The Emptiness of thoughts

I listen to Colin Stetson's "From no part of me could I summon a voice" and understand the anguish and frustration pouring out of the tunes. All is nothing, and existence is re-evaluated in every breath. Al Jourgensen was definitely right: The mind is a terrible thing to taste. The emptiness of thoughts is the symptom of our reality. We isolate ourselves psychically, yet we are interdepedent and interactive on a shallow and blatant level to an extent it only serves as an indulgence for the Ego, but has no productive purpose or altruistic worth. There's no real collective, only on slogans and campaigns. The individual and its untouchable freedom is the main concern of the politics, even the sacred will towards loneliness and the mental wilderness in perception and definition that follows in its wake. Survival is generic and boring.

Eradication of Kreml

I feel bad for the Russian people. They have been fucked over and over by their government leaders in all known history. The Russians have never experienced real justice, real freedom or real including and constitutional democracy. Yet they are clinging to emotional crutches like history and patriotism, which always' been edited by the leaders of Kreml. And even if there's a nanosecond of opportunity for Russia to be an open, tolerant and including country in cooperation with the rest of the world, it is always hindered by paranoia campaigns by the isolationists in Kreml. And now:

Once more "the lecherous bear" seeks to take over another state by any means necessary. This has been the role of Russian leaders in all modern history: They're The Bully, plain and simple. Lenin, Stalin, Chrusjtjov, Breznej and now Putin. Jeltsin was never in a position to become the same kind of bully like all the others - there simply was too many chiefs present at that time, and Jeltsin was too dependent on many different business men to run it all on his own. So here we are again, The Bully can have its day in the sunshine, and no one will stop them from getting what they want by force and coercion.

The assumption here is that the never-ending misery of Russia must be explained in terms of its history, its connection to the global world, and its present democratic movements.
Historically speaking, there has been a lot of democratic movements, but all of them have shifted towards avantgarde elitists (like the Bolsheviks/Soviets) or have been crushed by the these avantgardes (what happened to the Mensheviks, the autonomous anarcists and syndicalists movements, the liberals and conservatives democrats). So the only one left standing are the Bolshevik elites, who force-fed the common people their own version of reality, history and democracy. And since the Russians have been used to autocratic rule for so long (like the Tsars) it wasn't much of a big leap to quietly accept the totalitarian Bolsheviks. In overall, it was a pretty stable system, but like any other dictatorship, it had so many flaws it was bound for self-destruct, especially if certain key figures lost control of power and communication or simply died without suitable heirs.

Russia's connection to the outside world has, ever since Lenin, been that of a reserved Bully, ready to raise the fist at any possible sign of political or economical resistance. And this is mainly due to the governments of Russia, and not the common people or their associations in various societal sectors. These leaders, and the backing of the key military figures are the main reason Russia has been on edge with the outside world for so many decades. Stalin always judged foreign leaders out of his own personal traits, so did Lenin, and all leaders after them both. They have all lacked the ability to think outside their box, for empathy alien to their own political culture. And like any other political extremism, the reason why they are so clueless to this is that they've embraced a notion of Elitism (i.e. the common people are too stupid and weak to make public choices of new rule) and isolated revolution, which brought all the paranoia and nationalism. All the dissidents who have been outspoken about Russias development have been silenced, with Trotskij been the first of many to come.

The democratic movements in Russia had some early progress and chance to build institutions among the common people after the collapse of Soviet and during Jeltsin's mandate. Unfortunately, they have met strong resistance from the leaders in Kreml. Over these last fifteen years, mass-demonstrations have always been met with police brutality, mass-arrests and even assassinations of peaceful opposition. And the man behind the curtain is as strong as ever. Putin and his entourage are the main concern for the democratic justice, tolerance and freedom of Russia, and the sooner the common people realise this the better.

So, what would alter the course of Russian history in modern times? If we simply remove Putin and all of his support out of the equation, what happens then? Surely there would be a power vacuum and a struggle for power among all the idiotic nationalist movements, but also peaceful and open-minded movements would have the opportunity to have their say among square meetings and other public areas. The ability to affect and inform the citizens increases rapidly for these movements once the police state is out of order.

And if Putin and his gang are the main problem in Russia, how can the people remove him? In older history, during coups, there have been documentations of whole families wiped out, down to the last child, to avoid any possibility for opposition to regain strength. Clearly, this is not an option. It would mean mass murder on an enormous scale, and you would be no better than the current leaders of Russia. It's also en extremely insecure way to remove one problem. Not only would it be a taxing and complex operation to wipe out all of these persons, Putin and his family, all of his political and military support and all of their relatives. It would also be very unsure whether or not everyone is captured and killed, down to the smallest cubs.
It would be a hideous act and just replace one brutal rule with a new one, since the new rule already would have their taste for blood. One can only hope the future opposition understands the crucial lesson: That violent revolutions always turns into shit. Look at all the other revolutions who went bloody, they've really gone backwards in so many ways it's a joke to call it a civilized and progressive country.

