When do music journalists grow a brain?

When Hell freezes over. Most of these culture critics and " music journalists" rarely show any quality. Mostly they just defile paper editions and net 'zines with pseudo intellectual ideas, wishful-thinkings and pure garbage of opinions. They have no insight in music (or they choose not to reveal it, which is unreasonable) and they don't contribute to anything in the discursive agenda of musical development, except drawing gullible people into self-exploiting bands with shitty images, which is stupefying the individual.

If you come from Stockholm and play death metal, does that automatically make you sound like Entombed? No. If you come from Norrköping and play black metal, does that automatically make you sound like Marduk? No. If you come from Gothenburg and play melodic death metal, does that automatically make you sound like At The Gates? No. When do journalists grow a brain and realize that many times there is nothing in common between two bands, except their localisation. I wonder how many times hardcore bands from Umeå were compared with Refused, how punk bands from Piteå were compared with Randy, and how many times an experimental rock band from LA were compared with Tool or System Of A Down. It seems very likely that as soon as there's a new scene growing and there's some artists gaining reputation in that scene, the "music journalists" stick to these names and use them as reference out of sheer laziness, stupidity, or both.

The only music mag' worthy of reading in Scandinavia was Slayer Mag, which contributed to a small scene, and fanzines during the 1990s. Nowadays you only have Sweden Rock Magazine, who still have these fat douche bags who interviews and listens to Dokken, Def Leppard and Stratovarious (for fucks sake, can't they just die of bad pyrotech'), and Close-Up, which, to a smaller degree, exhibits the same kind of people (the idiots who listens to prog metal but tries to review something entirely different, or the shallow listeners who always sings the high-praise of their favourites, without a glimpse of self-awareness or broader perspective of the work). These have something tangible to interesting reading, but it's mostly the same questions, the unmoving goals of interviews and the superficial idea behind the business as a whole.

When has crust gigs ever been good?

I've probably heard over thirty crust albums now and about fifteen crust bands live, and none of them resembled anything like a real band.

On stage, everything seemed like a fucking joke. No serious performance, no band coordination, no craftsmanship whatsoever. In short: nothing even remotely close to professionalism in music. They all suck big hairy balls, music wise, mentally and aesthetically. They're attitude is brain-dead, they're instrumental handling is even worse than a twelve year old (some couldn't even tune their guitars properly). I smelled clams all over the fucking place, not to mention the stench of rotten people. It is a rare thing to meet so many zombies and clueless morons at the same time and at the same place. Imagining diving into a big cesspool of vermin, and there you have a crust festival.

On albums, most of them resembles older hardcorepunk bands from the 1980s and 1990s, but with less craftsmanship than the originals (the old hacks-and-copycats story). Not all of them are utterly pointless though - some even have the personal conviction and seriousness in the music that makes you regard them as a decent or really good band (for example Driller Killer, Doom and Wolfbrigade).

But without those few shining representatives, this scene is useless. The motives of the bands are scattered by their confused, childish and hack performance. Why on earth do you want to play and act like a fucking idiot piece of shit, when you can invest time and effort in creating a musical imprint that is truly personal and demands brains and patience? This looser attitude, this I-want-to-look-and-behave-like-a-fucking-hobo act, is really beyond my comprehension.

Opeth goes retro

Basically Opeth's new album, Heritage, is a retro album. Mix together the influences of 20 or 30 prog-rock bands from the 1970s, like King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Rush, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Van Der Graaf Generator and a couple of dozen other bands in the same vein, and there you have the Heritage result.

I don't find it bad, nor really interesting. This is a retro album. It's both produced and feels like a mimic of the old progressive/experimental rock sound of the 1970s. If I want prog-rock, with moog, hammond and mellotron, then I can pick up the classics. They're always better than the retro bands out there today.

A big surprise was that Martin Axenrot could play convincingly enough in a prog-rock atmosphere. It doesn't sound like a stiff metal drummer is behind the cymbal front, but someone who has the inspiration and groove for this kind of genre. Especially the aesthetics of jazz and fusion beats slips through the rhythms in a convincing manner. I've found myself respecting Axenrot far more for this contribution than anything else he's done before.

