Okay, does anyone feel like helping out a Rath? I need music recommendations, because I think I have just noticed an odd quirk in my musical tastes, and I want to see if there is a real pattern here or just an illusory one...

The thing is, W. was kind enough to give me the first Eisbrecher album (and the second one, but I haven't listened to that one as much yet) and I've been devouring it enthusiastically. My favourite tracks are, without question, Willkommen im Nichts and Fanatica. Schwarze Witwe is hanging around third place, tieing for now with Herz Steht Still (which is gorgeous but being left aside for now cos it doesn't fit the topic under discussion).

Now, what's interesting about these three tracks? All of them are quite heavy, quite crunchy, solidly rhythmical, but they have - either in the backing vocals (Schwarze Witwe), the main vocals (Willkommen im Nichts), or both (Fanatica), a bizarrely conspicuous pop influence. The prechorus of Willkommen im Nichts has a brilliant looping, dipping pattern that really does sound like a pop chorus in a horrible, black, spiky, grinning disguise, and the English chorus of Fanatica probably wouldn't sound out of place on a chart single if it weren't backed by distorted synths and being powered from underneath by a vocalist who sounds like he's snarling through a static generator.

Which got me thinking, now, what other bands and songs do I like that feel like this? And the list is interestingly long. Lordi - are a melodic hard rock band with a harsh lead vocal, using a lot of pop and rock lyrical concepts with a dark twist. Devilish Presley - feel like the Fifties like the Fifties never were, twisted sideways by Johnny and Jacqui's sneering snarls and skewed lyrical concepts. Marilyn Manson covering Sweet Dreams. Children of Bodom covering Bed of Nails. Carpathian Forest covering the Cure. Power metal versions of ABBA songs. W.A.S.P. ballads. The list goes on. And as far as I can nail down, the mystic link between them all is the combination of pop/rock melody structures and/or mirrorverse-style twists on mainstream musical ideas, with vocals that are theoretically too harsh for but nevertheless follow the conventions of the melodic structure.

So. Dear flist, do any of you have any songs that sound like they fit this description (any genre from metal to electronica to goth to whatever, guitars not obligatory!) that you think I should hear? Caveat: I still tend to strongly dislike filks, "novelty" covers or pisstakes, some of which would fall into the description above. Some degree of straight face and musical integrity has to be involved, so the band in question has to be doing this style because it's what they want to sound like, rather than because they're looking at the audience going "are we funny yet?" But that aside, I'm sure there must be more Stuff That Sounds Like This, so if anyone has any, please wave it at me? Thank you!

In other news, a) I am going against the trend and actually kind of gutted at what happened to Jeff Hardy at Extreme Rules (and I really hope his shoulder and finger heal up quick, best wishes Jeff!), b) I think I have a cold, and c) I need more sleep. >_< How are you guys?

Laters,
Rath

Hello everybody...

First, I'd like to just direct anyone who doesn't read my Livejournal ((lj)faithinfire) over there briefly to this post featuring a photo of my NEW TATTOO! ^____^ Mostly I posted this as a thank you to everyone who's donated to the Rath Tattoo Fund over the last couple of years - so if that's you, please go and see!

Meanwhile, in other news, I am having terminally bad luck with matters musical today. A moment of silence, please, for a fallen trooper - the half-dead ghettoblaster in our kitchen saw fit to irretrievably chew up my old cassette copy of the Last Action Hero soundtrack. :( It's not that I can't replace it, but that tape was one of my old tapes, from when I was a teenager; one of the ones I picked up for cheap in one of the tiny, dusty old record stores in Bradford that I haunted on Friday afternoons when I'd sneaked out of school. Those tapes, the ones I bought with stashed dinner money back before I was even old enough to go to gigs on my own, are practically like horcruxes or something - there's a piece of my soul in every one, and to have one of them die such a sorry death is more gutting than it has any right to be. "Farewell my friend, you will be missed!" :(

And in the meantime, I also just discovered I've lost my copy of The Rasmus's Dead Letters, which is really annoying because I've had the gorgeous "F-F-F-Falling" stuck in my head for a day and a half now and really want to play it again on something other than YouTube. Did I lend that CD to anyone, by any chance? *peers forlornly into the abyss*

Laters,
Rath

I have this horrible feeling I'm losing my memory. This is not fucking funny. Why do I keep losing the names of things? Stupid stuff, usually names of places (like Indigo's cafe the other day - that scared me) or albums or whatever. Not facts or concepts so much (though my ability to remember verbatim quotes is apparently also going) or things like "where did I leave my keys?" but... names. And forgetting names is scary.

Though apparently if I take two tries at it I can still list all the Eighteen Legions and Primarchs thereof, which made me feel fractionally better when I tried it as a mental test earlier. I can still get all the Traitor Legions on a single pass, perhaps unsurprisingly - it was the Loyalists who took me two attempts, and the ones I couldn't think of were the White Scars (who fall slightly under "who?" anyway) and the Ultramarines (D'OH!!!!)

Speaking of the Traitor Legions and also of things I can't remember properly, I wish I could recall more details of the dream I had last night that had a couple of the Thousand Sons and the Emperor's Children wandering around it. I do recall being pinned in a vicious armlock by something with tentacles that was sneering mockingly in my ear, and looking up to see tarnished blue and bronze filling my vision as this huge figure turned to focus its attention on me... brr. I should probably have been a lot more frightened but I was too busy being blown away by finding myself in the presence of an honest-to-gods Chaos Marine to even think of being scared, because, well, dude.

There were also zombies (which started out as just heads - apparently they grew bodies when they were raised) and some very bizarre plot involving someone trying to conquer the world and Unicronians turned human and looking completely lame, but the stuff with the two Traitors is the bit that's mentally stuck. For which I'm quite grateful as it was clearly the best bit.

So, yeah. Anyone know of any good ways to improve your memory? (Apart, of course, from going back to playing Kim's Game.)

Laters,
The Navigator

If you saw me in a police car, what would you assume I'd been nicked for?

Laters,
The Navigator

argh argh gig tonight so much shit that could go wrong want to crawl under a bucket argh...

I feel really quite ill today. The muscles in my jaw and forehead are aching and I feel like I'm dragging my brain along by the scruff of its frontal lobe. Thankfully I can go home in about half an hour.

...also, I swear I'm going to EAT my colleague for that awful eight-bit-style classical piece she's got as her cellphone ring. I did not need that right now. *whines and clutches head* Everything seems to be so nuts at the moment. I just want to go outside and curl up on a bit of abandoned blacktop somewhere and sleep in the sun for about a week. At least my sis deepbluesquee is back on Monday, I've missed her. :/

In other news, does anyone not have, and want, a copy of Lordi's The Arockalypse? I... might just have kinda sorta cracked and bought the special edition yesterday, so my old copy is now free to a good home. >.>

Argh. Ow. Brain. Sod this, I'm leaving work early. *splat*

Laters,
The Navigator