If not wiping out Putin and all of his support and so forth, what would political and economical sanctions do to the Kreml leadership? Only strengthening their leadership. They can with-hold public information about the foreign intentions and their speeches, shut down websites about this, and claim to the public that the rest of the world is The Bully, not them. They're just answering the call for help by their friend in the south.
What about peaceful, tolerant and democratic movements - what are their mobility and flexibility these days? Last time we heard of them they held a mass protest against the assassination of a journalist and persecution of an oligarch, who happened to be a liberal politician as well, but nothing changed the Kreml rule. They remained intact. And since then they have gained support for their intervention in Georgia, their handling of the terrorist actions in Russian schools and the so-called "seizure of funds" from "corrupt leaders", while really all they are doing is putting that money into their own pockets and make sure no one else can have capital to raise popular support for oppositional election.

Moderaternas förakt för arbetare och arbetslösa

Än en gång slås jag av hur duktiga Moderaterna är på att prata om vad de vill göra med samhället och sedan se hur de gör någonting helt annat. De är oerhört skickliga på att föra fram vidlyftigt tal om det förflutna Sverige, där de ondskefulla sossarna styrde med järnhand och kvävde individualisterna, som bara ville främja VALFRIHET (för Högern är detta ett helgonliknande objekt) och utåt sett framstå som liberala i de flesta samhällsfrågor (men egentligen var och är konservativa i det mesta, förutom anställningsvillkor och skattesystem; där experimenterar dem för fullt).

Reinfeldt talar om möjligheten att medborgare jobbar till 75 års ålder. Skulle han själv kunna göra det? Vilken effekt tror han att ett sådant här uttalande har på en undersköterska, som har en årsinkomst motsvarande en bråkdel av Reinfeldts årsinkomst? Han kan göra sina tio-tolv år i Riksdagen och sen verka i det fördolda som konsult på deltid för resten av sitt arbetsliv och ändå leva gott på en lön dubbelt så hög som 20 000-befolkningen.

Anders Borg talar om behovet av att ha flexibel arbetskraft i Sverige, dvs. geografiskt rörliga arbetare. Skulle han själv vara villig att lämna sina släktingar och alla vänner till förmån för en helt okänd ort hundra mil bort, med återkommande transportproblem (eller nekad ledighet) som försvårar återförening med bekanta? Tror han att Jobbet, som ett egenvärde, är det främsta som motiverar människor att existera?

Både Borg och Reinfeldt har också talat om att visstidsanställningar, deltidsanställningar, bemanningsanställningar och delade turer m.m. är en inkörsport för många unga som behöver komma in i arbetslivet. Tänker de någonsin på kvaliteten i dessa jobb? Vilken effekt tror de att sådana här jobb har på den anställde? Skulle de vilja testa att ta ett sådant här jobb i några år för att själva uppleva det? Har de någonsin själva haft ett sådant jobb?

Ulf Kristersson hävdar i en DN-artikel, daterad 22 augusti 2013, att Sverige har haft en god löneutveckling, som gör att ”…nästan alla svenskar fått det ekonomiskt bättre under de senaste åren”. Hur går detta ihop med Moderaternas eviga syn på löneutveckling, dvs. att så länge löneutveckling inte rubbar INFLATIONEN så är de nöjda? Märk väl här att inflationen, liksom TILLVÄXTEN och valfrihet, är heliga kor. Statistiken för dessa Totempålar måste följa en viss utveckling, annars är allt förlorat – främst för Stockholmare med tyskt efternamn.

Kristersson sträcker ut händerna i en pantomim och vädjar om ödmjukhet från oss alla:

”Långsiktig och seriös fördel­ningspolitik måste därför handla om hur en växande ekonomi ska komma alla till del...[]… Frågan borde därför vara hur en framgångsrik svensk fördelningspolitik egentligen ser ut i det moderna kunskapssamhället. Men den debatten har knappt ens börjat.”

Här ser jag en uppenbarlig minnesförlust, eller ren lögn. Hade inte Moderaterna bestämt hur Sverige borde se ut i framtiden redan under glada 90-talets nedskärningar? Bildt, Hamilton och övriga aristokrater ville ha det på ett visst sätt, Reinfeldt var inte långt därefter.

Reinfeldts Det Sovande Folket är en Otto von Bismarckversion av Mein Kampf, en ytterst cynisk och pessimistisk samhällssyn, där arbetare har blivit lata och dumma får. De borde egentligen stå med mössan i handen och vara tacksamma för att de ens har jobb. Bismarck hade säkert lagt till att arbetare (läs: medborgare – en arbetslös är inte mycket värt i denne preussares värld) ska vet hut, iaktta självdisciplin och visa vördnad för auktoriteter.

Borg var en förvirrad anarkoliberal som inte hade sina makroekonomiska kalkyler och diagram indoktrinerade ännu men var på god väg. Och vart var Kristersson vid den här tiden? Förmodligen en lokal socialarbetare, som skapat en cynisk människosyn och var frustrerad på de återkommande missanpassades eviga problem.

