In retrospect: MOTÖRHEAD

Hello and welcome to a new episode in my retrospect series. I believe this is my third installment and the first of 2017. I'm not gonna waste anytime so I'ma get straight to it: I'll cover Motörhead's entire career, album-to-album, where I somewhat rank 'em and comment on them all.

Remember, it's just my personal opinion and it's not as an absolute statement for everybody. OK? Let's go!

• 1977: S/T

Comment: The start of Motörhead a very punk-fueled one at that. If memory serves me correctly, this was the first Motörhead CD I ever bought. Some leather edition about 10-ish years ago, possibly a few more years back. With that said, it never was a favorite album. Maybe even my least favorite. Their sound was still in the construction phase at this point, which means better things were to come.

Favorite track: Motorhead

• 1978: Overkill

Comment: A most classic release. This is also what I kind of tend to view as their true debut album. Their sound was really shaping up on this album, which is evident as you can listen to this and some other album from ten or twenty, even thirty years ahead, and clearly you'll hear it's the same band. One of my favorite Motörhead records although not quite the favorite one.

Favorite track: Metropolis

• 1979: Bomber

Comment: There's a high probability that this one's my favorite Motörhead record, at least out of the old/early ones. I really like the songs on here and I always felt like this album was viewed as somewhat "mediocre" by Motörhead standards. A lot of the tracks sure were missing on their compilation albums throughout the years. Whatever the case be, I totally like this album. A lot. The album cover also fascinated me as a kid. My dad used to have this CD in the car all the time. The bomber plane always looked as hell to my eyes.

Favorite track: Talking Head

• 1980: Ace of Spades

Comment: Such a classic in many ways. You know, when talking about bands' most popular (or best selling) albums as being their best works, I usually beg to differ. There are so many cases with bands where the most obvious album is not their best. In the case of Motörhead, however, if anyone says this album is their best, I would completely understand why. Although not my favorite of theirs, it's really good. Legendary.

Favorite track: The Chase Is Better Than The Catch

• 1982: Iron Fist

Comment: Classic album but for what reason? It's not bad by any means but put up against the previous albums, apart from the debut (possibly), it's not really any contest about which album is the worst. It's got a few great numbers but overall somewhat inconsistent.

Favorite track: (Don't Need) Religion

• 1983: Another Perfect Day

Comment: First album without "Fast" Eddie Clarke on guitar, and the first and only album featuring Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy. Another record in the same kind of quality-vein to that of its predecessor. As far as the line-up change went, however, the band got a lot more melodic which sounds cool and refreshing. At the same time I'm pretty happy it only lasted one album, as I don't see this melodic Motörhead sound being very interesting in the long run. This album is unfortunately also plagued with a real shitty production.

Favorite track: One Track Mind

• 1984: No Remorse (new songs)

Comment: While this is a compilation album it featured no less than four new songs (not counting an additional two single B-sides). Those four songs, including my all-time Motörhead fave (listed below), also introduced another new line-up for the band. Entered did the band's long-timer Phil Campbell as well as Würzel, who was with the band for a good 10+ year run. The songs are all great in my opinion and all-in-all this is one of the best (and few interesting) compilation albums ever made.

Favorite track: Killed By Death

• 1986: Orgasmatron

Comment: I like this album a lot. It's not perfect by any means but it's got some of the band's most killer songs. Some of the other songs, however, are kind of filler-like. The great songs do make up for that anyway. Overall one of my higher-ranking albums of their career, even if the production is uneven a lot of the time.

Favorite track: Mean Machine

• 1987: Rock 'n' Roll

Comment: The band's last 80's studio effort is argubly also their worst album up till that point. While Motörhead never did any outright bad albums, this one is really a pushing contestor for that spot. I just never got into this one very much. The songs are overall just pretty boring by Motörhead standards. A few stand-outs are to be found as usual though.

Favorite track: All For You

• 1991: 1916

Comment: At the time it was Motörhead's first album in four years and some things had noticably changed. First off, this album is really a major step up from the band's previous album, but it's also a musically more varied album than earlier efforts. The typical Motörhead sound is to be found on here, but also that typical early 90's hard rock sound in a few tracks. Some other tracks experiment with keyboards and other different sounds for Motörhead. All-in-all a good album. My understanding is that both the band and fans like(d) this one a lot. For me, however, it stands as one of their "middle" albums.

Favorite track: Love Me Forever

• 1992: March Ör Die

Comment: For the second and final time "Philthy Animal" Taylor was gone from the band. Performing on only one track on this album, the rest was done by the great Tommy Aldridge. The album, however, is something of a disaster for the band's standards. Once again a major step down. In a way, this is also reflected in the awkward album cover's depiction of Snaggletooth.

Favorite track: I Ain't No Nice Guy (feat. Ozzy Osbourne & Slash)

• 1993: Bastards

Comment: One word - finally! At the time this was the band's strongest work since 1986. Possibly even 1980! This album also saw Mikkey Dee taking on the drumkit, which he obviously maintained until the band's end. This album is very well done in most ways possible. The cover art is simple but effective. The songs are great. The production is better than in a long time. Overall just very well done. One of my favorite Motörhead records.

