A Brief History of Blog

Well, we evil Atheists are at it again pissing off BSU. So to keep this short, I wasn't really involved with this one as my Chemistry exam that day was owning my life.

Well, the BSSSA (Boise State Secular Student Alliance) a group on campus for Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers alike had a little satirical event during afternoon classes earlier this week. They decided to do "De-Baptisms" on the quad and hand out "Get Out of Hell Free" cards, for you know, just in case.

Read the article, video included here: Students Protest Religious Commitment with De-Baptisms.

Anyway, it is sparking more debate, and yet again I was given a total of 2 Bibles on the way to class just yesterday.

In case you missed Part One of this immoral crusade against humanity and God.

UPDATE: Hustler Magazine has asked a member of the BSSSA to write an article to appear in the magazine about the De-Baptisms. To quote the email I received from the BSSSA President.

To Whom It May Concern. We saw an article about the depaptisms at Boise
State University and are inquiring if one of your members there would be
interested in the following: Hustler magazine runs a monthly college report
written by students at a respective school. We are hereby inviting you to
write something for us on a subject of interest to our readers, particularly
college students nationwide. Political or censorship issues, protests,
scandals, streaking, stripping, partying and unusual traditions top our
list, but there is much latitude. Word length: 500-750 words @ 50¢ per word
upon publication. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Respectfully yours,

Morgen "Tex" Hagen
Hustler managing editor

It's the season.

2009-08-11T22:10:00Z

That is the checkout price for all my books for this fall semester from the Boise State University bookstore. This includes a $200 paper back and most likely hand bound in the bookstore copy of a Mastering Chemistry written by none other than my Chemistry professor. It's not uncommon to have books written by the teacher themselves. They make serious bank on them. I don't really blame them for it, but for $196.75 for a book (optional by the way) I don't even need is Bull-Shit. I know for a fact the day I show up to Chemistry on the 23rd, the teacher is going to be pushing the students to buy her book. By the next time class meets, I'll probably see a third of them clutching her book. That means the bookstore will bring in around $13,000 from my class buying an OPTIONAL book alone, this teacher has 3 sections of the same class. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that within the first week of classes more than a half a million dollars changes hands in the bookstore. Oh, and one thing I have learned about books from BSU's own professors and teachers custom books, they don't buy them back.

This place is a lifesaver, I remember the day my dad helped me move in just before my Freshman year, after I was all unloaded I went to the bookstore with my Dad, printed off my booksheet and went wild. With help from an employee I had my 60lb stack of books in no time. All together they cost about $450, and if there was a used version in stock I had it. I had a meager $1500 saved up for the upcoming year, but I was ready to plunk my card down to buy those books, as each book was rang up I thought about all the work I had done over the summer and during my senior year, a third of it flashed before my eyes. I knew that in the winter I would be repeating the process for another semester. Thankfully, my Dad was kind enough to pay for them even after everything he had done to help so far. Shortly before Christmas break I was referred to Half.com to buy my books. So, before I even took my finals for the Fall I had every single book I needed for the Spring semester. If I would have gone to the bookstore Springs books would have cost around $500, I was able to get every last required book for...wait for it...$100. Since then, I have not bought a book from the bookstore unless it was a last resort. In fact one semester, I was able to turn a small profit selling my books from Half.com to the bookstore.

About an hour ago, I bought 3 of the 6 required books for this upcoming semester on Half.com, normally from the bookstore, they would have cost $260, I got them all for $115 including shipping. I still need to buy 3 required Chemistry books that are about $55 each, and it seems they are all brand new or a Boise State exclusive printing, so little chance of finding it in Half.com. (Though I did buy my Pre-Calc Boise State Exclusive Print on Half.com from someone out of Boise).

What drives me really off the wall about many of the books I buy new from the bookstore, is they were brand new, so I couldn't find them online. Then once the semester is over, they wont buy it back because a new edition has come out. Now, I don't speak for every new edition out there, but from my observations, these upgrades that for some reason deem a new edition, are merely typo fixes, slight corrections and sometimes they just shuffled the chapters around (I'm looking at you Sociology) and print a new edition. many of these revisions could just be printed on a single piece of paper then sold for $2, but no.