Nuförtiden har de alla slipat till språket. Man pratar inte om de huvudsakliga orsakerna bakom fattigdom, utsatthet, panikångest, depression och missbruk i samband med ovanstående. Nej, nuförtiden pratar man om Utanförskap och vad det tydligen ska vara. Det är en form av Nyspråk, där Moderaterna och deras lobbyister kan sälja in en idé och själva välja innebörden i ordet för dem som vill köpa den. Och genom dessa slipade lobbyister och marknadsförare så får allting en prislapp nuförtiden. Vad är lycka? Uppenbarligen pengar och karriär för Moderaterna. Vill man inte studera 5-6 år för ett högavlönat specialiserat jobb så är man mindre värd som människa. Det säger deras politik och praxis av det i anställningsvillkor, arbetstvister och brottsmål. Hur behandlade Maria Borelius sin städare? Det är inte relevant, tydligen, utan ”… vi vänder blad och går vidare…”, citat av kungen – som mottar en skyhög lön i förhållande tills hans utbildningsgrad, kompetens och ansvarsområde (han fungerar också som en informell diplomat förutom sina marionettjobb).

Kristersson fortsätter:

”Hur ska förskolan och skolan ge alla barn de kunskaper som krävs för det moderna arbetslivet? []…”… Här finns frön till en ny svensk välfärdsdiskussion bortom ytlig partiretorik.”

Men grundskolans kunskapssystem fokuserar mest på betygen sedan flera år tillbaks! Hur kan Moderaterna och högerregeringen vara oskyldiga till en sådan utveckling? Mer betyg, mer omdömen tvingar barnen att vid speciella perioder om året bara tänka på betygen, men aldrig tänka på vad de egentligen lär sig. Betyg för betygens skull. Högerregimen är bra på att prata om vikten av politisk dialog när de själva har skapat problemet. Jag borde göra samma sak på mitt jobb. Men jag skulle förmodligen få sparken då. I det här avseendet beter sig Moderaterna och Reinfeldtregimen precis som sossarna gjorde under sina regeringar.

Kristersson avslutar storartat:

”Det finns en fin värdegrund bakom den svenska välfärdsmodellen. Den måste bara återupptäckas då och då, och pragmatiskt anpassas till det samhälle vi nu lever i. Då duger varken nostalgi eller återställare.”

Men den Välfärdsmodell som vi kände igen är ju nedmonterad och borta, det är Moderaterna och högerregimen skyldiga till! Ökningen av privata sjukhus, skolor, olika vårdinrättningar, infrastruktur (lokal transport), bemanningsföretag och delade turer är ett direkt resultat av högerregeringens ekonomiska experiment. Det här är Liberalernas tidsålder, då De får ha sin sandlåda för en gångs skull (tidigare, när de inte hade makten, var de väldigt duktiga på att klaga på hur kommunister lekte med sina planekonomier utomlands). För varje gång högern tillåter till exempel riskkapitalister att ta ut en fjärdedel eller femtedel i vinst från något som Vi alla tidigare betalade och fick en stabil servicegaranti så tillåter de att pengaflödet ökar med osäkra anställningar, osäker public service och osäker skolgång. Men det vill de inte prata om, utan de vill poängtera vikten av Valfrihet (så extremt mycket viktigare än rättvis tillgång till vård, grundskola och utbildning?), och att det är viktigt att ha en politisk dialog om detta. Det är världens sämsta svar någonsin. Det är inte ens ett svar, det är ett helt eget språk, ett Nyspråk. Vi kan uppenbarligen inte längre kommunicera på samma sätt som förr, utan måste tillgripa nya verktyg för att få fram en mening.

The concept of Self

The more experience, years and continuation one endures, the more complex the Self becomes. I have no problem acknowledging the boundaries of visual perception. Question is whether it's the Real I'm experiencing, or if it's an imagination. Indiscipline by King Crimson depicts the relentless confusion that's always there. Sometime it's entertaining at a distance, sometimes horribly superficial.
All is Matter and how we perceive Matter is subjectively processed through layers of nerves, synapses and braincells in such mass that the quantitative knowledge would drive you insane. Understanding the Matter is impossible to be universalised; it's only Real to the Self. Same logic should apply to the paradox of human interaction: How can you be sure you're not the only living creature in this universe (which is a mental storage for Space, detached from the Self)? In essence, how can you be sure that this isn't an illusion? But if your Self is the only Real, how would that explain your interpretations of the Real? Doesn't the social environment and development give some clues? Could it all be explained as to a prolonged start-run for the Self to rid itself of the notion of a Collective? But then, how did it all begin? This is a mindfuck, if you stop to think about it. Humans are gifted with the most terrible thing in all of evolution: Self-awareness.

Marcus Aurelius said: "...nothing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which is presented to thee in life, and always to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is...", and in an earlier passage: "Thou must now at last perceive of what universe thou art a part, and of what administrator of the universe thy existence is an efflux". In essence, Aurelius was a true stoic, constantly promoting notions of duty, loyalty, truth and honour. But his universal objectivity is something I'm having a hard time coping with. This kind of positivism is eating away the very heart of exploration, bot inwards and outwards. One could argue that there's many different aspects of the Real, that it all depends on the spatial dimension and how its subjects creates interaction and interdependence with it. If the majority of the people embraced suicide as the only viable option to end life then the "anti-suicidists" would be considered crazy. And that's making the assumption that there's more than one conscious operating at the same time. Outside of it, this all becomes an imaginary picture of small figures, frozen in a sandbox of a god.