I don't mind change of direction, but I find it sad that they just copy the old ideas of production, arrangements and musicality of Mikael Åkerfeldts old favourites. If I had the chance to play in, let's say Änglagård or Anekdoten, I would try my best to influence the sound to move away from the expected sound of the bands that everyone in this kind of genre listens to. It's one thing to be influenced and adapting a genre in a broader point of view, music wise. But to simply throw away the sound that made your band unique and go back to the roots of your musical upbringing and just copy that musical entity feels a bit too "easy" for my taste. Still, I respect Opeth for changing up, just not their direction.

Bill Hicks had the right idea, he was just too early

So, amidst the darkness and despair of human devolution I've fully embraced Bill Hicks.
- Man, you're like 20 years behind the rest of us.
I know, and that bugs me, but for those who wait for something good... Some artists, musicians, politicians, philosophers and those in-between the seats of contemporary idiocy with labelling work, have over the years touched some part of me, projecting different understandings of the world we live in and how our actions affects us all. The sceptic in me, however, often hinders my fascination of ideas alien to me, and lets it sink in over a long incubation period. So, it's a rare thing when an individual comes out and wins me over, instantly.

I've tried to maintain a somewhat positive view on humanity, or at least acknowledge that I was ambivalent towards human society. But over the years, when you encounter the douche bags, the idiots and feeble minded turds, who believe they can behave like kings, treat others like slaves, and who always craves the centre of attention, that's when you start to wonder how this kind of human garbage can pollute the media, the production circles and the different platforms for performance, where honest people have to endure the sight of their donkey-headed faces. How can we change the world to something better, when we allow these idiots to ruin it with their short-sighted minds on exposure and personal gain?

I imagine a world without them, without their superficial personalities, their useless "ideas" and their masculine insecurity, and I find myself in the deepest respect of Bill Hicks' sincerity and willpower to address the commercial world in Western society that lobbies for human mediocrity, human shallowness and how he makes no discrimination when he challenges an asshole in the audience.

Now, for some reasons, some feminists have found Hicks' approach to simple-minded idiots to be sexist and abusive. This is bizarre, if not plain stupid. Have they even understood the broader view Hicks introduced during his sets? Or that Hicks' had a calm and loose approach on sex? Not everything is about your fucking body, you self-centered attention idiots.

Thalamus' Mr Avenson reviewed

What first pops to mind when listening to Thalamus' Mr Avenson is change. Change of time, structure and beat. In short, change of expectations. It keeps your ear twitched, your mind set on awareness. This album you have to really listen to. It's not something you can play on the background while doing your morning sit-ups.

I had the good luck of seeing these guys down in Mönchengladbach almost three years ago, and they were smoking hot at that time. Especially the drummer, Roland Kozubek, performed very well. He's versatile, hard-hitting and into the music on-stage. When it comes to Metal bands, a lot of drummers look like robots, not feeling the music, not letting loose, and the biggest failure is that they hit like pussies. Even on a small stage technicians have to mike their whole kits because they can't play hard enough for that small room. It's pathetic and it destroys the sound. Not Mr Kozubek, no sir. He's fucking hammering on that poor kit on this album.

Imagine you're aboard a commercial vessel going west towards N.Y. and you have to share bunks with Dead Soul Tribe, Mastodon and Tool. Occasionally some passengers stroll by and mistake your bunk as their own, like a well-dressed version of Nirvana and some easterners, resembling Indukti. Even a discreet Metalcore fan shows up and presents himself before he walks away. Other than that, it's just you and your room-mates, which doesn't make much noise but let you do all the talking.

This pretty much surmises my experience of the album: It has a lot of obvious influences, as with truckloads of other bands. Fortunately for Thalamus, they manage an unique way, between the trodden paths of the above mentioned artists. It's rock, progressive in its texture and structure. Sure, they're dabbling with Metal - and punk-influences, but ultimately it's rock they master.

