The Devil's wears Nada

Or Nicolas Sarkozy in the Simpson's.

Nicolas Sarkozy et Carla Bruni dans les Simpson !
par lemondededemainTV

Mass We Pray

The Christian video game, hmm they are a little ridiculous. But, BUT... Look at 0:31: The Devil's Horn... And 0:39: inverted crosses, people...

hmm, it could be from a particularly imaginative Satanist group ;)



Edit: It seems it was part of a viral marketing campaign for Dante's Inferno, an upcoming video game loosely based on the aforementioned book. Here's a trailer for the video game:

It does not look so interesting.

Random thought

"There are those that will see conspiracy and disgust in the rotation of the earth simply because its too popular with the mainstream". (@realjenius)

Apart from that, I bought Left 4 Dead 2 after more than 100 hours on Left 4 Dead. I only finished the first campaign yet (with friends, of course), but I must say that this game is a masterpiece!!

What are you waiting for? Buy this game on PC NOW!!!

And don't forget to check the Mignight Riders website from time to time. It seems that we will see them soon ;)

Return to Bioshock

One year ago I bought Bioshock, played it on my old laptop and did not like it at all, it seemed to me it was a hell of a overhyped game. However my PC did not handle Shaders 3.0 at the time, I had to get recompiled Shaders for the game somewhere, so some of my bad impressions of the game could have been related to that.

I have now a state of the art laptop, and I was able to play this game will all settings maxed. Unfortunately, my impressions did not change:

• I'm sorry, but this game has lower than average graphics, even for a 2007 game. Except for the settings (which are OK, but also not mind blowing), objects and NPCs rendering are really not very good. Some years ago, games like Half Life 2 or Doom 3 had much better graphics


• Gameplay very much look like a child console game. For example a lot of glowing colors and oversized objects in the game. And unfortunately even if you disable all these kind of unnecessary features in the game options. Or the fact that you have to loot every object and NPC in the game, or random places, to find items. This all feels so unnatural. To take a very old example, for the first Half Life, Health stations were always put in logical places. Here this is completely "random", and you only have to look everywhere like in a flash puzzle game to get what you want. Not to mention the absurd mini games that are used to hack sentries or vending machines. Why?


• I also have to mention the combats and NPCs behavior which are really ridiculously bad and uninteresting


• Story: Because they were not able to tell the story in a natural way, they recorded hours of recordings to tell the story by dead NPCs. Even in Doom 3 I did not like that very much, but the Doom 3 universe was very simple. Here they had to create a very specific universe, and it seemed that they could not really make the player experience it. So they had to resort to these recordings. You don't play the game, you don't experience the universe, you are fed the story by some kinds of audiobooks... So why not reading a Ayn Rand book instead?


• Level design: not very interesting. Even at the beginning of the game, when I arrived in Rapture, there was no wow effect at all (except for the short cinematic part when you are in the bathysphere, but remember that it's only a cinematic). Small rooms everywhere, very much all looking the same to me

I will very soon remove this game from my computer, because I really don't enjoy playing it i any way. But why did some people loved this game so much?

I Have Not... Come This Far... To Die Now

Awesome Left 4 Dead 2 trailer.

This guy needs to get a life, maybe

However, at the end he did not seem to suffer from playing Left 4 Dead during some 8 hours on a row approximately ;)

Left 4 Dead 2 is not an expansion

There have been a lot o whining lately from Left 4 Dead gamers about the fact that Valve announced a new Left 4 Dead 2 game in late 2009. They say they feel that they were cheated because the new game should have been released as free DLC, and that Valve has abandoned Left 4 Dead support and development. Some of them even say that the game is unfinished or unplayable.

Just immature whiners.

Valve do not owe them anything:

• The game is very much playable, on the contrary it's one of the games I played the most I think


• Valve already released DLC and SDK for Left 4 Dead. The Survival Pack is a great addition to the game. If some people don't like it, that's their problem, but saying that it's nothing just because they prefer to play versus (or play versus only) is twisting reality. Left 4 Dead is not only Versus (even if Versus is cool). And for those who say that releasing new Maps (or even adapting existing Maps to a new game mode)is really zero work, they should begin to Map themselves


• Valve has the right to develop a new game when they want

Beside, judging by the additions in A.I. Director, game engine and gameplay in Left 4 Dead 2, it could never be an expansion on the first game. Expansions are when you add limited new content and stories without changing the game engine itself. here we have (and I think it's just the beginning):

• New special infected (and even new special normal infected) with the consequences on the A.I. Director, not mentioning how the Versus mode will evolve because of that. It's much more than only tweaking the characteristics for one class like in Team Fortress 2.


• The new evisceration / gore effects in the game engine (beurk !!)


• New Dynamic weather, and dynamic path, all handled by the new A.I. Director

Without Pride Mourned The Loss Of Freedom

Steingrim Torson was the talented vocalist of the Norwegian Black Metal band Celestial Bloodshed. He was shot to death in the stomach by his best friend, who happens not to remember why he did that...