So, without further ado, I bring you my solution to the rising costs of books.

(The Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader)No longer will small revisions to books require a new $70 book, no longer will bookstores need to have massive stock shipped to and from warehouses at the end and beginning of each term. No longer will I be carrying a massive pile of books to class each morning, no longer will I have to worry about books getting stolen (I am victim of this selfish crime). Amazon would make a killing and could work a deal with Universitys and Colleges, even High Schools world wide to sell them at discounted rates to students. Textbooks can now be sold digitally for significantly lower prices, the kindle allows for digital note taking and highlighting, wireless Wikipedia access via the Sprint 3g (rolling out 4g in Boise as I type) network.

I pray to every god ever conceived that this was a reality.

13 Years of Waiting. After the Show: A Recap of Clutch and Baroness

2009-07-31T05:16:00Z

Okay, maybe not 13 years for me, but one of the dudes I attended this fine show pointed out in his 13 years of listening to Clutch, it was his first time seeing them live. This person had also never listened to Baroness nor was a fan of metal. He was blown away by the performance of both bands that night.

What did I think? Fucking Brilliant!

The opening band was one called Lionize. Never heard of them? Neither had I, and my world remains unchanged knowing they exist. I'm not saying they were bad. In fact they played a pretty good set. Mainly because it was around 20 minutes long. Any longer and I might have had some negative comments about I can only take so much reggae, no matter how much rock and Clutch they try to incorporate into it. It was short and sweet and they could at least play their parts without giving me a headache.

Baroness. Fuck. Yes. I missed seeing them last time they came around Boise with Genghis Tron and Converge because I was poor from seeing Dillinger Escape Plan the night before. I regretted it, and now I regret it even more. Because their set is god-damn excellent. Just like their album sound, they play a little sloppy...I guess you could call it a tasteful sloppy. There were only a few people that were getting into their set as it started, me and a couple others who managed to make it to the floor, everyone was clearly there for Clutch and just used the supporting acts to get sauced up on PBR. However, by the end of playing The Birthing a few songs in, the once barren floor was now filled with drunk shenanigans. Including an ass-hole heckling Baroness and doing some bullshit two-step hardcore dancing to piss people off.

The Knitting Factory here seems to be getting pretty tight in their hardcore sympathies. I noticed walking in they now forbid crowd-surfing, and all forms of hardcore dancing pointed out by several signs. Which makes me happy. While they no longer have 6 or 7 security members standing between the barrier and the stage, they just stand in back and start grabbing people who start shit. So in between Baroness' set and Clutch's set, Mr. Two-Step-Hardcore-Baroness-Heckling-Fag got kicked out to the applause of the entire venue. Which only got him to start fighting the security and earn him nice choke-hold.

A blurry shot of Clutch during encore.

Now that the venue is moron free, Clutch takes stage, opening with their new single 50,000 Unstoppable Watts. I still stand front and center taking it all in. Excellence. I have no idea when the last time Clutch came around these parts, I have only been listening to them since Blast Tyrant and don't recall any shows since then. Even though my concert going days are only 3 years old. Their set was about an hour and a half long, playing all sorts of tracks from their catalog, but staying away from the early stuff. I would have really liked to have heard Escape from the Prison Planet, but I still got to hear what seemed to be a slightly extended version of Cypress Grove, my favorite song by them.

Both Clutch and Baroness have earned a spot in my favorite live bands list. Both put on an amazing show and made my 4 hour solo drive across Idaho worth it. I even got to see some drunks getting arrested afterwards! Always a treat to be had.

See figure. Drunk being restrained prior to being arrested for Ass-Hattery in the 3rd Degree.

It's been a half a year...

2009-06-09T00:11:00Z

...Since my last blog post. So, I am taking my time out of playing my summer away in Fallout 3 to write this, what I hope to be extensive blog post.