The acoustical production has brought out the dynamics of the drums pretty good. You can clearly hear the nuances and the small chops going on there. Occasionally you can hear that it's fairly processed through compressor and equalizer. Minor tweaks, so to speak, but that doesn't alter the overall experience of this most vital part of a progressive rock ensemble.
The guitars have a somewhat dry, middle frequency based rock sound, which works fine, both into the Metal parts and the softer passages in the songs.
It's like Justin Chamberlain rears its head when I think of the bass sound, not that that's bad thing. And what encapsulates the performance is the vocals. Dave Müller's voice moves from being melodic, smooth and fragile to be harsh and raw, which is what I like about this album, since the whole band sounds way more aggressive than I remember them to be on stage. To be honest, I'm always more keen on brutal music, be it fast, middle, or slow.

This is a progressive music album, hence I am not surprised at the changes of time, beats and arrangement that's typical for progression. My mind keeps measuring the odd beats, doing everything the trained ear is supposed to hear, a 6/4 equals an 8/4 with triplets as the original 8th notes, or how a 13/8 straightens out to a regular 4/4. But what made me listen to it again and again is the groove they manage to create. It's not a stiff showdown with music school kids trying to play their asses off, or twirl around in complicated beats written on a computer. This has soul.
Sometimes they take a bite at the darker levels of music, like the song Oleander, and I come to think off Alice In Chains. But mostly they tend to rely on force, groove and melodic patterns belonging to the West rather than the East, if you catch my drift.

But let's get to the down-side of things: There's many things I hate in this world, Metalcore being one of them. So, one of the things that keeps bugging me on Mr Avenson is some of the Metalcore influenced choruses. Not only because they smell Metalcore, but because they don't have the same vibe as with the rest of the material. They divert too much from the initial feeling of the song. Thalamus never do this kind of musical abortion as blatantly as Slayer did on Reign In Blood or Megadeth on Peace Sells..., they're beyond that pubertal mess-up on arrangements. But the core of the song is sometimes lost, misplaced, and that's what I'm missing. Given that these misplacements is only a small fraction of whole songs, it's a forgiveable mistake though.

Another thing I hate, or should I say strongly dislike, is smooth music. Be it soft, calm or whatnot crappy Indie bands try to play. Now, at first glance, I could've been annoyed by Thalamus' smooth parts of the songs, but they're so well directed and applied in the context that it doesn't bother me. They have a essential slot to fill in the arrangement, and they make the songs complete. Without them there's something missing.

That's basically it, these reflections that comes to mind after a couple of times listening to Mr Avenson.

Hypochondriasis and self diagnosis

As my Summers' spare time start to shrink down to a week before work comes back with a light tap on my shoulder come next Monday morning, I've started to reflect upon issues that some people around me, and non-relatives have. It is with a mixed feeling of both amusement and sadness I think upon the problems of hypochondria and the need to diagnose one's own health.

I have people close to me that clearly have health anxieties, to various degrees. Usually they're just over-zealous when it comes to staying healthy, plus some of them aren't in their twenties anymore and can take a keg of beer and expect to feel like a king the day after, if you catch my drift. But besides the somewhat normal jitters, heebie jeebies or whatever people call it nowadays - with regular complaints of them having a hoarse voice yet again or showing signs of a cold or something as mundane - they basically live their lives without having to structure everything around health checks or becoming neurotic fruitcakes.

What can be more problematic is the loneliness of your own mind. In your own fantasy you can be a king, an emperor of the world, a villain or just a schmuck with an incredible luck of jumping danger at every turn. This is the egoistic, narcissistic part of yourself that usually rears its ugly head only in the shadows, stay away from the light of society. And if you want to, you can keep it company long enough to develop some really fucked up version of reality, including your own. Cabin fever can do this to you, if you stay in-doors long enough, devoid of other people.