East and West

When reviewing Brev till Prinsen av Mogadonien a book critic at the Swedish public television made some remarks about the Western culture and the Eastern culture(s). According to her, We the westerners don't consider the cultural exchange we could get from reading Eastern authors and artists. We the westerners stubbornly stick to our own culture of art and literature. This book critic also claims that Arabic people are more interested in western literature and culture than westerners are about theirs. I wonder if she has ever actually met an Arabic person in her whole life.

I've lived with people from all over the world for many years - Buddhists, Christians, Hindu, Jews, Muslims, Sikh, some indigenous shamanistic religions and so forth. When communicating with people from all these different places it's a reasonable and courteous thing to really listen to them each separately, to give them their space and time of expression and to respect them for who they are and not what you think they are. Assumptions like "that one is an Israeli Jew, I guess he's a crazy Zionist" is not really helping anyone in international socialising. Another thing you might consider is not to talk about yourself constantly. It doesn't get you anywhere, it can be rude and it's really egoistic and self-centred.

One thing I have noticed is that all the monotheistic people love to talk about their own culture. If you mention anything that aren't related to their own culture they listen to you for about 3 minutes, then try to switch back to the subject at hand, their supreme and overwhelmingly flawless culture. I had to listen to a neighbour go on and on about his Zimbabwe and Mugabe, which was grossly misunderstood by foreigners and beloved by his own people, of course. He also pointed out, with brows raised, that the Zimbabwe people are good Christians. Okay, good to know...
Another time I asked a neighbour how things were in Tunis (before the Tunisian Revolution, tension was rising in the country) and over an hour he raged about what a great country Tunis was and what a proud Muslim past it had, and what a prick Ben Ali was. I only asked him out of concern for his family - I didn't want a fucking propaganda speech.
Another time I was asked if I remembered my Old Testament, which I didn't (and don't). That rendered me a long speech on how fulfilling, essential and strong the message of God is, if you read it in Hebrew. Imagine if I give jackshit about the fucking Bible-thumpers nowadays. He also talked long and hard about what a special place Israel is and how history seems to (?) circulate around it.

At the same time, every time I've asked these neighbours, strangers, exchange-students if they know anything about Swedish culture, about Swedish musicians, about any kind of Western authors no one knew shit. Conclusion: They were all self-centred, egoistic and isolated idiots from monotheistic backgrounds. And I couldn't care less what happens to them.

They don't care about my culture, I don't care about theirs. Fine by me.

So, miss latte-sipping book critic, don't pretend that people from example the Middle East, South-east Asia or East Africa really know anything about Sweden, about Swedish authors and artists, because they don't. And they don't want to know anything. Their way of speaking to you makes it really obvious.
These Abraham-followers from Middle East, North Africa asf. only care about their own culture, their own religion and their own society. I don't have any problems with status quo - at least they're honest about their indifference towards us.

The puzzle of DSBM

The suffering artist, the boxed self-mutilator and, contradictory, the emulator of depression has found its way to many listeners over these last ten-fifteen years through a scene of degenerate hipsters who add influences accordingly to their free-for-all experimental soup. The notion that it's a scene consisting of former black metal artists is questionable, to say the least. Rather it's a mash-up of persons and constellations of eclectic backgrounds, which form this web of unholy matrimony in music. The quality of this music ranges from pure hacks to highly developed artistry, and the quantity of the scene is, or has, swelled considerably since its dawn.

But what concerns me is one of the core in the lyrical contents in DSBM. Thematically it's nothing new, the old influences from blues comes first to mind, also there's many others beyond that musical era. But the mere quest to express deepest depression, to somehow find its core and thrive on it in its most negative ways perplexes me. If you're really that down, so fucking bored with life, how come you have any will left to create songs and record them? Real suicidal depression is a terrible power. It can swallow you whole and cut all bonds you might have to this world before you even come to realize it's an emotional dead-end, eating away at you. I've seen people vanish completely from the face of the earth, to later appear on the news, washed up on the banks under a bridge or hanging from their own ceiling lights. Before their disappearance they hadn't the strength to do anything, not even get up out of bed and make food to survive. The only viable option to rid themselves of their plight was to end their life. That's real suicidal depression. To try and emulate this mental black hole is to ridicule those people that actually didn't make it, who didn't manage to escape it. They were in dire need of assistance and we failed to help them in their most crucial hour.

If it was just a matter of trying to trigger that emotional feeling without any thematically strings attached I wouldn't have any problems with it. Many bands have done so in the past without any plump motives like DSBM bands. Or if you're out to gain energy from negativity, like Abandon (RIP) did, then it's also another thing - trying to create positivity, to progress something productive out of a benighted state isn't an easy thing but a honourable task for any worthy artist and in which case I salute those efforts.

Prometheus sucks bigtime

Some years ago I heard about the planned prequel to Alien (1979) and I thought it would be awesome if Ridley Scott would direct it and allow his idea of the Space Jockey to bear fruit on a cinema. Sadly this would not be the case. He tossed that idea (with the usual pushing from commercial production retards) and set forth to direct a spin-off, namely Prometheus, which would tangent some elements of the Alien universe but not have the Alien creature actually in the movie. The synopsis is pretty lazy and are common ideas from older sci-fi, that humanity has been created from alien intervention, and evidence of that thesis is found in ancient dig-sites on separate places on Earth, showing a starmap to a distant planet. Scientist is sent to this far-away location in space to discover if these aliens were the ones responsible for creating humanity, and if so, ask them what the purpose of human existence is.