First off

I built myself a pretty sexy desktop computer over my Christmas break, which led to me not posting blogs as I was quick to pirate (and buy a few) computer games I missed out on over the past year or two. This included, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Crysis, The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead. I was pretty quick to make myself a Steam account and Steam has been enough to make me pay for a game here and there.

Concert Reports:

Since December, my concert outings have been spread thin, but I had a few cool experiences.

Torche: I met Zach of these here fine MetalReview.com boards in my fair city of Boise for a rather interesting concert. Torche was playing that fateful day with a bunch of no-name horribad, terrible local high-school rock bands. Spotting out Zach in the "crowd" was fairly easy, he was the only one other than me that was over the age of 18 and has the height to boot. To be honest, Zach is the first person I have ever met in person after meeting them online. Now, for the show, Zach and I caught the end of some sort of musical vomit that was opening for Torche. Their little group of high school followers were also annoying, but thankfully they all left before Torche even got on stage leaving a maximum crowd of maybe 15 people. Torche kept truckin otherwise and put on a great show, their music sounds fantastic live as well as their drummer being one of the most energetic drummers I have seen live. Very few pieces of his drum kit was left standing at the end.

Cannibal Corpse / The Faceless / Neuraxis / Obscura: Going to this show was a last minute decision, and it was well worth it. Opening was Obscura, I was most excited to see their stuff live. it had only been maybe a month since the release of Cosmogenesis when I saw this show and it was heavy on my listening rotation, I do believe they said it was their 5th show in the US as a band. Overall, they have one of the clearest, most accurate, true to album sound tech death bands I have seen live (comparing to Necrophagist, Beneath the Massacre and The Faceless). Their bass player is very fun to watch, all other videos I have seen of them playing live show the same strange stance he was in doing some sort of robot movement all the while obliterating his 6-string fretless bass. Neuraxis was pretty impressive, though their sound was at times inaudibly loud I enjoyed their show even though I have not given them much of a chance when it comes to albums. The Faceless were a giant let-down, though was not expecting much out of them, they have always seemed like the Job for a Cowboy of Tech Death to me, but I liked a few songs. Their newest album wasn't all that great either. Most of the stuff they played live didn't really sound like anything they have recorded. The Faceless should have been the opening band as to give Obscura a longer set. Cannibal Corpse, their ability to attract the Hispanic population to a metal show is outstanding. I don't think The Knitting Factory has ever smelled worse. Their set was around an hour and a half long and included songs from their entire collection as well as playing one of my personal favorites "I Cum Blood". I was also one of the lucky ones who caught one of Mazurkiewicz's drumsticks at the end of their encore.

Opeth / Enslaved: What can I say? This was one of the greatest days of my life. I had been dying to see these bands live since the day I first heard them. The show was on May 11th, I had my ticket ordered February 2nd. My entire spring semester was spent memorizing every single Opeth and Enslaved song, I bought some albums I had missed and not a day went by I didn't spend at least a moment thinking of the concert. A couple of weeks before the show, I noticed that Wolves in the Throne Room had been added to the line-up. Sadly they ended up not playing due to stage size and drum kits (or at least thats what I'm told) I did get to meet them and buy some merch afterwards however. Enslaved live was everything I thought it would be plus more, they had a meager 50 minute set with only around 9 songs and nothing older than Below The Lights. I was very pleased when during RUUN and that first transition, everyone in the crowd was in a chant. It was perfect. Opeth had a massive set-list, almost 2 hours long covering almost every album, they did miss The Grand Conjuration, which I'm sure many people were hoping for, but never the less had a kick ass set. In the end it was the best $65 I have spent in LONG time and was totally worth having a bit of sore neck all through finals week.

Now that summer is here, I don't work the for the devil like last summer instead I work for my Dad's business doing random things that need to be done. Like cleaning caked on nicotine from tobacco smoke off of speaker cabinets and jukeboxes that have been sitting in Bars for years. It's enough to convince me never to smoke again in my life.