On the other hand, loneliness, in different forms, might work the other way around. It is easy to assume that, given that you have an empathic individual that desperately searches for human companionship, be it sexual, relational or strictly platonic, this person can as easily develop some strange sensation of make-believe connection to other people, or moreover ones own mental health. That would be a deceiving way of dealing with ones own feelings. Robinson Crusoe comes to mind, when you think about it, for who can truly say that fictional literature can't tap the fabrics of truth and wisdom? Also, it is one thing to know the truth, and it's another thing to know what to do with it.

When it comes to psychological issues, the human brain is a complex piece of machinery. You can't simply relocate a wire and hope that'll fix it. The pathology of mental illness can be messed up in more than one way, for example trying to diagnose yourself, without the input of a professional. A soul sickness, as the Good Book calls it, is an imbalance of the four fluids, or so they thought, back in the day. Nowadays it's commonly referred to the social and medical factors of childhood development, genetical inheritance and the general environment of society the subject lives in. A self-diagnose can create many misconceptions, build a wall of disinformation and lead the troubled mind into narrow paths of dubious treatment, or worse, into harms way. One example I noticed a couple of months ago, was this confused person. It was well over six months since I read her blog, but these last days I remembered her when I started to think about hypochondria and peoples need to self-diagnose. I feel sorry for her frustration and urge to certify the symptoms of her problems, mainly because she might not even have a clue what the real cause of her problems are, only that she's not feeling well and don't know what to do about it. In the Swedish rehabilitation system, there's an informal term for people with multiple diagnosis as "double-diagnosis", meaning someone with both drug - and mental problems. An easy example is a drug addict with a depression. Question here is, what came first, the depression or the drugs? Laymen can debate this amongst themselves for countless hours and still don't get any smarter, except that one got a gut feeling about how things are supposed to be done, which doesn't help anyone practically. Therapy, be it cognitive or conversational, can at least narrow down all the bullshit that can cluster up in a monkey-ridden head. To minimize the damage, so to speak, and hopefully change the path of mental progression.

Umeå Kulturnatta with Death Maze, Spazmosity

Umeå's Kulturnatta has been, from the start, about quantity and variety: have a truck load of bands and artists on stages around the center of Umeå and make it happen all at once.

Unfortunately, there's a big downside to that. The extended opportunities the audience is exposed to is also a limitation. A city-wide performance with a broad selection of artists is a Leviathan on more than two legs, and it barely manages to take one step at a time. The artists, more or less, have to rely on themselves in order to be properly marketed for the shows, and the uneasy fluctuation in the audience at each scene leaves a sour taste. Since all performance is for free, and a lot of times outdoors, it will create a flow of people, moving from one gig to another. But when each scene is not balanced between the artists then the flow becomes asymmetrical. Like when I saw Spazmosity, right after Death Maze. There were like ten people in the crowd, compromising mostly of drunken white trash.

Death Maze performed average. They were decently tight as a group, they had some energy expressed on stage and they were pretty professional in their overall appearance. The major annoyance, or should we say amusement? was the male guitarists constant grimacing. He couldn't keep his yap shut even if his life depended on it. In a funny way, he resembles Chris Barnes when he looks like a screaming monkey. And what was that toy he had instead of a guitar?
Given the circumstances, the rest did an OK job. The female guitarist and bassplayer looked really stiff though. It was as if they didn't know how to relax and enjoy themselves. The drummer had the same approach (or lack of) as many other metal drummers: a big fluctuation in attack, nuance and speed when playing straight forward beats. One could imagine the level of frustration behind the mixing console. But, if they're given the right amount of time and devotion they could develop to become something really awesome.

Something that has had plenty of time and devotion and still hasn't gotten anywhere is Spazmosity. Before I decided to stay and listen to them I've heard some people saying that they sucked hairy balls, bigtime. But when the criticism comes from persons who usually has an act for hating things intensely, I ignored the rumours. Sadly, I lost almost an hour of my life due to that error of judgement. I want that hour back, please. The band itself has commented in an interview that they sound like Naglfar, but they're not tight and they're pretty bad. That really sums up their performance yesterday.
First off: I don't care much for the Naglfar style. It's boring and has been done much better in the past.
Second: Wearing Pinhead alike outfit is not cool. Trust me, it's not.
Third: Like all other metal bands, you need a really good drummer, or at least a decent one who know how to mask his weak performance. It's not like a bassplayer, who can make it easy for himself and stick to the chord tunes and avoid anything "radical" in the metal way of thinking. But when the drum sound is in your face, it's hard to ignore the clumsy fills, the stumbling bass drums and the predictable tempo changes when someone is too tired behind the cymbals.
For the first time I've seen a really bad Swedish black metal band. Usually they're boring, if nothing else, but this was something else for sure.

