Zero Credibility

Finally I’ve found the game for PSP that’s really worth its money. It’s Final Fintasy: Crisis Core. The game is very varied in terms of gameplay and story. As in every japanese story or movie, it’s far from any cliche thus not boring. The characters’ development is very intriguing. Also characters design is one of the best in the games in general, especially animations and costumes. This game is beautifull in all aspects, from its weird combat style, which might be confusing in the beginning but then you get hang of it and it becomes really cool, to the minigames that are scattered across the game like little gems of fun. I also liked that the story is very important there, this is the main driving force of the game. Attention to details is top notch there, this also makes this game perfect. Designers put additional thought to remove all boring and routine moments from it. If you got PSP, I strongly recommend you to buy this game, you will not be dissapointed.

Being under deep impression of stoner doom I started digging Southern Lord label bands. This time I’ve got Earth’s “The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull”. This is the same slow rock like Hibernaculum. The music so relaxing and dark, that all my nature reverberates with its low frequency guitars. I think I’m gonna dig more of this stuff, this music is like drugs, you constantly craving for more. Same goes for SUNN O))).

Next CD is by Deutsch Nepal’s “Dystopian Partycollection”. This is a compilation of the various releases of DN that were released on vinyls and cassettes. This is quite valuable release for those who has no turntable but loves Deutsch Nepal, i.e. it’s exactly for me. This is quite nice release featuring alot of tracks with Lina’a cozy vocals and industrial dronings. Get it if you like Deutsch Nepal!

Decided to write about my adventures in the game that I play all this time in the background. Our guild took a nice pace in progressing through the game. Last time I made a post about WoW we were starting doing Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep dungeons. Oh my, that was 16th October I just looked! Time flies fast! For this day, i.e. 8 months later, we fully cleared Black Temple and Mount Hyjal and have them as our relaxing playgrounds now, taking challenges in Sunwell Plateau. But what’s most funny that happened last night is that I’ve got the weapon of the true nolifer - the legendary sword of Illidan (main bad ass guy in the game) - Warglaive of Azzinoth. This sword is considered to be very rare drop and having it is a big digital joy. So you can congratulate me and my guild in achievement of proper noliferism status. Now I look all asymmetric and need the second one! Damn this game! ;)

Got three grim releases from the swedish master of evil sounds today. First is a reissue of the old Maschinenzimmer 412 album “Macht Durch Stimme”. It sounds surprisingly fresh even being a recording of the end of 80s. The mix of distorted guitar and electro noises, ritualistic kind of rhythms and satanic kind of vocals make this album really remarkable. It’s clear that Nordvargr had a talent in creating dark atmospheres 20 years ago already. He’s hellspawn indeed :) It’s very good that the record got reissued by the old german label Dark Vinyl, otherwise I’d miss it completely.

Second is the newest work of Nordvargr - “Interstellar”. Issued in 444 copies on the polish label Beast of Prey. This is kind of space dark ambient. The album reminds releases of the canadian Cyclic Law label - quite amorphous and spacious sounds. Not the evil dark ambient we used to receive from Nordvargr lately. Still it has its development, climax and ending, not just a chunk of faceless ambient. Might be good for the fans of far space atmosphere and Astronomy Pic of the Day site fans.

The last CD is Nordvargr - “Helvete” released by the russian label Eternal Pride. This one is more structural and has that lovely sinister moods all over the album. Hellish themes and dark drones pierce whole work submerging you into the darkness of Hell. This is what was actually expected from Nordvargr this summer. I’m not satisfied customer. Consider this yet another proper release from this master of darkness. Waiting for his another new album “Pyrhulla” released on Coldspring.

Quite alot of time have passed since the last update. The reason is ismple: lack of time and inspiration to write something. Or you can call it general laziness. Anyway, the May turned to be unusually cold here, we were trying to survive chilling winds and rains here during the last two weeks, but seems things slowly turning back to normal summer schedule and one can go outside without thermal suit. And it seems nothing is able to push me to restore my photogallery back… I know the real reason of this, apart from laziness, I just don’t have new pics to show, so I really hope when I get new ones during my vacation two months later, I’ll just have no excuse not to revive my gallery. Until then, take it easy :)

But the point of this update to tell you about the last 4 recordings I’ve got recently. All of them (except DI6) came from the grim Southern Lord records. Lately, I became big fan of stoner rock and ordered some music of this kind. Southern Lord is considered the father label for such type of music and projects like Earth and SUNN O))) are the flagships of this genre. The first CD is Earth “Hibernaculum”. This is very slow rock, yet it’s heavy and moody. The first track is very catchy, it embedded itself to my head quite seriously, so i’m now walking with it sounding in my head looped all the time. Very nice album in general it also suits for the cold spring which passes beyond. There’s also compaion DVD with the interview and some bits of live of the band. Might come handy later when I’ll be serious fan of Earth.