The end result? Pretty bad.

The movie had a budget of 120 millions USD. From that money stack you’d at least expect some well-thought and well-analysed script, character development, environment process and universal brainstorming to be made. But no, that’s not the case. With the amount of time the film crew has spent on this, plus the big budget, the following mistakes, flaws, sloppy handwork and overall amateur-like storytelling is beyond my comprehension.

The characters are, in 9 out of 10, quite stereotypical and shallow. Everything is served on the Hollywood smorgasbord, from the geeky scientist with glasses (Millburn), the bad boy with a Mohawk haircut and tribal tattoos (Fifield), the black captain working as a comic-relief (Janek), the strict businesswoman who plots for corporate power (Wickers), the pretty boy scientist (Holloway), and the weak, emotional female (Shaw).

When entering the planet atmosphere, the crew immediately finds what they seek for - alien structures, resembling buildings. No orbital scanning or similar necessity in order to pinpoint the location needed?

When entering the alien structure, the crew scans the atmosphere on the grounds, concludes that it’s breathable air, and takes off their helmets, Did they ever stop to think about airborne viruses or bacteria?

Millburn has to pat an alien creature, because it’s sooo cute. Imagine if that was a mistake. Once again the fuzzy scientist, who relies in raw data and Darwinism, dies first. Reprise of an older movie scene, perhaps? Also, with Shaw, being the single “survivor” AND a true believer of higher purpose (God, anyone?), this moves towards the notion that the faithful will earn success while the disbelievers will fall. More Christian infiltration in the media?

At least one of the crew has to freak out at a minor accident (Fifield), when they are all supposed to be experienced and has a professional payroll from a multi-billionaire company. Sounds feasible, no? I don’t think NASA would hire these amateurs.

Fifield, who is supposed to be a geologist and is mapping the alien structure, has no clue where his instruments are leading him when they are stranded in the alien structure because of bad weather. At the same time, no one monitors their situation from the space ship. Sounds like a bunch of professionals?

Shaw gets impregnated with alien DNA. The schizoid android David therefore restrains Shaw and has set his mind to freeze Shaw into stasis to analyze her, but she lures him that a sedative is working on her, so David leaves her alone. Shaw then breaks free and gets the alien DNA inside of her, which is a squid-like creature, surgically removed herself, staples her stomach wound and runs away from the operation table. No one follows her. She unexpectedly meets up with the old Weyland, who funded the scientific space trip and secretly tagged along, along with his personal watch and David. No one comments on her wounds or trials. Is this some kind of joke on inconsistencies, plot holes or just bad script writing? Anyone? I’m still baffled on how illogical and extremely irrational everything gets from this point on, at the same time keeping in mind that this is fiction and not reality. But come on, some coherencies would be nice.  

When you see a space ship comes crashing down, falling towards a specific location, you would do well to try and move away from that location. In Prometheus you obviously don’t. Wickers get (assumingly) crushed when she tries to run a straight line, the same line the shadow of the falling ship is casting on the ground.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Many other important flaws have been pointed out on IMDB, but if I would point them all out it would be a novel in the end. It’s that bad.

The movie is over 2 hours, yet it fails to focus on the story itself. Once again Lindelof is set loose to fuck up a generally decent idea of story and go Frank Zappa on everything, too much mad-hat ideas that I barely understand how the fuck Ridley Scott would hire someone like Lindelof, let alone allow himself to divulge in these kind of confused, schizophrenia behaviour in the story. Dozens of ideas are created, but nothing is followed up. I know the script style of avoiding answering too many questions, to leave some scenes out to public speculation, but this is far beyond that. Not everything has to be explained, but to constantly create more questions than answers are just the poor work of an amateur. 

This movie had more style than substance. A poor balance of production, and once again proves that a big budget doesn’t mean shit if you have hacks that are allowed to run amok with the script.

So, there’s too much idiotic behaviour from an already flawed script. Shame on you, Lindelof, you are truly overrated! Refrain from doing any more scripts ever and stick to production only! Do not direct either, who knows what you would let slip pass the radar!

2/5 in review. It's not as bad as Avatar or Alien vs Predator at least, but not far from it.

The Christian infiltration of extreme metal

Don't get me wrong. The tag line might be problematic in its formulation, and I recognize its implications.

Christianity has never been a big supporter of folk music, jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, and later on hard rock. But the shapers of these genres were often raised from Christian societies, and some of the cultural baggage were transferred into the music.

When extreme metal developed during the late 80's, it often adopted the stylistic approach of agitation, and many times lyrical ideas from Christian theology, such as the concept of Satan, Hell, demons, sin etcetera. Bands like Bathory, Mayhem, Morbid Angel, Slayer and Venom all used these kind of visual and lyrical concepts for provocation and resentment of modern society and also to explore the individual stand points.