Stupidity nailed to the floor

Sometimes the jokes about the stupidity about drummers are true.

Imagine that you in nine times out of ten never get the kind of instrumental rig you want on the stage. Very often you loose the relaxed approach, which should be there naturally. While playing you constantly go through the upcoming bars and the future arrangements in the songs, even though you’ve rehearsed and played them live tons of times. At the same time you also have to watch over the drum kit itself, just to make sure nothing has broken or is out of place due to bad stands or something else you can't control.

This is a typical situation for a live drummer. You didn’t want the crappy stands or the crappy instrumental rigs but you adapt to it, and try to make the best out of it. Any rational and flexible musician realise that. There’s always a limit to how much you’re willing to compromise on the precious rig of your drum kit or what you’re willing to help others with. But you can’t expect to be treated like a prince if you treat people like shit. That’s simple logic.

And of course you’re not a particularly flexible musician if you refuse to move any of your stands before your own show, not even when it’s just one stand that’s easily moved. Given the fact that the stage is very small, and there’s two other bands playing at the gig besides yours, the most practical solution is obvious. All you have to do is to move your fat ass a couple of feet and use those muscles you try to flex in front of a camera. Oh, didn’t I mention that it’s not so smart to also nail the stands of the drum kit to the stage floor, so it’s impossible to move anything?

The grade of stupidity and arrogance is striking, but hey, what can you expect from a fat, bald metal dude with a bad spider tattoo on his sweaty forehead.

Surkukens kommentarer om Nile

Efter att ha lyssnat på Black Seeds Of Vengeance (2000), In Their Darkened Shrines (2002), Annihiliation of The Wicked (2005), Ithyphallic (2007) och Those Whom The Gods Detest (2009) så kan jag konstatera att Nile är överskattade, givet då att man tar med både Close-Up, Sweden Rocks och enskilda personers lovprisningar av dem under 2000-talet.

Det främsta hindret för att kunna uppskatta Nile är deras urusla produktioner. Jag har ingen som helst förståelse för hur recensenter kan undgå att notera detta. Efter att ha jämfört med att lyssna separat på dessa plattor med hörlurar och sedan stereohögtalare är uppfattningen klar: De har sjabblat bort gitarrljudet och mixningen helt, något som jag finner oförklarligt, med tanke på deras långa repertoar och erfarenhet. Detta ska tydligen vara musiker som vet hur man får en stabil och lyssningsbar mangelplatta, men istället för att leverera får man en produkt som på sin höjd får simulera popcornsknaster eller handelsvapen i en film.

Gitarrerna är nedstämda, muddiga, instängda och diskantrika så det förslår, vilket naturligtvis leder till att man knappt hör vad dem spelar, för 75 % av allt Nile gör är konstant mangel, och då gräver gitarrerna sina egna gravar. Förutom själva gitarrernas ljudbild är det också deras val av stämföring och ackordbyggande som ligger till grund för det extremt grötiga ljudet. När dem spelar så snabbt, så intensivt och flerstämmigt så är det en fördel att vara sparsam med X antal toner per stränginstrument, SÄRSKILT när dem har ett sådant kasst gitarrljud. Istället väljer dem att fläska på på gitarrstämmorna, vilket på vissa låtpartier, när dem kan ha uppemot fyra (!) gitarrstämmor samtidigt, blir knappt hörbart. För ett tränat öra kan man höra nyanserna, färgningarna i ackorden, och då efter en gedigen lyssning, men för Svenne Banan blir detta en ljudmassa som väller över en som den vidriga stanken av surströmming under en hemsk sommarfest. Men kanske det inte spelar någon roll för gemene lyssnare? Kanske de är lyckligt ovetande om detta, och glatt nickar i takt till Lashed To The Slave Stick och Kafir!, fullt ut nöjda med att höra de smattrande trummorna...