Coming up this summer, Clutch and Baroness are playing together in Boise in July so I'm thinking about making a bit of a road trip, hopefully I don't have to do it alone.

My copy of Ki from The Devin Townsend Project came in today along with a hand written thank you from HevyDevy records. So I have some listening to do off this phenominal album.

Elpants' Top Metal Releases of 2008.

2008-12-31T06:15:00Z

Here it is, The Elpants Blog Extravaganza 2008 Top Ten List.

#1. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God.
No suprises here if you read my blog at all. I clearly stated Amon Amarth was #1 long ago. This album rocks my tits off. Everything about this album is...well as close to perfect as I have seen since I first listened to Devin Townsend's Ocean Machine: Biomech. The whole CD package is worth its weight in gold, including a kick ass DVD of their Summer Breeze 2007 performance along with providing the years most purely enjoyable album.

#2. Gojira - The Way of All Flesh.
Fuck me, I was not expecting this to pop out of France's Gojira. This here band has their sound, no one else touches it and they a execute flawless mastery of their craft. This album will remain in heavy listening rotation for months if not years to come.

#3. Arghoslent - Hornets of the Pogrom.
Bigots or not, this album is catchy as hell, every track is memorable. I find myself going back to the album for a listen to my favorite track "The Granadier" and end up giving the entire album a front to back listen without even thinking of wandering off into my music library to find something else.

#4. Pharaoh - Be Gone.
Big suprise for me and other than Infestdead, my favorite personal new band for me. Never would I have thought a power metal band would even come near my Top Ten. The first track "Speak to Me" alone got me hooked.

#5. Decrepit Birth - Diminishing Between Worlds.
I shot myself in the foot by missing out on possibly the only chance I would ever have to see this band live early on in the year, I lost a part of my soul that day. Now lets get this straight, I LOVE Tech Death Metal, even the wankery that comes with. Even though this doesn't have much, if any wanks to it. I still love this album. When I walked into the record shop and saw the $17 price tag I didn't blink, I wanted this album and didn't want to wait for shipping. It was worth every penny.

#6. Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle Part I.
Where to begin to praise this album? It's new, exciting and possibly an album that gives way to an explosion in Progressive Black Metal. Like it or not, this band is practically an American Enslaved without the rich history.

#7. Light This City - Stormchaser.
A band that should have never broken up. I would kill to see a tour with Testament just so during the track "Firehaven" Chuck "I make everything awesome" Billy* could come out on stage and melt my face off. Only a single weak track hurts this Swansong. Shame, this band had so much going for it, only for it to be thrown away. I'm glad I at least got to see them live in 2007.

#8. Equilibrium - Sagas.
Hooray for Folk Metal in all its varieties. This album is epic. Some say Eluvietie, I say Equilibrium. Light, dark, good, evil. Sagas shows an extreme in diversity when it comes to Folk Metal.

#9. Origin - Antithesis.
Wankery in technical glory, check. Fat singer, check. Giving something that scares the shit out of Elpants' roommates at 2am, check.

#10. Ghengis Tron - Board up the House.
Ok, not a "metal" album to some, but metal enough for me. I have a few friends that want nothing to do with as they put it: "My kind of metal." I have been able to slip them a few tracks here and there and eventually get them asking about it, these things include The Dillinger Escape Plan, Animosity, Cynic and Ghengis Tron. This album along with the Remix Volume 3 is a fast paced, heart thumping experiment in sound.

Albums I wanted in the above list, but simply got outdone. AKA Honerable Mentions.
Enslaved - Vertebrae
Beneath The Massacre - Dystopia
Meshuggah - obZen
The Monolith Deathcult - Triumvirate
Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery
Testament - The Formation of Damnation
Protest The Hero - Fortress

#1 Debut of 2008.
Revocation - Empire of the Obscene.

Live Performance of 2008
Beneath The Massacre.

After The Show: A Recap of JFAC, Hate Eternal, Animosity and others.