For Black metal bands the anti-Christian themes were explicitly devoted to in a lyrical sense and in the imagery of the artists. It raised the religious question in extreme metal and took a stand against the Christian religion and its dominance over the morals and society.
It also showed great resentment against the latter development of Trash and Death metal, with the cleaner productions, more focus on technicality, commercialising the artists and the fading principals behind the Death metal, which was originally to be aggressive, with heavy sound, raw and antagonising. That was one of the key points as to why many Death metal bands started developing their musical ideas and lyrics into Black metal instead. The ones who merely jumped the band-wagon is not worth mentioning here.
Black metal has become a safe haven from Christian culture-infiltration. At the same time, without Christianity and the society it has created, Black metal would loose a lot of its reason to exist. The antagonism between these two cultures is at the center of Black Metal, just like Communism wouldn't exist without the historical serfdom of feudalism or the economic injustice of liberalism. So, one might say that this is an interdependent relation.
If Christian religion ceased to exist, or Black metal developed into something else, then their relation is altered. Black metal has always been about development, just like any extreme metal, and we've all ready seen some progress in this scene. But what will happen when the core of its existence is questioned?
Over the last fifteen years there's been several announcements of reborn Christians in other metal and hard rock scenes, artists which formerly didn't give a flying fuck about Christian norms, but now, all of a sudden, are father figures of high morals and family values. I mean, what the fuck? Where is it going to end?

In the 80's we had these hacks in Stryper and Mortification. But nowadays they're growing in bigger numbers.

As I Lie Dying, one of the most disgusting knuckle-dragging, tribal tattoo macho metal band ever to be seen, is Christian.

Norma Jean has infiltrated the hardcore scene with their religious filth.

In the pop punk scene Rise Against has established themselves a name. Well... the scene is worthless, even without the Christians it sucks donkey balls big time. Fucking fratboy crap.

In the post-hardcore scene you have talentless tools like Blindside, Callisto, trying to brainwash the hip teenagers.

In the Death metal scene you have The Devil Wears Prada. One of fucking worst band name ever to be conceived. To quote Thom Yorke: "When I am king, you will be first against the wall".

Creed, one of the most boring fucking attempts to be musically creative, is another of these powerless tools in the service of the Christian machine. The band started out just when the original grunge scene had faded, and copied some of that ideas into a Christian theme, at the same time doing videos appealing to teenage women.

Extol and King's X is another of these mediocre musicians with mediocre goals that infiltrate the progressive/experimental rock scene.

Nowadays it's widely accepted that Tom Araya is a Christian. So, obviously his journey of "officially debarking" from Christianity were no longer than the thin line of mere provocation (as with the rest of their "anti-Christian" themes).

Ralph Santolla claims he's a Catholic, and were allowed to play in Deicide for several years. What the fuck?

Dave Mustaine announced several years ago that he was a reborn Christian, and has since then become the biggest turd on the planet. His public appearance will do him no good however, and I seriously doubt his contribution to the Christian infiltration in metal scenes to be any productive. His views on ethnicity, the sexes and sexuality has summarised his diminishing intellect, so far.

And nowadays we have "Unblack metal" bands that explicitly incorporate Christian religion in the music. Bands like Antestor, Crimson Moonlight, Drottnar, Frost Like Ashes, Lengsel and Slechtvalk.

The question now is: Since Black metal was created as an alternative to Christianity, how will these new Christian bands affect the development of the BM scene? Will it be swallowed up in the culture of pure commercialism and mediocrity? Or have we all ready passed that bar?

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.

Moloken's European tour 2009 II

Part II of the tour diary, 22 October - 31 October:


Seventh day and fifth gig: 23 October, Kaktus Rockbar, Mönchengladbach, Germany

Germany certainly has some funny characteristics in urban planning (or lack of it). For example, in Mönchengladbach, a four star hotel placed alongside family flats with the red light district just fifty meters away on the same street.

Another example: something like twenty to thirty pubs and discothèques on a small cobblestone street no bigger than two hundred meters long. The only thing you could do on that street was, simply put it, drink and have fun. And people were packing the place during the entire nights up till sunrise.

Since we arrived at Mönchengladbach pretty late the 22 October we searched for a hostel, but had to settle with a hotel when nothing else was still open in the vicinity. This was supposed to be a four star hotel, and off-course some of us doubted that, but we loosened up as soon as we saw chocolate bars on the bed pillows and entered their sauna with the exquisite tastes from Belgian breweries. Yes sir, we sure lived like kings on this tour, and why shouldn’t we? We fucking kick ass and deserves only the best of the best. Period.

Another thing that struck us is that German clubs and discothèques are open until the owner wants to close it, unlike in Sweden where you have to close at 1 o’clock on a working day, and 2 or 3 o’clock for Fridays and Saturdays, given that the club have a special permit. In Mönchengladbach the places could close at 5 o’clock or even later than that, as long as the place had customers or the owner wanted it open. This proved to be a bit of a trial, especially when you’ve dedicated tons of energy on a gig, the sleeping quarters (which was inside the club) are covered in cigarette smoke, you’ve been active for over twenty hours and barely have anything in your stomach, besides some of the local liquid pleasures.

Besides this we had a wonderful time there, our gig was really good, the owner was a generous and cool character, the audience was very positive, plus that we got the chance to see a really cool band from Germany, Thalamus, and hang out some afterwards. Also we met this dubious guy, who insisted that a mere glance at you is a reason for a fight, which should require one knockdown and five stomps on their face, just to be sure they’re really downed. With this destructive principle he’d broken his both arms at least twice, and was a regular guest at the police station. As a peak of the moment he left us with the words “But I don’t wanna fight, and I have to leave you now, to pick up my younger brother, who always gets too drunk”. I wonder what kind of brother he is.