... vilket leder till trummornas positionering i mixen: De dominerar ljudbilden, förutom då det är midtempo eller långsammare partier i låtarna, vilket händer sällan. Är det inte mangel/grind så är det bråttomdelar på kaggarna och en högt stämd virvel som upptar lejonparten av ljudbilden på de tre senaste albumen ... man hör i alla fall exakt vad George Kollias spelar på virveln, hihaten och kaggarna, bra! om du vill studera uthållighet i death metal. De tidigare albumen hade en ännu mer grötigare ljudbild, även för trummornas del (!), så där spelade det mindre roll om någon åt upp för stor del av mixen, det gick som på ett ut, då gitarristerna också spelade ganska slarvigt under sina eskapader i komplicerat gitarrspel. För att kunna uppskatta dessa äldre alster blir man tvungen att försöka insupa helheten av musiken som ett odefinierbart utrop av aggression och mörker. Detta passar mig bättre, då själva effekten av okontrollerat kaos blir mer tilltalande, mer som grind/käng, än när Nile, som enligt recensenter ska vara sådana supermusiker (?!), försöker spela "korrekt" och ha en "perfekt ljudbild", vilket dem helt enkelt inte har. Det låter skit på flera sätt, och det finns ingen ursäkt, särskilt när Karl Sanders betygar att dem jobbat hårt på att få en bra slutproduktion på till ex. Those Whom The Gods Detest.

Därefter gäller det de hyllade introduktionerna, som tydligen ska efterskapa genuina egyptiska teman, vilket jag finner irrelevant i helheten. Det är upplevelsen jag är ute efter - aggressionen, frustrationen och mörkret som finns i varje människa, och flyter runt i våran värld med eller utan vår vetskap - och för det ändamålet måste jag som lyssnare uppdatera mina örons erfarenhet emellanåt. Jag kan inte nöja mig med att smälla på Morbid Angels Domination (1995), Cannibal Corpses Gallery Of Suicide (1998) eller Deicides Legion (1992) och vara fullt ut nöjd med att ingenting annat existerar inom samma genre årtionden efter att albumen släppts. Visst, Niles introduktioner fyller helt klart en funktion, men vad händer så fort de slutat? Självklart bunkrar Nile upp för en exercis i långdistansmangel, vilket förtar ett intro enormt. Varför ens ha ett intro om man ändå bara ska grinda på som vanligt? En vän påstår ideligen att början och slutet på en låt är A och O för lyssnarens helhetsupplevelse av musiken, och på ett sätt kan jag hålla med där. På konserter kommer man sällan ihåg mittenpartier eller knasiga sångmelodier som kommer helt oväntat, när musiken har en stark inledning och slut på stycket. Men det är ÖVERGÅNGEN från inledningen/introduktionen över till nästa parti som blir avgörande för hur pass väl man utvecklat sin helhetsuppfattning om ackompanjemang och stämföring. De flesta death metalband som finns/funnits ute på scenerna reagerar nästan alltid likadant på vad som ska komma efter ett intro: sinnesslött mangel! Det är som Slayers Reign In Blood (1986) all over again. Reign In Blood är en bra platta, men många gånger irriteras jag av deras slappa hantering av låtarnas inledningar - de bygger aldrig vidare på den initiala känslan av introt, utan går mekaniskt över till snabb tvåtakt, vilket är fantasilöst. De hade kunnat göra så mycket mer med ett intro än enbart ha det som ett "nu-ska-vi-ha-ett-koolt-skräckfilmsinspirerat-intro" och sen kasta bort den inneboende kraften och dynamiken som introt kan ha och vad den kan betyda för resten av en låt.

