Every year I add new webcomics to my repertoire to read and enjoy. Sometimes I stumble upon them through adds, blog posts, friends, etc. but I always manage to find new ones. There's no guarantee that once I go through the archives of a particular comic I'll stick with it, but sometimes I just fall utterly in love.. So since I'm gearing up to ( Read more... )

I am usually pretty skeptical when it comes to live albums. Something about me has been conditioned to find studio albums as the best you can get. I mean, you get all the best takes. You get awesome layering and effects that are troublesome to reproduce live. And you’re guaranteed the best every time. So why bother with live albums? Well, every so ( Read more... )

I guess if you’re going to pick an album to be better than an Iron Maiden album, you better pick one by Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath is one of the easiest roots to trace to heavy metal’s origins. Their music is dark, heavy and aggressive in varying degrees. The heavy blues-rock they developed would be used as the basis for countless imitators and ( Read more... )

If Metallica was the first band I got a metal album by, I guess Iron Maiden was my first non-Metallica metal band. To be honest, I’m not sure what turned me on to go look for Iron Maiden. They’re not as mainstream as Metallica and I wasn’t into the full blown metal phase just then, so I can’t help but wonder where I heard of them. Nonetheless, I am ( Read more... )

Ya know, when I was making this list, I didn’t realize I had made such a pocket of metal. But I must admit, it was good timing for these reviews since I’ve been in a metal mood recently (like that Pat Boone album! - http://www.amazon.com/Metal-Mood-More-Mr-Nice/dp/B000005KOE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244786256&sr=8-1). Anyway, I’m sure it’ ( Read more... )

Few things are as metal as the first couple of Slayer albums. Right up to and including “Seasons in the Abyss” they show the ability to make metal everything it was meant to be: fast, evil, and harsh and in any combination imaginable. For some reason, I feel the albums that follow this really must that was great about these thrash legends work, but ( Read more... )

I have been told by a radio host that there are two types of Megadeth fans: those that think “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?” is the best Megadeth album and those who think “Countdown to Extinction” is the best. Personally, I like to think I am neither, as I enjoy all their discography (“Risk” excluded). I have pondered the meaning of this and I ( Read more... )

Motorhead is the first to have a repeat on the list, though certainly not the last. And here I picked what many consider the ultimate Motorhead album, or at least the most recognizable. Like all Motorhead albums, it is consistently good because it does not disregard the formula that made Motorhead a band of such longevity: loud, fast and heavy. ( Read more... )

I have been really searching for a way to accurately review this album. Obviously an instrumental album is harder to really pick apart, especially one like this that has so much virtuosity. I made a good attempt during my review of “The Fountain” OST, but that required knowledge of the movie. Here I will have to go more with my intimacy with the ( Read more... )

There is not much I don’t like that the Decemberists have done. All of their songs reek of wonderful pretention. Their songs are all bogged down in ever increasing layers of instrumentals and vocal harmonies.  Their album covers all look like book covers from those small press books you can only find in the tiniest book stores. Their narratives are ( Read more... )