2008-11-20T23:07:00Z

Ok, to make things perfectly clear, I did not go to this show for Job For a Cowboy. I have seen them before and was not overly impressed. I went for a band called Animosity, who kick ass. Now that we got that out of the way, you can now read on knowing I'm not going to start karate kicking to the Bree Bree.

The entire lineup of the show in order was Annotations of and Autopsy, All Shall Perish, Animosity, Hate Eternal and Job For a Cowboy. I have video of two Animosity songs and an extra treat we were given by All Shall Perish.

To start, there were no local bands opening thank god, because now that The Deep broke up thanks to their drummer joining Arsis (who now recently got replaced in Arsis) the only bands that seem to be playing at The Venue are high school bands. So Annotations of and Autopsy opened. Just as their first song starts I have my hand in the air and the guitarist throws a AoaA jacket into the crowd which gently lands in my hands. (I swear it had nothing to do with the fact I was a foot taller than all the scene kids around me waiting for JFaC) Too bad the jacket is almost too small and the second it gets wet will shrink to the point it will be like Chris Farely wearing David Spades sports jacket...except I'm not a fat man...it's just a little coat. It's free, so I'm not complaining. Anyway, I can't say I have enjoyed Annotations debut album "Before the Throne of Infection" but they can belt it live. I'm sure the scenesters were impressed with the pig squeels. Now what makes it even better is the singer has an awesome British accent.

All Shall Perish, they were supposed to play third, but as everyone noticed as we were piling in, there was no Animosity merch booth, just after their set starts I see Leo Miller the singer of Animosity walk near the stage and talk to some ASP members. We are informed that Animosity had a wheel fall off their trailer and just made it so they had switched spots. I for one was there for the Animosity so if was a huge relief to know my $15 was not spent in vein. Now, I see that something is up with the line-up of ASP, its not the rythm guitarist they are supposed to have. About halfway through the set the singer introduces the live member as Luke Jaeger from none other than Sleep Terror, which had me all sorts of excited. Him along with the lead guitar for All Shall Perish had a little guitar duo in the middle of the set which I caught the last half on video.(Please visit the site to view this media)

Animosity, fucking Animosity. 2nd time I have seen them live, last I saw them was in may just before I was about to take my finals, I had been kicked in the back of the head/neck by the biggest motherfucker at the show and had a hard time holding my neck up for a few days. I enjoyed the show nontheless, this time however, there are more people to form a nice human wall between me and the kids practicing karate. Anyway I love Animosity, their shows deliver. Here I have two barely audible, shakey videos of two songs. One is Holy Shackles from the album Empires and the other is Terrorstorm from their newest album Animal. (Please visit the site to view this media)(Please visit the site to view this media)

Hate Eternal, honestly, I was expecting more. I like their music and tried to get into their performance as much as possible, but there was too much girl pants wondering what in the hell was being played on stage. Seriously they were all in shock, I kinda wish I had some video of all the kids who are visible in the above Animosity videos just sitting their with mouths open. Anyway, as they were just about to start their set the drummer starts freaking out and stops the whole thing as his laptop falls off it's perch. I could hear him yelling crap at the singer, he is seriously pissed off because someone messed with his stuff. It affected their show, it was weak to say the least.

Job For a Cowboy, seen em before wasn't impressed the first time. Umm, pretty much everyone who is going to read this blog hates JFaC, I honestly just don't care. However I didn't want to stand up front with my arms folded across my chest so I moved my hair around a few times. What else to say about them? Well they played 2 new songs for their album due out next summer I guess. Well the first new song which still goes untitled was heavy as fuck, has no pig squeals and the second sounded like a rehased Knee Deep from their Doom EP minus the pig squeals. Speaking of pigs, the singer has evolved to a ManBearPig because the squeals are pretty much a solid bark. I'll have to alert Al Gore MBP is touring the US. We must all work to stop ManBearPig.

I kinda did something important.

2008-10-30T16:57:00Z

Yesterday I was sent a text message to meet for a picture for the newspaper for the only club/organization I belong to on campus which is the Boise State Secular Student Alliance or BSSSA. A group for the atheists, agnostics and free thinkers alike on campus.