Några ljuspunkter finns det ändå i Niles repertoar: Ovannämnda Lashed To The Slave Stick, Kafir!, titelspåret Those Whom The Gods Detest och Even The Gods Must Die är riktigt bra stycken från de tre senaste albumen. Jag förvånades faktiskt av att Those Whom The Gods Detest och Even The Gods Must Die fakiskt byggde vidare på låtarnas inledande känsla och utvecklade styckerna utifrån det. Väldigt sällsynt för att vara ett death metalband!

Men jag har svårt att förbise den kollektiva dövhet som måste hemsöka svenska metalrecensenter när det gäller Niles produktioner. Inte heller förstår jag varför samma recensenter påstår att Nile är nyskapande. På vilket sätt då? Deras användning av ideliga Mellanösternteman, sporadiskt olycksbådande och mullrande doomflörtar, eller intensivt, komplicerat mangel är inget genuint inom death metal. Hur många gånger har man inte hört ett dussinband radda upp frygiska eller harmoniska skalor med dominanten i basen i riff efter riff och höra hur folk förundras över deras val av tonmönster? Och tittar man på hur de hanterar basens ansvar i stämföringen så är det ingenting annat vad alla andra metalband nästan alltid brukar göra: sätta basisten på det enformiga jobbet med att fylla ut riffen med att spela bastonerna i riffen. Folk är i regel lika obildade och döva som guldfisken i sin lilla glasvärld.

När en recension saknar värde

När blir en albumrecension värdelös? När den inte ger en rättvis skildring av musiken, inte lyfter fram recensentens utgångspunkt och har ingen konstruktiv kritik att tillföra.

Exempel på en sån recension är Mikael Mjörnbergs bedömning av Andromedas II = I. Läser man texten rakt av så får man en väldigt skev bild av vad musiken handlar om, och tänker man efter så speglar själva framförandet mer dennes musiksmak.

Mina tidigaste musikminnen är när brorsan någon gång under hemska 80-talet spisade Kill Em All, Ride The Lightning och Master Of Puppets. Därefter inköptes en respektabel mängd vinyler och CD:s med akter från alla metalscener, med fokus på death och black, och i tredje hand, trash, punk och grind. Heavy metal var aldrig riktigt min grej. På sin höjd kan jag sträcka mig till att erkänna Iron Maidens storhet, men längre än så går jag nog inte. Jag har aldrig fastnat för power metal, pudel, glam eller AOR-band. Dokken, Poison, Great White, Warrant, Winger, Vixen är bland det värsta jag tänkas utsätta mina öron för. Manowar har sina stunder, men i regel tycker jag det är musik för neandertalare, framfört av neandertalare. En höjdpunkt var nog när Mayhem lirade på Fryshuset 2002, At The Gates spelning på Ungdomens Hus 1994, och Entombeds spelning på samma ställe 1993.

Efter allt vältrande i extrem metal växer man ur sig fascinationen och börjar utforska andra musikstilar, som 70-tals hårdrock/rock, doom, hardcore, experimentell/progressiv rock, jazz, fusion, funk, Motown och i slutändan progressiv metal. Band som Dream Theater, Symphony X, Pain Of Salvation och Trent Gardners olika projekt har nog varit limmet som bundit fast mig till denna sistnämnda genre, för annars har jag ratat det mesta som kommit min väg, som Shadow Gallery, Pagans Mind och Arjen Lucassens flertaliga band.

Märk väl: Vi pratar om progressiv metal, och ingenting annat. När Mjörnberg menar att "Andromeda spelar en extremt proggig variant av pudelmetal någonstans i gränslandet mellan de två genres som brukar kallas power och heavy" så är det alltså en form av pudelmetal? Vad är det?
När han sen i nästa meningar anser att det är för mycket solon så avslöjar han sin okunnighet: "Skalorna haglar åt alla håll och det handlar inte om futtiga solon, utan snarare hela låtar som byggs på onani." Han har alltså inte lyssnat igenom plattan.
När han slutligen försöker sammanfatta sin recension med att Andromeda "söker uppskattning mer på grund av sin tekniska skicklighet än för musiken" förstör han än mer för sig. Att det är tekniskt är en självklarhet, det är en väsentlig del av vad som definierar progressiv metal! Tyvärr, kan jag tillägga, för progressiv för mig borde mena någonting som hela tiden utvecklas, någonting som har en experimentell ådra. Men... progressiv metal har idag utvecklats till att sammanfatta metal som inkorporerar flera olika musikstilar, arbetar mycket med speltekniker, jobbar med långa arrangemang och har sina rötter i heavy metal, power metal och symfonisk rock.

