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The Parallellograms/The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Split EP

Genre(s) - Indie pop
Origin - UK/USA
Year of release - 2008
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 11.35 MB

I've been having other things on my mind than my blog, excuse me for the lack of updates lately. I'm not sure if that is changing very soon. Watch and pray.

Well I hope everybody knows I love The Pains, only on this here fine EP I have to admit they are being topped by their British splitmates. The Parallellograms play ultra-upbeat, ultra-simple, ultra-childlike but very noisy twee pop, with a rawness of production that would scare the lads of Von or Beherit. Pop the Bubbles is fantastic, gets me ready for summer (if only the weather worked along). As for the Pains, Kurt Cobain's Cardigan sadly is quite a nondescript song and I know they can do better than this. Also of course I prefer their more melodramatic songs.

1. The Parallellograms - 1, 2, 3, go!
2. The Parallellograms - Pop the bubbles
3. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Kurt Cobain's Cardigan
   

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The Wounded - Atlantic

Genre(s) - Gothic/doom metal/rock
Origin - The Netherlands
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 65.33 MB

A majestic opus of downcast gloom rock is not an export product you might expect from the picturesque province of Drenthe, or maybe again, it's exactly what you can expect - I wouldn't know what to do with myself either except for masturbating, drinking pils and playing depressive music. Living in the inhabited world I don't need to play depressive music because I have internet so I can listen to others doing it for me. All this tells you nothing about the album and is discriminating to non-Randstadters, I'm sorry. Atlantic is as vast and deep and churning restless as the ocean mirroring steel-grey skies. Singer Marco van der Velde has an astounding emotional voice and gives a great performance on songs like 18. Carat Dust or the lethargic, extra-extra-tortured Nirvana cover. The long closer and title track is a great hypnotic trip though lands of guilt and dejection. It's been six long years without an album now, I hope The Wounded will soon be patched up enough to write some more material. Who else hurts you so well?

1. Hollow world
2. 18. carat dust
3. Running on empty
4. Day of joy
5. Northern lights
6. "Prelude"
7. Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana cover)
8. We are darker
9. Atlantic
   

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Kreator - Endless Pain

Genre(s) - Thrash metal
Origin - Germany
Year of release - Early 1985
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 49.47 MB

This is a repost; the inverse had happened as with the previous post: still a post, but no file.

I bought Endless Pain on a whim when I was 14 and at that time it was the most extreme cd that I had, but it was instant love. Thrash metal is not my type of music - too angular - and to this date, Kreator are perhaps the only band that I can really say I like. Endless Pain, their debut, is a darker, cruder, slower affair than the three or four 'classic' albums that followed, in fact there's a lot of early Bathory in here. Texts are mostly about satan and killing people, rather a pity but you must remember it was the spirit of the times and these guys were no more than teens when they wrote this. Most of the songs have excellent riffage and the dank dungeon smell of eighties' old school thrash and proto-black metal makes this one of Kreator's most interesting releases. Tormentor and Flag of Hate, two of the best songs, are still played live today and notice the cool, almost epic bridges in Dying Victims and Son of Evil.

1. Endless pain
2. Total death
3. Storm of the beast
4. Tormentor
5. Son of evil
6. Flag of hate
7. Cry war
8. Bonebreaker
9. Living in fear
10. Dying victims
    

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Skagos - Ást

Genre(s) - Black metal
Origin - British Columbia, Canada
Year of release - 2009
Bitrate - 160 kbps
Size - 59.60 MB

Though I am well aware that Skagos' opus Ást is featured on most every black metal blog around and I hate the feeling of being behind, here it is now also on mine. After all, Google tells me it's Earth Day (we have an Earth Day? Kinda gets overshadowed by Four-Twenty Day this way, don't it?), and what music better symbolises the insignificance of humankind compared to the very soil that we and everything derives from, than some nice and foresty atmospheric black metal? Skagos tell us of the triumph of Nature; the impending downfall of modern civilisation and a return to modes of life more harmonious with the world around us. After all, the carcass of monotheist capitalism will yield blossoms indeed: the conditions for new relations among ourselves and between us and the planet we inhabit. And until that time you can enjoy the enveloping, melancholic and strangely warm tones of Ást, one of the most astounding albums released in the genre last year. Fucking Calignosity.

The inanity of the last song's title aggravates me considerably.