The whole article is about how about two weeks ago during the Boise State vs. Hawaii football game and "parents weekend" all student organizations were invited to tailgate outside the stadium. Personally I was busy selling my student football ticket that I get for free every game for $30 because pretty much every game sells out in 45 minutes then going to get drunk and play beer pong. Anyway the leader guy (third from left) has his banner hanging in the BSSSA area it reads: "Outgrown your imaginary friend? Secular Students." Because it was parents weekend, some of the parents decided the sign was offensive and complained. Needless to say, the sign was taken down and fearless leader made another one that read something I am not aware of. It caused a bit of mumble and grumble because only a few weeks before the entire campus had "Christian Week" where you could not walk to class without being handed a bible or two, giant crosses being set-up in front of the library. We called foul and got a front page story in the newspaper as you can see in the picture above. I am the white kid dead center with the beanie and Beneath the Massacre shirt on.

Dystopia Now

2008-10-21T21:17:00Z

This is a friendly reminder that another album thats a strong contender for my top 10 albums for 2008 comes out in one week from today (October 28th). I pre-ordered Beneath The Massacre's Dystopia the day after hearing some new songs live in August. They sound amazing live as you can read about here. Dystopia is one of those albums that becomes more enjoyable after listening to it 3 or 4 times. It doesn't have tracks like Society's Disposable Son or The System's Failure that are fan favorites from Mechanics of Dysfunction. However the entire album is solid delivering non-stop in your face technical brutality you would come to expect. In fact as the album progresses it only gets better with the best tracks arguably being Track 6 "Bitter" and Track 11 "Procreating the Infection".

I am eagerly waiting for this album to pop up in the review pipeline to see what everyone else thinks. Or you could give some pre-pre-lashes here!

To go by the MetalReview.com rating scale I would give this album a 6/5/5.5

Check out Beneath the Massacre here:

Official Website
Myspace
Pre-order "Dystopia" through Prosthetic Records and get a sweet fricken shirt with it!

I made Top Ramen at 5am today.

2008-10-06T20:44:00Z

And I enjoyed every minute of it.

The glory of having a full time student schedual yet it still working out to never having class on a monday. It's a time for me to sleep in, or like today make Ramen at 5am because I knew I could fall back asleep for 5 more hours.

Then something like this shows up in the mailbox to complete the days events of being the laziest person on campus. Once again, thanks Matt, Metal Review and Metal Blade Records!

Since 3 out of the past 4 blogs have been about this amazing album in all it's viking glory, I promise the next one, will not.

8 People left dead after ears rupturing at Trivium show.

2008-09-28T16:44:00Z

Friday night I took the opportunity to see All That Remains for the second time this year, along with seeing The Human Abstract for the first time. Unfortunately Trivium was co-headlining with ATR. 36 Crazy Fists was too on the bill, but more on them later.First off, The Human Abstract's opening show. I had been barely listening to them since their newest album "Midheaven" leaked not too long ago. I didn't know any songs by heart and wasn't listening for specific songs to be played live. However, their show was spot on, True to their recorded sound. I was fairly impressed. Every small detail in their music was audible. For the most part it was fairly easy listening. They did not put out the best stage performance ever as everyone but their singer was a statue. In the end, they exceeded my expectations.

36 Crazy Fists, in my mind they have always been a poppy metal-core band with album titles like "A Snow Capped Romance" and the like along with their strange vocal style makes them nothing but a guilty pleasure for me. I don't have much to say about them other than their singer is a massive guy and kinda looked like Speed from Soilwork.

All That Remains, their new album has received so-so reviews and opinions compared to The Fall of Ideals or This Darkened Heart. I for one almost like it to the point of listening it the whole way through. I'm not too sure if ATR has been reading hate machine called the Internet, but they may have taken the reviews seriously as they played only two songs off their new album, Two Weeks and Chiron. Keeping with fan favorites like The Weak Willed, The Air that I Breath and This Calling while throwing in some older songs like This Darkened Heart. None the less, Oli, Phil, Jeanne and the rest of the crew can really belt it on stage. Their show did not disappoint, their new material indeed does sound much better live so if you have the chance of seeing them and are debating it because of Overcome. Go anyway, it would not be a ATR show without them playing The Weak Willed.