Next CD is SUNN O))) - “Black One”. One of their top albums, very dark, slow and heavy droning… The music that fills everything within you with thick riffs and hellish darkness. This type of music always touched me by its primitivism and grimness. It’s not usual type of industrial electrodrones, it’s guitar based noise, which is always more alive you you can tell so. And if it treated with proper touch this guitar drone might become really heavy and nice sounding. I think I’ll start gathering SUNN O))) bit by bit in the future, though I’ll select carefully their albums as they’re quite varied by nature.

The next project atteacted my attention just because it features two types: Lee Dorrian of Cathedral and Stephen O’Malley of SUNN O))). This toxic mix resulted in uber heavy doom project. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine - “Rampton”. The music is the extra slow and heavy doom, that sometimes goes to kind of infra frequencies and destroy my ears. Lee’s vocals also add that special Cathedral’s atmosphere of bizarre. There are just three very lengthy tracks with somewhat funny titles like “New pants and shirt”, but it’s kinda hard to connect the music with such a funny title. Very cool project with just one single album. I think there’s no need for the second album as it will be impossible to outmatch the original.

And the final CD is by the good old Death in June - “The rule of Thirds”. This last album of the DI6 is quite light. I mean there’s just guitar plus some additional handmade thumps and sounds and of course nice vocal of D.Pierce. There’s no noises and all that stuff, just pure neo folk without any additional spices. Quite good and relaxing album for the DI6 fans.

Just a little note to those who’s wondering where the heck is my photo gallery - I took it offline because I ran out of space on this miserable hosting (just have 400megs) and not sure where to put my pics at the moment. Also, there was nothing new for the long period of time and that was another reason I took the gallery off as the old pics bored me immensely. Sorry to those who came here from the other sites that have links to my gallery…

With the release of Wordpress 2.5 I decided to post in this dusty “blog” and test new Wordpress which is now looks so leet that I feel out of place. Anyway, since the last site’ update almost 2 months have passed and it feels like 1 week. The life is quite monotonous work-home cycle here, with sporadic fun blasts like parties with friends, etc. I’m pulling myself out of the winter with the last effort. The spring is always quite depressing period for me as I fight two things: from the one side I’m kinda tired of the dark cold winter but from another I feel approaching summer sunny hell. And I’m not sure what to do to survive this collapse. The snow have melted. The mud, dirt and dust is now uncovered and lay all over the city, making me feel even worse. I’m craving for cleaning rains, but I know that there won’t be any heavy rain soon. Just sun that exposes all the old dirt making me feel sad. I wish this weather condition ends soon, making green leaves and grass cover ugliness of the world. But everything will be properly green in May or something, so it’s entire month or more to wait yet.

Living under these circumstances I’m still enjoying life as much as I can. I’ve finally read Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” which proved to be very close to the movie thus making movie indeed brilliant. I like Thompson’s style and enjoyed the book a lot. The book I’m reading now is Douglas Adams’ “Hitchiker Guide to the Galaxy”. This one is also very funny book with proper English humor which I’m fan of. I have a desire to re-watch the movie too.

In the gaming part of my life there’s hardcore raiding in WoW. We‘ve entered Hyjal Summit and Black Temple dungeons and raiding them constantly, which is really challenging and fun. I’m also very glad that there’s all Unreal Games available on Steam now. I was unable to buy UT3 here as it’s only russian version available (i hate translated games), but Steam gave me possibility to try proper UT3 and replay classic old Unreals if I ever will have spare time.