1. Colossal spell
2. The drums pound every night in a glorious celebration of life
3. Blossoms will sprout from the carcass
4. ...with a warm recollection
5. Calignosity
6. A night that ends, as all nights end, when the sun rises
   

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Joe Cocker - Unchain my Heart

Genre(s) - Pop/rock
Origin - Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
Year of release - 1987
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 57.24 MB

Ah, the memories... together with Babooshka by Kate Bush, when I was a real young'un Joe Cocker's Unchain my Heart was my favourite song of all time. It's not purely nostalgia leading me to post this now, because Joe simply has an awesome bluesy voice and the track stands as strong as ever, not to mention my other favourite, I Stand in Wonder. Those who know Cocker from singing With a Little Help from My Friends at Woodstock should expect a major eighties-ification in sound on this album with its synthesisers and saxophones, though the women's background choir (which at Woodstock, of course, consisted of dudes) is still firmly in place.

1. Unchain my heart
2. Two words
3. I stand in wonder
4. Rivers rising
5. Isolation
6. All our tomorrows
7. A woman loves a man
8. Trust in me
9. The one
10. Satisfied
    

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Fokofpolisiekar - Swanesang

Genre(s) - Rock
Origin - Suid-Afrika, poes
Year of release - 2006
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 44.62 MB

With South-African rave-rap group Die Antwoord a major hype in the Netherlands, and through their collaboration with Fokofpolisiekar in one of their songs, I found this awesome and controversial band back again after many a year of very specific amnesia. Its most remarkable feature seem to be the Afrikaans lyrics at first, which mean more to me than they probably do to you, but it hides a lot that only comes out after repeated listens. Though generally considered a punk rock band, this is full-bodied, driving modern rock geared remarkably towards atmosphere, and as such it reminds me just a little of latter-day Katatonia or Klimt 1918. The use of Afrikaans remains an interesting novelty however, especially from the melancholic raw throat of Francois "Van Coke" who translates a punklike disrespect for the whole of society. Let this grow on you, I think you won't be disappointed.

1. Morning star, Durbanville
2. Heiden heiland
3. Swanesang
4. Bel vir middelvinger
5. Vastbeslote korporasie (deel 1)
6. Prioritiseer
7. Vir altijd 7 november
8. Ek skyn (heilig)
9. Brand Suid-Afrika
10. Backstage (als daar een is)
11. Déjà vu
12. Vastbeslote korporasie (deel 2)
    

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My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans

Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Year of release - 1993
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 52.17 MB

Turn Loose the Swans is a doom metal mammoth of frightening dimensions and an immense influence on the then-youthful death-doom subgenre in metal. Its makers, the institution that is My Dying Bride, are rightfully revered as pioneers and contemporary masters in bringing an edge of tragic elegance and emotional indulgence into the usually so stone-faced world of metal. This beast here is slow, really quite slow, as it should be. It does not stalk; it shakes the earth in its weight, yet still in graceful stride. This is not impossible if you have a violinist like Martin Powell, or a singer like Aaron Stainthorpe. Aaron who, in addition to his dejected, gracefallen clean voice, can lay down the deathgrunts damn well. This is an album to be experienced, song by solemn song.

More by this band: here and here.

1. Sear me MCMXCIII
2. Your river
3. The songless bird
4. The snow in my hand
5. The crown of sympathy
6. Turn loose the swans
7. Black god
   

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Fleetwood Mac - The Dance

Genre(s) - Classic rock
Origin - United Kingdom
Year of release - 1997
Bitrate - 160 kbps
Size - 89.38 MB

As I understand it, there are many people who really can't stand Fleetwood Mac, and I personally can't say they're my favourite band either. But this is an alright disc to have lying around, mostly for Go Your Own Way and The Chain, which were childhood favourites of mine. So you ask, couldn't you just take Rumours? Well I would, sir, madam, but there is one song here that you should really have heard at least once in your life. I don't think you'll be able to keep it at just once, unless you have a thing against melody and energy and brilliance in your music. Big Love. It's fantastic, check it out. And okay, there are plenty of other tracks that are really quite a treat to the ears.