Trivium, worst live performance next to The Number 12 Looks Like You. I realize they are trying to look the best they can by them all wearing their own band shirts and having every note played sound like a bomb going off...but when the vocals are barely audible over the screech of the out of tune, high notes coming from a so called riff or worse attempted solo, there are problems. I stayed for most their set and left during the last song, while most people I came with left the second they played a song off The Crusade. I guess they were wise to do so, as half way through the set they decided to cover Iron Maiden's Iron Maiden and completely butchered it; and leave it to Trivium kids to eat it up.

All in all, it was a pretty cool show until Trivium took stage.

I came.

2008-09-25T23:55:00Z

It's here, it's finally here. It's glorious.

Amon Amarth Pilliage their way to #1

2008-09-13T13:57:00Z

Ok, so I have had Twilight of the Thundergod downloaded for about two weeks now. It's easily been one of my most anticipated albums for 2008. With all the leaks that have been going out in the past month: Enslaved, All That Remains, Bloodbath, Psycroptic, Obituary...ect this has easily been the most satisfying. So for those with the will-power to just pre-order and wait, it's well worth waiting. This album blows me away.

Twilight of the Thundergod is like a best of featuring only new content. Arguably we have our next "Death in Fire" as "No Fear for the Setting Sun" another headbang inducing"Pursuit of Vikings" as "Varyags of Miklagaard" and a truely epic "Cry of the Blackbirds" as the title track "Twilight of the Thunder God". Others have said Amon Amarth has a formula that just doesn't seem to get old. It's a perfect way of describing them. This album truely shows they can experiment and evolve while keeping true to the actual intention of the music. Melodic, Epic, Brutal.

It's truely a crime to not listen to this band. If you as so much even tolerate Amon Amarth you are doing yourself a huge favor by pre-ordering this album, with the cover art alone you should have pre-ordered this album long ago. Arghoslent and Pharaoh have stepped down from their #1 and #2 spots for 2008. I don't care how much more popularity Amon Amarth gain with this album, as long as I can see them live again.

The Temptation of Free Music

2008-09-08T16:17:00Z

I love metal, I really do. At least 90% if the music I have purchased, pirated or aquired in some way shape or form is metal. On top of that at least 90% of the music I do have, is pirated. So when the opportunity to get free music legally comes around I jump on it and thats why the main focus of my blog so far has been spreading the good word of free music.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Now this band is not metal by any means, and the only reason I ever checked them out was because they were a local band to my area. First time I heard about them was this year when they opened for Converge, The Red Chord, Ghengis Tron and Baroness in the spring. Sadly I did not make it to the show. I deeply regret missing it too...but I spent my money the day before on The Dillinger Escape Plan.

Sadly the band parted ways with their drummer and played their last show under the name Temptation of Saint Anthony on the 30th of August here in their hometown Boise, Idaho. Earlier this year they released an EP titled Speck Sessions. Which of course is available for free via download! Hence why I am blogging about it.

Their sound is quite unique. It's not metal, it's not harcore it's not metalcore, it's not rock. I guess the closest thing I can even relate it to is early Thrice with a little Textures and Converge forced to fight in a cage match. Their sound is what you would hear when they are allowed to use their instruments as weapons to bash eachother over the head.

Now on the link provided above they have a link to download their EP, however they did not tag the files or provide cover artwork. I have taken the liberty to tag the music the best to my knowlage and used an image from their pictures album as a suitable album cover. I also uploaded it to megaupload to download from much like their link. So if you are downloading this and want to save a little time I would suggest using my link at the bottom of this blog post.

Links:
The Temptaion of Saint Anthony Myspace
TOSA's EP Download Warning: Music not tagged, no album art.
Elpants' EP Download Includes correctly tagged files and suitable album art. Recommended download.