty sure his finger prints are all over “giddy up”, a song that I love and hate. It’s very different for the Hives, but it’s really catchy too. Annoying too, it’s really hard to describe. Another iffy track for me is “puppet on a string” (some catchy hooks, but it’s slow and repetitive. Saying a Hives song is repetitive is redundant though). And I’m still on the fence with “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S”. Good mixed with annoying. The only track I really hate is the 6th one, so much so that I took it out of the playlist. The Hives have done some instrumentals before and the kick ass, this one is just really out there. It doesn’t sound like a Hives track, it should never have made it onto the album.

Aside from that, I love the remaining 10 songs. “You Dress Up For Armageddon” being my current favorite. Solid album, not sure how well it’s going to be received though.

The Hives!

The Black and White Album came out in the UK last week which surprised the hell out of me, last I looked they didn’t even release a title for the album. The Hives are my #2 band so this album has really high expectations from me. Their previous 3 1/2 albums are phenomenal and I was worried about this one when I heard that they were working with a bunch of producers. After one listen through I can say that it’s without a doubt over produced. Especially for this band.

The rawness and ferocity seems to have been pulled back, even though there are many fast paced songs, it’s slower over all than their past albums. You can listen to it and definatly know it’s the Hives, it’s just oddly different. That’s only with one real listen through, but those are my initial impressions. Some good tracks on there though, but tracks 6 is fucking horrific and there is a point in one or two other songs where I wonder what they were aiming for.

More thorough impressions later.

Flickr update

The kitchen is basically done, just a bit of paint needs to be put on the wall next to the window on the left. I think it would look great if the tile went up all the way next to the window. It would look like the wall was made of stone and everything was built into it. It couldn’t take much to do that, it’s probably a total of a square foot of tile needed.

I put 8 pics up. Link is on the right as always.

Awesome TV

My Name is Earl- I’m on disc 3 of Season 2 and it still rules.

The Office (US)- Awesome that NBC is smart enough to put new episodes on their site on Fridays. Quality is really good too. Anyway, the show is strong as ever, it’s a definite must watch. Home to one of the best ensemble casts in TV history.

Weeds- Season 3 is running now and it, just like the aforementioned shows still rules.

Nip/Tuck- Season 5 starts at the end of the month, looking forward to it is an understatement.

games, games, games

Skate still rules but now Halo 3 is out and Gamefly finally got Eternal Sonata to me. So now I have more to play than I have hours in the day. At least they’re all very different games so I have something to play for whatever mood I’m in.

Positive impressions for every game btw, the 360 is on a a ridiculous roll.

skate.

Move over Tony Hawk, the new kid has rolled into town. Tony Hawk Pro Skater has dominated the skateboard genre for nearly 10 years. I don’t think you can even call it a genre because the Tony Hawk series is pretty much the only skating game made. Only thing I can think of that comes close is Agressive Inline and that was years ago.

For me (and many people) the TH series is stale and boring. The 9th console game is coming out very soon and even though they have managed to add more stuff to do (there is a mindboggling amount of tricks you can do, they expanded the “Nail the Trick” mechanic that was introduced in Project 8 ) it feels like more of the same. Grind for 700 feet, jump over a helicopter and then grind for another mile and a half.

So skate finally comes out (I think I first saw it in early 2006) and has pretty much reinvented the skate game. It’s more the compeition for Tony Hawk, it’s the champion. The control scheme is totally different (use the control sticks to do just about everything) and the skating is much more reality based. The learning curve is steep, but once you understand it you’re in for a great experience. The flow and feel of skating is truly amazing (it helps that the game looks and animates so well). Landing some crazy line is an accomplishment and a true reward. You can edit replays which is really cool and then share them with people on the internet. The community should be huge for this one and it looks like it’s going to be a smash because I had to go to 3 stores to find it.

It’s a bit more limiting than Tony Hawk (can’t leave your board to run up to a spot, there are no flatland or lip tricks) but it’s definitely the better game. Highly recommended.

Korn Untitled

This is long overdue, but here it goes.

For me, Korns’ 8th studio album is what See You on the Other Side should have been. While I like See You (I reviewed it when it came out back in ’05) I recognize it has the bands weakest album. It has it’s quality tracks, but it also has some of the weakest (oddly enough I think some of the B-sides that were cut from the album are better than a few of the songs selected). See You is really a transitional album, losing Brian was a big deal and the change of producers did put a different slant on Korn.