1. The chain
2. Dreams
3. Everywhere
4. Rhiannon
5. I'm so afraid
6. Temporary one
7. Bleed to love her
8. Big love
9. Landslide
10. Say you love me
11. My little demon
12. Silver springs
13. You make loving fun
14. Sweet girl
15. Go your own way
16. Tusk
17. Don't stop
    

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Spite Extreme Wing - Kosmokrator (Magnificat II)

Genre(s) - Black metal
Origin - Italy
Year of release - 2005
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 53.72 MB

In the excitement of spring we would almost forget the poor black metal fans. Always in for some rigorous hacking and gouging, with Kosmokrator, Spite Extreme Wing deliver a declaration of utmost hostility towards all human life.This Italian band is part of the Black Metal Invitta Armata collective, alongside such excellent compatriots as Janvs, Frangar and Tronus Abyss. The album consists of older songs that had not been released before, but you will hardly notice this. It is a leaden slab of fast and dense black metal, sometimes ever so slightly thrashy, with excellent riffs and versatility where needed with elegant acoustic (Vvltvs) and neoclassical segments (the long Il Volo). They do not forego good taste in the midst of ravaging will to destroy. And I really like to hear that. By the way, that is some real fetching cover artwork.

1. L'inizio
2. Il tempio ad est
3. Kosmokrator
4. Deo soli invicto
5. Vvltvs
6. Monvmentvm
7. Clermont
8. Il volo del bicorne (remake of Viaggio di Ritorno by Morgan Bellini)
   

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Tedje en de Flikkers - Tedje en de Flikkers

Genre(s) - Gaylectropunk
Origin - Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Year of release - 1979
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 30.46 MB

We've got a real oddity here. I am proud to present to you Tedje en de Flikkers, translateable as "Teddy and the Faggots", a proud flikkerpunk band from the east of the country. They were associated with the Rooie Flikkers or Red Faggot movement, a very explicitly gay left-wing squatters' collective, and the lyrics are rather political but mostly very, very naughty. Musically, this is rickety, formless sounding 70s punk with mismatched keyboard melodies and excruciatingly vieze vocals. It is also ridiculously dated, and it should be seen as an interesting relic of cultural heritage more than a musical project of any sort. It will most likely not please your ears to be subjected to this, unless you are Dutch and hunting for fat cocks in the night. Well anyway, enjoy it or not, I'll be going for a wank in the park.

1. Op de baan
2. Pierangelo
3. Sjit
4. Nijmegen
5. Noodkreet
6. Lijflijk
7. Stukje lul
8. Liefde
9. Nieuwjaar '77
10. Paranoia
11. Fantasie des volkes
12. Kinderen de straat op
13. Van Agt
14. Zwart leer
    

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V.A. - Twee as Fuck (the Joy of Kittenhood)

Genre(s) - Twee, o'course
Origin - Mostly UK and USA
Year of release - Never officially; compiled in 2005
Bitrate - 192 kbps

Twee as Fuck is a rather infamous compilation of a great many twee songs by a great many twee bands, that circulates the internet but was never officially released. Apparently it is based off a list of "essential listening" indie pop songs in a 2005 article with the same title in Pitchfork magazine. Some gentle soul has made an mp3 comp out of it and that's what I can share with you now. Many of the bands I got to like when I first discovered the genre came from this compilation and I urge anyone with a fondness of the sweet, the simple and the shamelessly underproduced to check this out. Revolt into childhood? Yes please!

Cut in half due to size. Get both!

1. Television Personalities - This angry silence
2. Talulah Gosh - Beatnik boy
3. Tiger Trap - My broken heart
4. Rocketship - I love you like the way that I used to do
5. Magnetic Fields - 100,000 fireflies
6. Honeybunch - Mind your own business
7. Cub - Tell me now
8. Beat Happening - Our secret
9. The Softies - Hello rain
10. Glo-worm - Tilt-a-whirl
11. Heavenly - Three star compartiment
12. Tullycraft - Pop songs your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about
13. The Pastels - Mandarin
14. [oops, missing file!]
    
15. Blueboy - Boys don't matter
16. Wolfie - Hey, it's finally yay
17. Tiger Trap - Puzzle pieces
18. The Hit Parade - Hitomi
19. Rocketship - Your New Boyfriend
20. Barcelona - I've got the password to your Shell account
21. Black Tambourine - Throw Aggi off the bridge
22. Beat Happening - Bewitched
23. The Pastels - Yoga
24. Honeybunch - My contribution to the greenhouse effect
25. Small Factory - If you hurt me
26. Velocity Girl - Pop loser
27. Heavenly - Hearts and crosses
28. The Pastels - Different drum
29. The Vaselines - Molly's lips
30. Beat Happening - Indian summer
31. Talulah Gosh - My boy says
32. The Sea Urchins - Pristine Christine
33. Heavenly - C is the heavenly option
34. Boyracer - In love
    