Eight day and sixth gig: 24 October, Poetic Doomsday II, FZN, Wilhelmshaven, Germany
The next day when we were about to leave the club through the backdoor we met this old fellow who looked like a mixture of a hippie and a hobo (maybe he was both) who insisted we should scram immediately, ‘cause we were trespassing his property. As we couldn’t understand where his property was or why we should run off when we hadn’t done anything wrong we looked stupefied back at him and mentioned the club owner’s name, which was met with silence.

According to the locals, Mönchengladbach had some huge soccer game that evening, which was why we wanted to leave the city before all the fan buses for the game would clout the roads and five thousands cops would litter the streets. Luckily we got out of the city before all this started getting messy.

At first we thought that the GPS might be wrong (again) or that we’d missed some road into Wilhelmshaven, ‘cause we got into this really small neighbourhood and everything looked so hi-we-live-on-the-countryside. We just didn’t know that this actually was a part of the town itself, since it was in the outskirts and all you could see was villas and big houses with lawns. The “venue” was some kind of recreational house for kids, and the “arranger” of the festival was some kind of school consultant in his mid thirties who just wanted the kids to have some fun.

Now, if you arrange a festival, make sure you have a sound technician that actually knows what he’s doing. If he doesn’t, or if he doesn’t care, do it yourself. Because a couple of minutes before it was our turn to play we’d putted our stuff on stage and powered the amplifiers on standby mode, but suddenly two of the amps lost their power. When we alerted this problem to the sound technician he just nodded and walked up to the amps and gave it a glance before he left the place (where the fuck was he going?). Right… The power for these two amps were directed to a portable power box, so we switched the power cables to another input in the box and turned the amps on standby once more. Like a minute before we were supposed to play the amps lost power once again, and we asked around for the sound moron, and this time we found him outside the place, sipping some drink and smoking with his chick, which seemed half of his age. We told him about the problem, and for the first time he actually did something, well at least he tried to do something, which was doing the very same thing we’d already done, which we explained to him, although I doubt he understood a word of it. In the end we started playing anyway – and wouldn’t you know – the amps died like three minutes in the first song. We restarted the song after the amps were on standby for some time, and then amps died again. Ha! This time Kristoffer saw the problem clear: the sound guy had directed a lot of the electricity (monitors, amps and speakers) through a single power circuit with the portable power box, and off-course that’s way too much for a single input to handle. After this funny discovery we managed to do the whole gig without any more incident and the kids loved us. I actually got to sign my first drum sticks, haha!

After our performance we longed to see Nailed To Obscurity, which we’d we hooked up with on Myspace, and some passages in their songs brought back memories of old Swedish death bands like Katatonia and Opeth but also the old British band Anathema. Sweet!

When it comes to drinking, Swedes have had a reputation for consuming alcohol in a gluttonous way, to the point where they even don’t remember their name and defile themselves all over the place. Now, we wouldn’t consider ourselves as one of these stereotypes, but if you put up a truckload of beer and drinks, the chances of falling down into a Neanderthal-mentality isn’t that far fetched. And this was indeed the risk when the guys in Nailed To Obscurity invited us to a local nightclub in Esens, not far from the place were one of NTO:s guitarists, Jan-Ole, had his parent’s house and their Bed and Breakfast (which is where we slept). On the outside it looked like a normal pub, except it was called Whiskey. Just the mere name gave us a warning clock, and the first thing I noticed when I entered the place was an older guy with two pints in each hand, exceedingly drunk, shouting hoarsely to some German pop tune with an equally old and drunk lady doing a jitterbug beside him. And since there was some kind of special price for the evening (buy anything and you’ll get two for the price of one), plates after plates with Jim Beam & Coke and beer kept coming. Amazingly no one got shit-faced, and we slept like babies.


Eight day: 25 October, Esens, Germany

Seeing the Atlantic Ocean, with its calm and silent waters beneath a dusky sky and herds of sheep’s sitting and shitting on the grassy hills besides the clam-covered shore, gives you a sense of surrealism. Like H.P. Lovecraft meets cheap entertainment, or maybe I’m just talking out of my ass.

Anyway, this was another day off, and we took our time exploring rural commodities, sightseeing and frowned at all the dubbed series and movies on German TV.


Ninth day and seventh gig: 26 October, Rote Flora, Hamburg, Germany

A few misconception of squats may be that A) there’s no organisation going on (as a non-party political statement), B) the place looks like it’s gonna fall apart at any time and C) there’s a strict approach to what kind of band may play there. Once again I found my prejudices burned like a slug in the sun. For starters, these people really were good at what they did, and they were serious about it. Not like tight-ass serious but rather confident albeit serious. Secondly, the place had fallen into decline, no question about it, but it wasn’t creepy. It hadn’t gone to the point where you’d avoid sleeping on a couch in risk of getting rat food. Third, the venue didn’t have the unitary looks and attitude you’d might expect. All kinds of bands played there, and nothing seemed taboo. Great place and great people.

The only depressing thing that day was when we drove into the Hamburg area and saw see these huge factory complexes, refineries and old concrete buildings with their facades covered with smog along the highway. Pretty dismal things, reminding me of an old trip I once did in Estonia and Russia.