Now we have the officially untitled album that is without everyone’s favorite drummer, David. He basically wasn’t ready to head back into the studio and hit the road, he wanted time off to be with his family and take care of his restaurants. With the musical bug gnawing at the remaining 3 members, they decided to create without David (hopefully David comes back sooner than later, it’s very weird seeing just 3 of the original members left). He was burned out and I’m hoping that a nice break will envigorate him to come back and be better than ever (I think his work on See You was his weakest).

So minus David, the boys had to step up and create something that lives up to the Korn name. I believe they achieved that by getting some serious talent to back them up. Brooks Wackerman and the world renowned Terry Bozzio came in to write in Davids place. The percussion on this album is truly terrific, different from Davids’ style but not jarringly so. The different style made the rest of the band alter their work a bit to which gives a freshing pace and mood to the album. Keyboards have also been integrated from Zack Baird who they originally found to tour with them for the SYOTOS tour.

Untitled feels like a much more cohesive and “kornier” album than the last. The Matrix production team was used less on this one with Atticus Ross being more featured. I was afraid of a larger Nine Inch Nails influence from this, but I’m very happy to hear that that really didn’t happen (for the record I’m not too wild about The Matrix so I’m glad Korn has sorta moved away from them).

So to the point, the album sounds fantastic. Korn has always had very high production values and it’s no different here. I think this is some of Jonathan Davis’ best lyrical work in awhile, in writing and in vocal approach. He has really improved as a singer, his range is much greater now. He’s emotional as ever (Starting Over andn Kiss being standouts to me), he thankfully as kept any goofy sounding lines out (for the most part) and is really in top form on this album. The chorus sections pretty much rule. Fieldys’ base work is still strong although his track is again more in the mix of the CD, his trademark loose slap bass style doesn’t stand out like in past albums such as Follow the Leader. Munky has also grown on this album, there is some great guitar work here. Every song sounds different but it all fits together very well. Out of 13 songs I love 11 of them. Of the two I don’t like (Do What They Say and Ever Be) I just like them less than the others, I don’t even hate them. The jams come one after another, great arrangements, you get your funk beats, your heavier grooves and melodies, some wild percussion segments, a guitar solo here and there and some awesome sing along choruses.

I’m very happy with Untitled, even the case package rules. This Korn isn’t the Korn from the ’90s, it’s important to understand that. The band has gone through big changes since then and that is reflected in their current work. They’re experimenting more and are still having fun with making music to rock out to. Going on 14 years, Korn is still one of the biggest bands in the world. The new album is selling very well (debuted at #2) and their tours are going extremely well. The sound phenomenal and bring it every night (thank you Joey Jordison from Slipknot for killing it on tour with them!). In a sea of generic pop singles and garbage rap tracks I find relief that Korn is still there for me.

Finished BioShock

Took about 2 weeks, at least 15 hours or so. Took my time through most of it and then tried to pick up the pace through the last quarter.

While it’s an easy game, it’s easily one of this years best games. The story might even be the best ever in a videogame. Highly recommended. I plan on playing through it again sometime on Hard.

Sorry to that guy in Ridgewood

I hate it when people honk at you for no damn reason. Like a few weeks ago some ass honked at me because he thought I was taking too long to move from a red to green traffic light. I swear to god I couldn’t have moved faster. Or reacted I should say. When a light turns green, I take my foot off the break and let it roll a bit forward before giving it the beans. A good way to avoid someone trying to beat a light. The light turned green and I’m moving in a second of it turning. But that horses ass didn’t think so.

I hate that shit.

So with that in mind I’m coming out of Ridgewood when a white lexus stops at a 4 way intersection (we got the right of way). He’s gonna make a left and waits for a car to pass and then waits for another car to make a left onto our street. He then waits for the car after that to make it’s left hand turn. So my dumb ass gets impatient and honks the horn not even looking ahead. Thankfully, Lexus was or he would have gone right in front of on oncoming car.

So to Lexus guy in Ridgewood, sorry. I hate when people do that shit and I did it myself so I felt like an ass.