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Part 2 - Load it down (72.09 MB)

The Changelings - The Changelings

Genre(s) - Neoclassical, ethereal
Origin - Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
Year of release - 1996
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 70.53 MB

Supremely independent and haunting music that sounds like it could have been made anywhere and anytime except for the American nineties - here's another Changelings album. Making use of a great repertoire of classical and pre-modern instruments, vividly coloured, swirling melodies are layered like paint in a landscape by Caspar David Friedrich. It gives a similar panoramic width, set in tones of falling dusk on overgrown ruins, etcetera. It runs the gamut from pastoral serenity to percussion-driven bombast in smooth, gradual crescendo, never breaking the constant natural flow. Earthquake at Versailles and Into this Divide stand out in that respect. Wonderfully dreamy chamber music for romantics only.

The band's third album, Amphibian, had already been posted here.

1. Pomegranate
2. Season of mist
3. Earthquake at Versailles
4. Song of the Sephardim
5. Pranam
6. Into this divide
7. Incantation
8. Solitude
9. Awakening
10. Seraphim
11. 11:59 PM October 30
12. Sunday morning
    

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Remedy Motel - My Favorite Record

Genre(s) - Country (rock)
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 2005
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 71.33 MB

I was righteously recommended this by a good friend: some good old-fashioned American home-grown country, and still very unknown too. Let's hope that changes soon, Remedy Motel is a great young band who nails the nostalgia just right. My Favorite Record reminds of long stretches of interstate crossing the mesas, interspersed by dingy roadside bars full of bikers and ladies of the night. It's not totally retrogressive; it has a shiny modern sound and a versatile approach, but the music's soul is old indeed. Wonderful music to kick back to reading road-novels. One of the band members is even called Bart! But you don't owe this to me, so if you like it, say "thanks Lucy!"

1. My kind of story
2. Broken man
3. 49.95
4. Short on time
5. California eyes
6. Elvira
7. No more
8. Let me die
9. Come On Inn
10. Grandpa Joe
11. Face to face
12. The last song
    

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The Tough Alliance - Two EPs

Genre(s) - Electropop
Origin - Sweden

The Tough Alliance are also Swedish, and that concludes the range of similarities to Lifelover. It took me a blonde-quiffed Swede to get to know them. The two dudes play some strange form of electronic music that sounds chaotic and mismatched, experimental and still poppy, and kind of drugged-up catchy. They're hard on vocals and brass and the rhythms are definitely more than simple unilinear doing-doing-doing dance beats. I can not describe it in much more detail without probably missing the mark. This is the only electronic music I know that is inspired by revolutionary politics, even if those are not expressed as such through the music itself as much as in the theory behind the group.

Make it Happen

Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 8.65 MB

1. Tough
2. Make it happen
3. Take no heroes
4. Many men
   

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New Waves

Year of release - 2006
Bitrate - 256 kbps
Size - 24.30 MB

1. Kill kill kill
2. Silly crimes
3. 25 years and running
4. Mine was real
   

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Lifelover - Erotik

Genre(s) - Black metal/depressive pop
Origin - Sweden
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 81.12 MB

Still not dark enough for you? Then maybe you need some Lifelover in your life. With a mixture of musical styles even more cynical than the mocking name, they seek to confuse you and fuck with your mind. Compared to the debut Pulver (posted here), the sophomore effort presents a more unified sound, blending the different elements more thoroughly into the whole, although it seems a bit less melodic and more droning. Lyrics seem to be themed around alienation, negativity, death, hedonism and (self-)abuse; you know, all the good stuff. This band has a unique and uncanny way of creeping up on you and inducing all sorts of dark, involuntary thoughts and feelings in your all too vulnerable mind. That is not a warning - it's a warm invitation.

1. Förspel & intrång
2. Sweet illness of mine
3. I love (to hurt) you
4. En man i sina sämsta år
5. Dödens landsväg
6. Välkommen til pulvercity
7. Saltvatten (du + jag vs. Tellus)
8. Besatt
9. Höstdepressioner
10. Humörets bottenvåning
11. Museum of past affections
12. Nitlott
    

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Furia - Martwa Polska Jesién

Genre(s) - Black metal
Origin - Poland
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 59.07 MB

October last year, Polish Furia released a new album that I was very much looking forward to but which ultimately didn't really satisfy the expectations that the debut had set. So I am offering you this, their finest hour, Martwa Polska Jesién ("Dead Polish Autumn"). It is a splendorous monument of black crystal that beckons your unconditional worship. Highly concerted, concentrated destruction, mind-bending in its massiveness and impenetrable in its darkness. An atmospheric depth that is all too easy to lose yourself in. The band's talent, authenticity and confidence are clear from every tone. Those hammering drums, those scathing vocals... here is all that makes black metal wholesome. Big headphones and high volume more than recommended.

