AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Heh, Slipknot. I had a brief period when I was 15 where I listened to them, then never again after that.

Here's something I picked up that I really like. The genre is called Suomisaundi and it's basically a local, more chill subgenre of psytrance. No, it has nothing to do with cannabis necessarily, don't ask me about the thumbnail.

Pretty chill stuff, almost got a "folky" feel to it if that makes sense.

I have less than a month to answer this question: Is it worth a $60 ticket, a 200-mile trip, and a missed day of work to see Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Hellyeah, and Nothing More?

If I had the cash, I would gladly miss a day of work to go to a Reel Big Fish show several miles away. And will probably end up doing so next month anyways.

So how about that U2 thing going on.

In today's episode of obscure stuff, I came across this Hungarian avant-garde metal project that's pretty good. Not sure why the song is in two parts but this is the best quality version.

I thought I'd never end up liking Vocaloid.

I ended up liking Vocaloid, particularly some dubs, this one being probably my favorite ever.

Nonpoint's in town next month and I have to see that. Didn't even know the opening bands when I bought the tickets, but knowing the venue/sponsor, I figured they'd book similar-sounding bands. I decided that I needed to get acquainted with the openers. Short story shorter, I fell in love with Gemini Syndrome.



Lead guy was the touring guitarist for Otep, if that matters to anyone.

There's another band called Islander and they're basically a P.O.D. ripoff. Not looking forward to that one.

A friend showed me a band that I've come to really like. They're called Woods of Ypres. They're a little heavier than what I usually listen to, but I like them a lot.

One of their softer songs

One of their heavier songs

I just learned that Varg Vikernes is making a tabletop RPG that should come out this year.

http://myfarog.org/

The new Anaal Nathrakh and Devin Townsend Project albums came out this week. Based on my first full listen of Desideratum, it's good, but the first few songs are a bit too melodic. It gets better as it goes on and the second half is better than the first. This song's the last and it's probably my favorite.

The Slipknot/Korn concert was great. The vocals for the opening act (King 810) weren't great, because you couldn't hear him that well. Korn only played for an hour, but Slipknot's hour and a half didn't seem long enough. I was about twenty feet from the stage, right in front of Mick Thomson.

For those who heard the new song on the radio and thought it was tame: don't worry, that's the only one that's likely to be on the radio. The new album takes everything that made the first two great and refined it. If you were worried they went soft, they didn't.

Primordial's new album comes out on the 28th. Guess I can open my wallet a bit.



I mean, just listen to this.

So I'm sure most of you are familiar with, or have at least heard of, the idea of music growing on you. Like when you didn't used to like a certain genre, band or song, but after hearing it/them a couple of times you did start to appreciate it/them.

I recently read that that might have to do with Mere-exposure effect.

The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Basically, information that's repeated to us is easier to process. I suspect this might also be linked with Pattern Recognition. I don't have a source with me at the moment (I'll try and hunt for it if any one's interested), but our brain is wired to reward us with endorphins if we recognize patterns. While we're on the subject, this is likely why popular music is filled with the same handful of patterns, it makes it easier for that effect to kick in.

Here's something interesting: listen if you can hear the difference between lossy and lossless compression. I should point out that there's little point in doing the test if your audio equipment isn't up to par.

I'm on a pair of ATH-M50's + Xonar DG and I got 3/5 on my first try, 5/5 on my second. I acquire all of my music in lossless format these days and convert to lossy for my phone.