Revelations of the Black Flame

An update about the upcoming 1349 album: It is still not available on amazon, but it seems it has been already released on iTunes. However, you can already listen to samples of the album titles and buy them (or the whole album). I will still wait for the CD ;)

This is a long time...

...without any post. Considering the excellent gigs where I have been the last months.

Shining was playing at Glaz'art in Paris (a space increasingly used for extreme metal shows) on March 2, with support from Sarkom and Koldbrann. Shining was as good as ever. And if you really want to know, this time Kvarforth did not cut himself but burned himself with cigarette butts.
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However, I was impressed by Koldbrann, a raw Norwegian Black Metal band, faithful to the beginnings of the genre. You should check their 2006 album Moribund for example, after seeing them I bought it from amazon of course !!!



And in the middle of April I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Inferno Festival in Oslo. This is a great festival, this is (very well) organized indoors in a building in the center of Oslo with two venues. Obviously, this is a Norwegian festival, so you have to expect a lot of Black Metal. Such as Carpathian Forest as headliners, ending the festival on the big stage !!! A sick performance !!


Or Pantheon I, their performance on the small stage was excellent !!

By the way, Koldbrann were there too, and on the big stage!! Their performance was really really good, with a support from Kvarforth himself.

It was their big day, they ended destroying on stage a part of their gear. But I can assure you that their whole set was not only showoff, this band is really very good.

There were a lot of other Black Metal bands there, such as Krypt, Code, Root, Kampfar, Troll. I was even able to see King Ov Hell without corpse paint on stage, performing with Sahg. A great festival, the only downside being the fact that all is expensive here in Norway ;)

Revelations of the Black Flame

Judging by the first who were lucky enough to be able to hear the new 1349 album, it seems that it will be another extreme achievement of extreme Black Metal !!

All indications are that 1349's forthcoming CD, "Revelations of the Black Flame" (Candlelight), will still sound like Satan hammering on a ax borrowed from Dimebag Darrell, as vocalist Ravn screeches all manner of abomination and apocalypse.

Warrior

Seen on the blog of Tom Gabriel Fisher, aka Tom Gabriel Warrior, leader of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost (see previous post): The leader of an obscure and ridiculous American Rock Band threat to sue him for using the name "warrior", which was previously trademarked worldwide by this band !!!

This joke of a band should also trademark ridicule. They call themselves WARRIOR, America’s Rock Band, and their hit (hmm all is relative) seems to be called I Want a Walmart Girl. Judging by the small amount of friends they could gather on their (rather disgusting) myspace page, they only have this way to be known, even if it is only to be laughed at.

Triptykon

This is the last post in date from Tom Gabriel Fischer, leader of defunct Black / Doom bands Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, and now of the new Triptykon, which music seems to grow really really dark and morbid. Really interesting. Can't wait to see them on stage !!!

Of course my own opinion is biased, and of course I am not really entitled to rate the results of our own work. But it is difficult not to emerge from our sessions at Triptykon's rehearsal bunker deeply intoxicated by the heaviness of the dark, overwhelming, and morbid miasma that is the riffs of "The Prolonging". Although the path towards completion is still significant, be it for this new song, its title and lyrics, or the album proper it will appear on, it all transpires as it should. It is as it has to be.

Gorgoroth is Infernus

You already know this: Infernus has won his trial against King and Gaahl for Gorgoroth name trademark. This is everywhere, but if you want the original, go there (sorry only in Norwegian, it is apparently the official result for this case given by the Oslo District Court.

I have no problem about Infernus gaining this fairly mundane trademark case, I am OK that he gain back the Gorgoroth name, but:

• It does not erase the past, and the fact that the only performing band during all these troubled years was also named Gorgoroth (Gaahl and King after they fired Infernus), and in fact WAS Gorgoroth. During the same period Infernus band was in the process of constructing itself with new musicians - some coming from the first incarnation of the band, but it did not toured, did not perform in front of a public, and did not released any new material (Live in Grieghallen is a not so good hack on sessions that did not mean to be released, with Kings parts erased and replaced by Infernus)

So:

• Infernus (I know you don't give a fuck about me, and you may be right), if you want to gain my approval, lets release Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt this year, and please start touring sometime this year too; I swear I will go to see and hear you and your forces. But if you don't... for what's worth all of this?


• Gaahl and King (and whatever infernal new name you will give to your band now): You were right to refuse to indulge further into court action, which can be endless. And people who saw you on stage during these years reckoned that you were a force to see on stage.

And one last thing: I really don't understand why the court wrote (English translation): In addition, the Court found that Infernus, as founder of the band, in this case could not be excluded; Thus Gaahl and King must be regarded as excluded of the band. What's this judiciary bullshit? Again I have no problem with the trademark thing, but the history is full of band founders that have been expelled by members who came after them, so I think that maybe this court seem not to understand music, rather than Black Metal only, very much.