1. Nade mną mgła
2. Dzién czarny, noc czarna
3. Krew w kolorze Bursztynu
4. Ślepych dzień
5. Na ciele swym historię mą piszę
6. Idzie zima
   

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Darkthrone - Ravishing Grimness

Genre(s) - Black metal
Origin - Kolbotn, Norway
Year of release - 1999
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 41.22 MB

Darkthrone are beyond legend and require no introduction. This most aptly titled album from their early transitional period is among my all-time favourites by Norway's most loyal, and totally crushes anything on A Blaze in the Northern Sky in every aspect if you ask me. It features some of the most crawling, ominous riffs the band has ever concocted, and the album rings with a triumphant, arrogant sadism. Of course, Fenriz and Nocturno - most charming figures the both of them - have much to be arrogant about, especially with this beast of cold and harrowing beauty... Ravishing Grimness, indeed.

1. Lifeless
2. The beast
3. The claws of time
4. Across the vacuum
5. Ravishing grimness
6. To the death (under the king)
   

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Let's Whisper - Make Me Smile

Genre(s) - Twee pop
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 2008
Bitrate - 192/320 kbps
Size - 19.61 MB

Here is some unabashedly adorable, lo-fi twee (is there any other kind?) from wonderful WeePOP! Records, because it was such a sunny day today. And if you ask me, Let's Whisper is among the best out there. The Make me Smile EP does not exhibit the deliberate amateurish bedroom recording values and unsteady performance as some other bands make them, which I find a plus. The clarity and simple but capable instrumentation highlight the flawless compositions. Hey Sunshine and Ice Cream are really sunny and will bring a wide smile to your face that's impossible to wipe away. However, Dylan's Song and Tender Circles are brilliantly bittersweet and you'll have to put up a fight not to let them affect your mood just as much. In a nutshell: tender harmonies and happy-sad melodies galore.

1. Dylan's song
2. Open road
3. Hey sunshine
4. When you were eating ice cream
5. Tender circles
6. Dylan's song (demo version)
   

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L'Âme Immortelle - Gezeiten

Genre(s) - Electronic darkwave, Neue Deutsche Härte
Origin - Austria
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 52.69 MB

For those it may concern: L'Âme Immortelle are the closest thing to German Electro I still had pre-uploaded on Mediafire. They're Austrian and sing in English half the time, and like ASP as well they gradually incorporated more rock influences, stapling crunchy angular guitars to the electronic backdrop in places where the sound (apparently) could use some heaviness. Some of the beats also seem to be played on an acoustic kit, so it's really just the closest thing. It's a very enjoyable album all in all, which took me a while to fully appreciate. The band feautures male and female vocals, of which especially Sonja Kraushofer's are very good (she also sings for ethereal band Persephone). There are some slower songs that, save for Ohne Dich, do not become tedious if you take time to learn to enjoy them. Without You, luckily, is not just an English version of the aforementioned song despite the name - which is actually a bit odd if you think about it.

1. Es zieht sich davon
2. 5 Jahre
3. Fear
4. Stumme Schreie
5. Fallen angel
6. Gezeiten
7. Rain
8. Masquerade
9. Kingdom
10. Calling
11. Ohne dich
12. Believe in me
13. Without you
    

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Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio & Spiritual Front - Satyriasis

Genre(s) - Apocalyptic folk, military pop
Origin - Sweden (ORE), Italy (SF)
Year of release - 2005
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 47.41 MB

A debauched carnal encounter between the two most sensual and deviant acts of the neo-industrial era, Satyriasis was destined to be long before it was. The two projects each have a style of their own, but there are no two other bands that are as compatible. This is also reflected in the way the album is structured. Transition from the one band and back again is so seamless there is no reason to call it a transition altogether. Spiritual Front are the folkier, more organic of the two while Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio still take more cues from (martial) industrial structure, but both bands supply great exclusive material. The joint-effort intro and outro could have been more substantial, however. They really just serve as in- and outroduction while I'd have loved to hear some co-written actual songs. No matter, you can handle the setback. Now go get 'er.