So this is basically what’s happening now at this end of the sewer. Nothing seriously exciting but not boring at the same time. Months sneak by while I’m busy performing my daily routines…

I’ve got 3 nice power electronics releases recently: CON-DOM - “Holy Bible” this is the latest studio work of this old british industrial act. The release has just two tracks 10 mins each, filled with anti-christian scorn as usual. Also, the music itself is quite different from the previous works of the artist, it’s more eerie and not that brutal, but still has that special CON-DOM’s atmosphere. Released on the finnish noise label Freak Animal operated by another heavy electronics act Grunt.

Second CD is La Comunidad - “Bastion 23 G.P.”. This is second album of this German harsh noise project. The music is similar to their previous work and still brings harsh noise, politics and conspiracy. If you’re familiar with L.White records and like their releases you’re not gonna miss this one.

And finally is long awaited by me Ex.Order - “Corporate Control”. Very well done low-fi industrial loaded with politic themes. As with every Ex.Order releases this one is somewhat different from its predecessors and is steady progress forward. Released on german Power and Steel label which is a division of the well known Loki Foundation.

If you still think that I’m completely consumed by WoW, you’re kinda wrong, because I have some time for the other games. I’d like to tell a couple of words about the three games that pleased me a lot and which I’m gonna play in the nearest future. First game that I’ve bought for myself on x-mas off Steam is Call of Duty 4. Initially I thought that this is gonna be reallife boredom with general shooting. But no! The game took me tight and released only after I finished it 6 hours later. It is really addictive and has cool looking visuals. But not that plastic type of visuals that are inherent to the most modern games like Doom3, it’s really proper next-gen that doesn’t irritate the eye. The gameplay is very dynamic and won’t let you relax in a minute. There were some situations where I was really scared or I was really proud when “we” (me and the squad of bots) managed to win certain battle. Proper AI of as enemies as companions makes this game flawless. Add here nice small things like grabbing flying away helicopter and squad commander is helping you to get on board, etc. make this game very rich and remarkable. Don’t miss it really, this is what all modern games must be!

Second game is nothing else than Puzzle Quest. Don’t stare at me! I blame Steam for that! Really, the game turned to be so cool that I got hooked immediately after trying the demo. Developers managed to mix casual Bejeweled (which I also like) and some kind of hardcore RPG and succeeded. This game is so addictive it’s scary. The base of the game is pure randomness and you try to survive through it using your class abilities. Thus, you can make your enemy to skip the turn or damage him greatly by moving figures on board as u wish, he in his turn uses the same tricks against you. It’s very easy to play and has that element of suddenness which makes it so attractive. I also discovered that the game is available for PSP and other platforms which makes it even better. Maybe I’ll get it for PSP one day. Try the demo and you’ll be hooked I guarantee ;)

And last but not least comes Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade. Then again, it’s all Steam’s tricks. Goddamn games are at hand now, it’s so easy to buy them I’m gonna go bankrupt soon. They sell DoW Platinum pack with 3 games in it for real cheap price and I got hooked by this offer. Long story short: DoW is a top RTS. Gameplay is challenging and fun at the same time. Units are cool looking, almost like those action figures from the table game of Warhammer 40k. The sounds they yell are also quite atmospheric. Developers also added global map where you decide what country you gonna attack and you can play the game for any race from available 7! That’s amazing. Of course I took Chaos side and started devastating silly Imperial Guards with my army of darkness. Upon finishing Dark Crusade I’ll play Winter Assault and the next addon Soulstorm should be ready at that time ;)

So, now I feel like a fish which caught on all the hooks Steam placed all over their site… But “I’m not a fish! I’m a man!“

Finally, after buying this book 2 years ago I got to read it. Well, it brought nostalgic feeling and submerged me to that dim era of early Black Metal. I remember myself discovering this genre and seeking for the Black Metal records back in 1994. This genre completely changed my views on music in general, I took it rather seriously and now I’m stained with darkness for ever hopefully :)  The book is an attempt to look at the Black Metal scene from beyond. It describes all sinister things that happened in the early 90s and later. It tells about the development of the Black Metal as a genre and about various underground circles and movements. The impression from the book is like from some BBC documentary: a lot of things pulled there to create mysterious atmosphere and speculate on pure facts, but there’s no any mysticism really. At the same time there’re nice interviews with the key people of the scene, which could hint unready reader about the situation properly. If you’re an old time black metaler you don’t need this book as you know everything yourself. But if you’re passing by man who likes to widen his views on life, this book might give you some idea (even a bit wrong maybe) about underground music in general. Just don’t take too seriously what’s written there….