And contrary to what I seem, I am NOT against Infernus !!

Vorkreist Sublimation XXIX A

Vorkreist is an excellent Death / Black Metal band from Paris. Their last (very good) album, Sublimation XXIX A, is from 2006, and they are preparing a new one which should appear in the following months I think.

I was pleased to see a short review of this album on the Black Metal Owns You blog. It reviews only Black Metal albums and gives the link to buy them, and often also the links to sharing sites which allow to download them.

You may think that giving links to these sharing sites is bad (though the maintainers of the blog never upload the files themselves, and they will remove links in case bands ask them to do it), but considering that it's sometimes impossible to get Black Metal albums, they are also giving access to some music that would otherwise stay unheard.

That said, here is what they write about Sublimation XXIXA:
In the continuity of "Sabbathical Flesh Possession", it delivers 9 works of brutal Death-Black Metal inspired by revulsion and deviance, in criminal, demonic dedication to the destruction of obsolete and pernicious humane values. Structures have been developed and aggressiveness improved along these distinct but definitely coherent tracks, the whole serving Vorkreist's vision of Hell and reality, opposed and entangled in each other.

If you can, buy it, I swear you will not regret, and if not... well you know what you are doing ;)

Mnemonic Possession

Shining live tomorrow night ;) Beginning with two promising raw Norwegian Black Metal bands: and Koldbrann (the latter I'm listening in a loop for the moment).

But first let's say that I'm very happy with the live event on Friday. That was in the same venue as the one for Monday, the Glaz'art. There's only very few Metal shows there, but it's really OK, the sound is good, it's small but not too small, and the staff is friendly enough. One of my friends is a fan of the French Brutal Death band Kronos. I came there trusting his judgment and basically thinking "Why not ?". It was really a great set !! (apart from the bands coming before them, who were not bad, but neither were enthralling).




And now, what about some Black Metal news? I just stumbled today on the Averse Sefira "official" blog (I think it's mainly written by Wrath, but I'm not sure). The last December posts are about his/their trip to Scandinavia, meeting with such interesting people and bands as Gorgoroth, Pantheon I, Deströyer 666, and a memorable moment at Watain bunker in Stockholm.
. Watain prepared for their 10th year anniversary show, and as a true raw Black Metal band, this preparation did involve very special treats (and not sweets): Friday, 12.5.08, Watain bunker, Stockholm – It smells bad down here. Really bad. Watain is gearing up for their 10th anniversary show tomorrow and they are stepping up the offal to match the occasion. They removed most of the actual offending pieces, but there's still a lot of grue-covered skulls everywhere, and there is no real ventilation at all..


And later: I smell. I smell like zombie vomit. I smell like I shit my pants and then died. I smell like Watain. The creeping red odor of the bunker has attached itself to my hair, skin, clothes, and everything else I own. (...). I have become an unwitting harbinger of Watain in my journey to Uppsala; (...). I think this is the true nature of death – alternately absurd and terrifying in equal measures. People on this train car are starting to freak out.


Maybe this is part of what motivates Watain; they come from a place where everyone is shiny, groomed, and good-looking, and they factor that into their rejection of the world at large. To be an odious freak in America is commonplace, but here it is a statement. All I know is that they are the antithesis of what I see in the people of Sweden.

Toward Complete Fucking Desolation

Preparing for next Monday of course.

BTW, I'm coming back from one week in Florida for work: OK, weather is fine ;)

And Now In Illinois

Beware people, the disease is spreading like wildfire now !!!

Caution !! Zombies Ahead !!

People in Austin should be very careful from now on. Seems that Zoey, Bill, Francis, and Louis will have some action after all ;)



Thanks enrevanche, this made my day ;)

A Black Metal Night: Celestial Bloodshed

I just came to the Sargeist and Baptism gig last Saturday, with support from Celestial Bloodshed (Norway) and Aosoth (France). Very good Black Metal night !!

I was very happy to be able to see Aosoth for the first time.I failed to see them the previous time for the last Black Metal is Rising fest, because they were playing way too early, and I came after the end of their set.

Also very impressed by Celestial Bloodshed, which I never saw before. They have a very strong impact on stage. The singer is kind of scary ;)




I bought their album Cursed, Scarred And Forever Possessed after that (it's not a new band), and I like it. It's really Black, but it's not at all generic Black Metal like some said.

Not Everyone Likes Metal....

FUCK THEM !!!!!!!




That said, if you want to declare your love to the girl of your life, try this powerful method guys:



But beware I will decline all responsibility on the result

Black, violent and depressing

This is Shining. Their last album Halmstad begins with a song called Ytterligare ett steg närmare total jävla utfrysning (Yet Another Step Towards Complete Fucking Desolation) !! And here are the first words, a little poem before the screaming:

As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away.

This is the beginning of Antigonish, a 1899 poem by William Hughes Mearns. That, with the arrangement of the Beethoven Moonlight sonata, is only an example on how well they are able to mix classical influences with raw black metal.