If you enjoyed the Italian band you can find more here; ORE definitely warrants a future post.

1. ORE ft. SF - Your sex is the scar
2. SF - Song for the old man
3. ORE - Hell is where the heart is (the gospel of Thomas)
4. SF - Autopsy of a love
5. ORE - Three is an orgy, four is forever
6. SF - Border
7. ORE - Dreaming of my scarlet woman
8. SF ft. ORE - The pleasure of pain
   

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Heidevolk - Walhalla Wacht

Genre(s) - Folk metal
Origin - Gelderland, the Netherlands
Year of release - 2008
Bitrate - 160 kbps
Size - 47.31 MB

From the East of the Netherlands comes this Saxon warband, a nomadic pillaging machine that sacks and burns clubs and venues around Europe without end, posing a continuous threat to the continent's ale reserves while doing so. Their music is just right: competently written, burly pagan metal with a live violinist, aggressive guitar leads and great clean vocals that praise Wodan, vicious battle, and drinkin'. Some tracks like Wodan Heerst are quite slow but even those have a certain catch and flow too well to ever get tedious. There's a new album coming out this month, which I hope is as good as this. Catch these guys live when you get the chance, good times will be had... though for me, half the charm are of course their exclusively Dutch lyrics.

1. Saksenland
2. Koning Radboud
3. Wodan heerst!
4. Hulde aan de Kastelein
5. Walhalla wacht
6. Opstand der Bataven
7. Het wilde heer
8. Naar de hal der gevallenen
9. Zwaarden geheven
10. Dageraad
    

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Gérard Lenorman - Ses Plus Grands Succes

Genre(s) - Chansons Françaises, pop, singer-songwriter
Origin - Take a guess
Year of release - 198?
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 54.40 MB

Ses Plus Grands Succes, which simply means His Greatest Hits, is a compilation album by the French singer-songwriter Gérard Lenorman. I really do not know a lot about the man, but I remember having known his song La Ballade des Gens Heureuses (Ballad of the Happy People) for about all my life. It's still, to me, the most beautiful song on the disc though that may be because of the memories attached. Voici les Clés (See Here the Keys) and Si j'Était Président (If I were President) always flush my chest with some aching warmth as well, it's fantastic if music can evoke such a response. If you enjoy this album as much as I did, may I suggest for you to try this album out as well, by a compatriot and collaegue chansonnier Benjamin Biolay.

1. La ballade des gens heureuses
2. Michèle
3. La petite valse
4. Boulevard de l'océan
5. Warum (mein Vater)
6. Vacances en France
7. L'enfant des cathédrales
8. Si j'était Président
9. Voiçi les clés
10. Le bleu des regrets
11. Et moi je chante
12. Tu t'rappelles plus de rien
13. Le soleil des tropiques
14. Un ami
15. Le dauphin triste
16. Chanteur de charme
    

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Tori Amos - Scarlet's Hidden Treasures

Genre(s) - Chamber pop, singer-songwriter
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - Eh, it's actually in M4A (old WMP-rip of my own), hope you don't mind.
Size - 32.12 MB

This EP came as a companion disc to the concert DVD Welcome to Sunny Florida so that's the picture I used. It features six songs, and going by the title I imagine they are the unreleased overspill of the beautiful Scarlet's Walk that preceded the live registration. It's easy to conclude it must be less accomplished material for it not to appear on the album but I wonder if you could keep that up after hearing just Ruby alone. Seaside and the long Apollo's Frock are also beautiful, and would have been strong contenders on the full-length. This is really just an extra for long-time fans and completists, people new to the glory of Tori would do well to walk Scarlet's Walk first (find it here).

1. Ruby through the looking-glass
2. Seaside
3. Bug a martini
4. Apollo's frock
5. Tombigbee
6. Indian summer
   

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Powerwolf - Lupus Dei

Genre(s) - Power metal
Origin - Germany/Romania
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 192-320 kbps
Size - 68.88 MB

Powerwolf are a German band with a singer (and opera student) straight from the craggy mountains of Transylvania. Consequentially, instead of fantasy battles and the like, the band's lyrics are centered around vampires, werewolves, the devil and other creatures of the night. There is also a strange obsession with the Catholic church. Musically this is just perfect: crunchy guitars, great classic riffs backed by a church organ. It is suitingly bombastic stuff, but not too fast or needlessly filled with all kinds of symphonic arrangements. The all-important choruses are captivating and will keep popping up into your mind all through the rest of the day. The great and remarkable voice of Attila Dorn makes this highly uplifting release complete. Last year's album Bible of the Beast made it to my top-20 for 2009.

