Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
This album has been around in my queue for a while, mainly because I love it’s cover art so much but could never get myself listen through the music itself. Today I did and it was not easy. It somehow annoys me and it’s not interesting. I almost never write about albums that I don’t like, so this one is an exception because I wanted to put down that the cover art, that photo is absolutely amazing.
I need to put this out here so that I can move on with my Play Later playlist. Probably I rather want to listen to it a hundred more times than say too much about it.
My short summary is that Tool’s journey can be heard on this one again, like through each one of their records. Again, it’s more refined, more nuanced, and more soft. This also means that it’s less raw, less surprising, and less revolting. Some Tool fans are not satisfied with this journey, and I’m not one of those fans. I like everything about it, I like what their music has become. My only concern is that with Maynard’s works in other areas of life I cannot help thinking whether his full soul is still in this project, or it’s just something that he gave in to and tried to accomplish to the best of his efforts. However, I have no doubt that they did everything as good as they humanly could to accomplish this record.
The music is not something I could describe with words like great, wonderful, or such. It works on a very different level and scale. I love that there are the most number of 10+ minute songs so far, and I love the path all those take from beginning to end. I’m meh for the short filler pieces, but the arcs of the epic ones blow me away, those are the ones why I have this album on constant replay for a week now.
On another note, I just realized that each Tool album represents a completely different stage in my life. This is also probably why I will always like their latest album the best. The music part is not something that’s up for debate, I know that their work will always resonate with me. It’s just what I add and how I connect to it.
I call this avantgarde sailor EBM. And I don’t even know why I sense any trace of EMB around here, but somehow I feel that this has some kind of an odd relation to it. This thing is hard to explain, but there are some tracks that I just cannot keep re-listening. And this is my one post so far that could best make use of a smiley. This music demands a smile – it’s hilarious. Oddly though, it’s not a completely comedic way of hilarious, it’s just fun, easy, and non-serious. Probably not completely coincidental that it keeps reminding me of Eläkeläiset.
Not an innovator but a pretty good industrial electro-metal record, like in the footsteps of Rammstein but more on the party industrial side of things. I listened to a whole bunch of new releases from the industrial and EBM domains, I wanted to highlight some great surprises, but there were not much to mention at all. This one however is easily one that I am happy to relisten.
It’s a more agressive tone of EMB but not like TBM, more like going towards the industrial metal of Ministry or something electropunk.
I wish there was a movie like Alien but with the pacing of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the soundtrack of Moon. Ambient sci-fi horror. Not scary horror, but the visual exploration of horror, which was the most awesome aspect of Midsommar. And not psychological thriller, but very phisical although not completely gore, like the sci-fi action movies.
I love how many sci-fi horror movies start: usually there’s a lengthy and slow sequence with some drone noise in the background, and the first look at the spacecraft floating in blackness. Maybe I should watch Event Horizon.
Relaxing ambient. The album, honestly, is nothing special. But it’s a great asset on a day like this when I want to enclose myself in my shell and wish noone talked to me. Headphones on and listening to this feels protective.
Slow moving, bass heavy, moody, atmospheric, ambient electro. For me it’s not that kind of dark to be dark ambient, but it has a gloomy scifi vibe for sure. Could be an alternative soundtrack to Moon.
Deep-tech house with an ambient vibe. Soothing and conveying energy at the same time. Great for work.
This was the first Joe Rogan Experience I watched just because catching John Carmack’s name, and this is a blast. I’ll probably check out some more of Joe’s stuff, but Carmack in particular is unreal. He’s insanely intelligent and super entertaining to listen to how he just knows about everything. He’s somewhat like Forrest Gump in a sense that as I listen to the stories it seems like he just happened to be there at every occasion something serious shit was going down in history and related to technology.
On another note, listening to him makes me think about how different he and John Romero are. On the surface it seems like Carmack is way more successful rolling with these billionare technologists, making fortunes, working on stuff shaping the future, while Romero has relocated to Ireland to a small-mid sized city running a similarly small-mid sized game development studio of his own. But I feel like truth is, Carmack is driven by this almost inhuman motivation all about technology and not really caring for much beyond that, which is completely fine, but not superior in any way over Romero who is more like a true artist, and I love him and his work so much for that. Both have my utmost respect and are heros forever, but two completely different kind of fish.