Jag kan tycka att II = I är alltför lågmäld och långrandig mot slutet av plattan. Jag är ute efter energi och oväntade vändningar i progressiv metal, så One In My Head och This Fragile Surface är rena sömnpillret för mig. Och ibland kan jag tycka att David Frembergs sång är alltför len i sammanhanget. Jag hade föredragit lite mera svärta på vissa ställen, som Parasite. Men då är jag också av den meningen att råhet och tyngd är nästan alltid bättre än smöriga balladpartier. Annars tycker jag att Thomas Lejons truminsats är exemplarisk. Jag har nog aldrig hört en metaltrummis spela så innovativt. Det sprutar uppfinningsrikedom från den karlen.

Slutsats: Lyssnar man inte på genren är man fel person att recensera en Andromedaplatta.
Ska man göra en recension bör man lyfta fram någonting som rättvist beskriver själva musikens innehåll. Har man inte den kunskapen eller en tillräcklig god vokabulär bör man undvika att kritisera något som man inte förstår sig på och, framförallt, inte gillar.
Har man inte lyssnat igenom plattan ska man poängtera det klart och tydligt, för att inte missleda läsaren, såsom Mjörnberg uppenbarligen gör. Är man för lat för att orka sig igenom materialet har man förverkat sin rätt att fälla summariska omdömen.
Med andra ord, är man inte insatt i genren och har knappt lyssnat på plattan, men ger sig fan på att såga den ändå, håll då mun.

När en dialog blir en monolog

Vad man kan fastslå på rak arm, efter att ha dragits ofrivilligt in i en diskussion med passion och bias som alarmerande förtecken, är att det är omöjligt att bearbeta eller ens undvika diskussionen ifråga utan att få en verbal knogmacka på sig. Givet då att man invänder mot motpartens mest basiska påstående, vilket presenteras nedan.

Frågan om Jerusalems framtid togs fram, fråga mig inte hur, någon gång under kvällen för en annars fryntlig tillställning. En person började ställa mig mot väggen vad jag skulle göra om jag hade det politiska rodret i Israel, och som vanligt sa jag att en rättvis tudelning av staden och full access för alla samfund och rörelser till de religiösa monumenten är det logiska valet. Allting utifrån min förståelse av dilemmat och vad kompromissernas föränderliga regler påstås innehålla eller icke innehålla. Som motsvar får jag frågan:

1. Är du israel?
2. Är du jude?
3. Har du varit i Israel?

Eftersom jag svarade nej på samtliga fick jag, efter en dos av sludder och irrande blick, klart för mig att jag skulle enbart hålla käft och istället lyssna på denne mästare av Sanningen och Lösningen. Summa summarum: Vilket idiot till människa. Jag tror hon är en lovande kandidat till 10-toppen av de största arslen jag stött på i min lilla existens. En riktig bubblare med andra ord.

Det är sällan man stöter på en sådan grad av arrogans, nedlåtande ton och ignorans att man först blir helt ställd av personens resonemangsförmåga och kommunicerande möjligheter, att man i slutändan lämnar platsen och undrar: vad hände egentligen, missade jag någonting eller var det bara ännu en i raden av helt irrelevanta diskussioner i världen?
Ett tillägg: en diskussion brukar oftast innefatta en dialog, och i det här fallet var det mer som att jag skulle lyssna, och den andra skulle bemästra omgivning, inräknat mig såklart. Jag tror jag hittar en motsvarande grad av bekräftelsebehov i mina tonår, när en jämnårig gjorde vad som helst för bli coola killen men bemöttes mer med förakt.