1. Intro (lupus demonae)
2. We take it from the living
3. Prayer in the dark
4. Saturday Satan
5. In blood we trust
6. Behind the leathermask
7. Vampires don't die
8. When the moon shines red
9. Mother Mary is a bird of pray
10. Tiger of Sabrod
11. Lupus dei
    

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Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows - Les Fleurs du Mal

Genre(s) - Neomedieval darkwave
Origin - Germany
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 67.96 MB

I wish to love Sopor Aeternus with all my heart, since Anna-Varney Cantodea is simply one of the most fascinating people in music today. However, Les Fleurs du Mal is actually the first SA&tEoS album that I could stand. It probably is the most playful release Cantodea and her ensemble have ever produced, musically and especially lyrically. Shave if You Love Me, Some Men and A Little Bar of Soap are even quite humourous. It is as if our heroine has never felt as comfortable being herself, before. The music is still based on medieval-ish instruments, keyboards, and percussion but the addition of a full-fledged choir ("sing it, boys!") lets itself be quite well noticed. I don't believe I've ever called an album sexy before, but it's just the only word that summarises Les Fleurs. Highly recommendable to everybody, not just darkwave fans.

1. Architecture
2. Always within the hour
3. In der Palästra
4. A little bar of soap
5. Bitter sweet
6. Our lady of the broken hearts
7. La mort d'Arthur
8. The simple joys of maidenhood
9. Helvetia sexualis
10. Les fleurs du mal
11. Shave, if you love me
12. Some men are like chocolate
13. The virgin queen
    

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The Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station

Genre(s) - Psychedelic rock
Origin - San Francisco, California
Year of release - 1977
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 31.89 MB

I'm a big fan of the Dead's expansive hallucinogenic jamscapes of the sixties, as well as their sudden turn to folk music in 1970. The material that followed American Beauty never caught much of my attention except for this one; Terrapin Station. It's a very organic rock album that is still nothing like what they did in their first five or so years. There's a psychedelic edge but it is not as consciously pushed, rather a pleasant side effect. It's very relaxing music. The album's raison d'être is of course to showcase the heavenly title track, a decent 16 minute course through all kinds of different moods. Plaintive verses, smooth and chilled-out, then a cautious preparation for the finale, and through a blistering drum solo (that will not bore even you) to the climax that sounds like the sky is breaking and a coked-up angel's chorus descends down to earth to herald the second coming of our estimated prophet.

1. Estimated prophet
2. Dancing in the streets
3. Passenger
4. Samson and Delilah
5. Sunrise
6. Terrapin Station, pt. 1
   

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Nehëmah - Requiem Tenebrae

Genre(s) - Black metal
Origin - France
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 49.92 MB

In the last decade, France has come to be known as a hotbed for black metal innovation, but Nehëmah must have missed that memo. The veteran band isn't one to change its style over the course a mere 12 years, and this reminds me very strongly of Darkthrone's Under A Funeral Moon. True, some more subtle synths have slipped into the music, making Requiem Tenebrae the most lucid of the band's albums. You won't have to worry that this might make the sound more melodic, it doesn't. What it does, is provide added grimness at the most effective of moments, such as the sick finale to Consciousness in Evil or the lingering miasma of Taken Away. Through the Dark Nebula is a furious closer regularly punctuated by single floor tom beats like cannonblasts, a very effective way of making the whole track sound even more hostile. For all their staunch traditionalism, Nehëmah know how to make old-school black metal engaging again.

1. Creeping chaos
2. The great old ones
3. Dead but dreaming in the eternal icy wastes
4. The elder gods awakening
5. In the mist of Orion's sword
6. Taken away by the torn blackshroud
7. Consciousness in evil
8. Through the dark nebula
   

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Absu - Tara

Genre(s) - Black/thrash metal
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 2001
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 69.12 MB

Celtic-Sumerian occult blackened thrash metal, from Texas of all places. Quite unique stuff, with a very dry, trebly production that highlights the insane drumming of Sir Proscriptor McGovern and not much more. It really does not lend a good atmosphere to the music and that is a pity, because when it comes to songwriting, Absu are a fairly sophisticated bunch (much more so than what the genre blackened thrash would probably convey) and the individual tracks are strong and bound to linger in the mind for a while. Tracks like A Shield with an Iron Face and "She Cries the-eh Qui-yet Lay-hay-hake!" could be called positively catchy, while the Stone of Destiny shows a more epic side. The new album has a better production and atmosphere but I liked the songs less, maybe I need to get used to it some more though.