Since a lot of people smoked pot at the venue (which was kind of irritating since none of us smoke anything), there was a thick haze covering the higher space of the scene. We all got high on passive smoking when we were supposed to play, fortunately without any incidents and everyone seemed to enjoy us highly, although some sat in the corner with their bumps and blood-red eyes. Later on we got to the arrangers apartment and listened to old death vinyls. All in all it was a good gig, excellent people working there, and a good experience.


Tenth day and eight gig: 27 October, Meisenfrei, Bremen, Germany

Another prejudice you might have is the German discipline, alongside the long tradition of civic respect for authorities and a sense of order. German discipline means you come six pm sharp and not a minute too late; you do exactly what the boss tells you to do, even if it seems utterly stupid or unnecessary complicated and so forth. You get the general idea. So far I haven’t seen a single one with real German discipline, except the sound technician at the Meisenfrei club. Everything had to be done his way, a very methodological and precise walkthrough of the sound with nothing left to coincidence. Besides that he really was an effective professional, although our low humour gratefully took advantage of his job mentality.

Another thing that you might expect is that when you’re playing in front of people sitting down at chairs, like a jazzy house band at a club venue, is that the performance’s supposed to be strictly formal and sterile, no improvisations allowed and between the songs there’s the compulsory dry hand-claps by people in tuxedos and Cabernet Sauvignon in their 20 Euro glasses. Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, again, but you get the picture. Again this was not the case. The crowd were cheering us as if we were a revelation of some sort. We had an excellent gig and afterwards we got the chance to see the infamous crab-pose, which everyone seemed to know about, except me. Now that I’ve seen it up-close, I admit it do resembles crabs crouching threatening with their short legs astride. Just before we left Bremen that night we were able to participate in a local ball game, which took us one beer each and a smashed apple to fully enjoy. We drove half of the night through Germany and Denmark back to Malmö, Sweden, before we crashed in a friend’s flat.


Eleventh day: 28 October, Malmö, Sweden

This was another day off, and we took upon ourselves the civic duty of investigating the local cuisine, such as Falafel. The vegetables were rough but the gooey sauce was intoxicating to the brink of madness. Sadly I forgot to glutton on the Lebanese baklava I found downtown last year. We also had to bid Mr John Palm farewell, since our deal was to have him start driving us from Malmö, on the way to Europe, and end when we came back to Malmö. The next day it felt as if we were missing someone in the bus.


Twelfth day and ninth gig: 29 October, Café Mic, Vänersborg, Sweden

When it comes to playing on a stage far from home, there are some things you generally take for granted. First, if you ask the local arranger if the crowd is sympathetic to outside bands, then he/she will most definitely say yes. Now, if you ask the bands playing there if the crowd will leave as soon as the local heroes walk off stage, then they will surely say yes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it’s safer to trust the local bands rather than the arrangers, something we didn’t considered this time.

Secondly, there are some things you also take for granted when interacting with other bands. Good manners are one. For some this isn’t so important, for example those who borrow several cymbals, hi-hats and pedals on a gig without a simple thank you, not even when you take their snare drum and tune it after being asked to do so five minutes before they go on stage. Ungrateful douchebag are just a few of the vocabulary alternatives I’d choose, but let’s leave it there.

Off course the PA had to die when the second band, Hope Over Fear (awesome band), got up on stage. But besides this annoying incidents, and the fact that the arranger hadn’t put up any posters about the gig (what did you expect?), we got a warm greeting from the crowd that were there, and the show went pretty well.


Thirteenth day and tenth gig: 30 October, Underjorden, Göteborg, Sweden

This was the day we’ve all been looking forward to. It seemed that many people would be going to the gig, and the feeling was that this would turn out to be a really great show, even better than Bremen or Hamburg. We had our deadline to reach the venue, Underjorden, and we barely made it in time (although there wasn’t like a fire to put out, but hey).

If there something really annoying when it comes to big cities, then it’s those that lack urban planning. I bet if you look at the road system in Göteborg from a satellite photo you’d think it was a huge fucking pit of worms crawling over a city, because that’s how it felt like when we tried to find that little exit to the venue on the highway. But the roads were intersecting each other all over the place and off course the GPS went nuts over every little turn and zigzag. Luckily we found the exit, like the fourth time we turned around on the highway and got to the venue and rigged up our gear.

If you look at an old theatre venue you’d think: this is too big for this crowd, they’ll be spread out. But somehow the whole place was nicely filled and when we got up on stage and did our thing it was magic. One of our best gigs ever took place here and the response was totally awesome. We’ve never had this good performance so far, maybe in Trondheim last year, but that gig wasn’t even close to this crowd’s reaction.

Afterwards we mingled around and met interesting people. One person, a subject of the special substance usually found in places like Christiania or Amsterdam, seemed to be in a state of crisis and needed explanation why everyone was alive. Ultimately this strange exhibitionist found his nihilistic superior and imploded in an outburst of what seemed like rapture and began speaking in tongues, which was when we left him to his own devices and evacuated the premises.

The day after we began the long way home to the northern regions of the brake tracks in the britches called Sweden. It was depressing going back to the routines of ordinary life, but hey, that makes the return to the roads much more fun!