1. Tara
2. Pillars of mercy
3. A shield with an iron face
4. Mannanán
5. The cognate house of courtly witches lies west of county Meath
6. She cries the quiet lake
7. Yrp Lluyddawc
8. From ancient times (starry skies burn to ash)
9. Four crossed wands (spell 181)
10. Vorago (spell 182)
11. Bron (of the waves)
12. Stone of destiny for Magh Slecht and Ard Righ
13. Tara (recapitulation)
    

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Maximum the Hormone - Buiikikaesu!!

not the official cover; it was just too ugly

Genre(s) - Rare poep ouwe
Origin - Japan
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 128
Size - 44.70 MB

Okay. For some unimaginable reason someone decided to inject three Japanese menchildren and a womanchild with speed and monkey genes, take away their dictionaries, and lock them up in a room with musical instruments. The session was of course recorded and the result is Buiikikaesu!!. The music is insanely hectic and hectically insane, alternating between impossibly bouncy, happy-go-lucky stuff that will make your face go like ^___________^ and more aggressive parts with harsh vocals at a staggering speed. The lyrics would have been bilingual if the English parts weren't simply references to random everyday objects ("Bikini sport the monkey spanner ponchin!"). I generally hate music as angular and chaotic as this but this is just unforgivably catchy. And my brother asked me to up this. So there you go, sorry that it took about a year!

1. Buikkikaesu!!
2. Zetsubo Billy
3. Kuso breakin no breakin lilly
4. Louisiana Bob
5. Policeman Benz
6. Black power G men spy
7. Akagi
8. Kyokatsu
9. Bikini. Sports. Ponchin.
10. What's up, people?!
11. Chu chu lovely muni muni mura mura purin purin boron nururu rero rero
12. Shimi
13. Koi no mega lover
14. Bonus track
    

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Skyclad - No Daylights Nor Heeltaps

Genre(s) - Folk metal
Origin - Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North North England
Year of release - 2002
Bitrate - 160 kbps

When it comes to folk metal, if Skyclad didn't write the book then at least they were its editors-in-chief. They were far ahead of most of their peers and in my humble opinion still one of the very few to ever do it right. They're a very likeable bunch too. The music is miraculously uplifting, and sublimely Anglosaxon, building from a NWOBHM-platform instead of the standard melodic death/black metal one, and adorning it with fiddle melodies audibly native to British soil. And of course they are rooted in that wonderful British class consciousness; their lyrics are left-wing without a doubt, but drenched not so much in politics as in a very astute and thoroughly sarcastic analysis of the world around us. Oh, and since precisely this release, Skyclad even have a good singer! So for No Daylights they retooled a few of their best tracks to suit his clear melodic voice and there you have an album and a half of great, really quite harmless metal that will pick up your mood and have you looking hard if you want to find any flaws at all. In fact, would it be sad if a bastard album like this (Martin's lyrics, Kevin's voice) was the band's best material to date? Because it seems a lot like it is.

Disk 1 - Load it down (42.70 MB)

1. Penny dreadful
2. Inequality street
3. Spinning Jenny
4. The cry of the land
5. Another fine mess
6. Sins of emission
7. The widdershins jig
8. History lessens
9. Land of the rising slum
10. Single phial

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1. No deposit, no return
2. A great blow for a day job
3. No strings attached
4. Building a ruin
5. Loco-commotion
   

Rammstein - Mutter

Genre(s) - Industrial rock/metal, Neue Deutsche Härte
Origin - Germany
Year of release - 2001
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 61.59 MB

Since everybody should already know Rammstein and this album will probably be taken down in no time, I won't bother with a long introduction. Maybe not the best comparison, but just as with the Korn album I've held on to this after all these years out of pure, sweet nostalgia. If you like rock music that should be reason enough to check this if you haven't before. Some great songs, that's for sure.

1. Mein Herz brennt
2. Links, 2, 3, 4
3. Sonne
4. Ich will
5. Feuer frei
6. Mutter
7. Spieluhr
8. Zwitter
9. Rein raus
10. Adios
11. Nebel
    

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