Favorite track: Devils

• 1995: Sacrifice

Comment: A step down from the previous album but understandable considering how good it was. This one shows the band taking on a rawer style once more, somewhat blending the sounds of the previous album and their early efforts. It's overall very riff-heavy and is something of a start to what the band would sound like in the 2000's. Ultimately one of their middle albums for me and also the last one featuring Würzel (and the band as a four-piece). It's a good album but not a masterpiece. Great album cover by the way, penis-tongue and all.

Favorite track: Sacrifice

• 1996: Overnight Sensation

Comment: The band's first album as a three-piece since 1982 showcases the band's longest and final line-up continuing down the path of the previous two albums. It's heavy, smashing, catchy and nicely produced. The album cover is not a favorite of mine (where's Snaggletooth?) and the album always struck me as somewhat overlooked. It's definitely one of the band's best 90's albums and also a top-10 of their career, at least.

Favorite track: I Don't Believe A Word

• 1998: Snake Bite Love

Comment: Widely regarded by many as the band's worst album. Even Mikkey Dee has expressed some dissatisfaction with this one. It's truly not one of the band's better albums in my opinion. Quite the opposite indeed, actually. But while it's not bad in general music standards, it certainly takes the cake for being a bottom-3 album for Motörhead. It's definitely their worst from the 90's, if not their entire career.

Favorite song: Love For Sale

• 2000: We Are Motörhead

Comment: Definitely a good step up from its predecessor but still somewhat short of quality songs compared to most the band's other catalogue. It's an alright album I suppose but not something I usually think of and/or crank when in the mood for some Motörhead rock 'n' roll.

Favorite track: We Are Motörhead

• 2002: Hammered

Comment: This album was totally fresh out of the studio when I got into the band. I remember having and wearing a pin with the album cover, which I thought was cool as hell. The album itself, however, is something of a continuation down the road of mediocrity for Motörhead. It's better than the previous two albums but not much more than that. Its production is also a sign of the times - early 2000's cheap-sounding digital recording. It just doesn't sound very good to my ears and I'm sure these songs fared a lot better live than on this record.

Favorite track: No Remorse

• 2004: Inferno

Comment: This one came out when I was a young newbie fan of Motörhead and thus it holds a really special place in my Motörhead heart. It's not only the nostalgia factor that makes this album so great for me. The music is also real good! It was the best album they had done since 1993 and one of the best albums of their entire career. I remember crankin' these songs over and over back in the day and I still find myself doing the same thing 13 years later. Badass album title. I love the album cover as well. Truly a great record.

Favorite track: Fight

• 2006: Kiss Of Death

Comment: While a step down from the previous (once again this is understandable from my p.o.v.) it's still a very good album. It definitely showed promise that Motörhead was seemingly going stronger than they'd done in the late 90's and early 2000's. This album was also the second album to be produced by Cameron Webb, who entered on the previous album and ultimately did all of their subsequent albums as well. This album definitely keeps up sonically with the previous album and also manages to differ some in sound and songs.

Favorite track: Trigger

• 2008: Motörizer

Comment: Out of the band's latter day albums (2004-2015), this one is my least favorite. Upon release it didn't fare as well with me as the previous two did. These days I have pretty much the same opinion about it. I dunno what it is, but it just doesn't quite cut it for me. I mean, this album is a beast! It's filled with fast three-ish minute tracks which makes it more intense than any Motörhead album in a long time, possibly ever. At the same time I just think most of the songs are missing something. While not a bad album by any means, it definitely is down somewhere in between the middle-to-bottom listed Motörhead albums in my book.

Favorite track: Heroes

• 2010: The Wörld Is Yours

Comment: After its predecessor and being somewhat into other musical styles back around 2010, I remember not being too anticipated about this release. Regardless, it's Motörhead and I obviously picked it up anyway. I remember my initial opinion being somewhat unimpressed, like it was a mediocre effort from the gang. In the years since its release, however, it's been a real grower on me. Maybe it was because I actually got more back into a lot of old school sounds again, or maybe its quality just struck upon me over time. Anyway, it's definitely a solid album even if it's not quite among their best works. Some of the band's greatest latter day songs are to be found on this one. Great production as well.

Favorite track: Devils In My Head

• 2013: Aftershock

Comment: At the time of this album's release my days of exploring new music had vaned a lot. My mind was totally back in old school mode and Motörhead was once more very interesting. I remember thinking a few things about this one. First thing was the album cover and how lightly colored it was. It definitely felt "out of character" for Motörhead in my opinion. Second was the album title which I found to be great. The last thing was the actual music. This album is a great Motörhead record, the best since 2004 and overall one of my higher ranking albums of theirs. The art work, to me, displayed a slight change which I think is present in the songs. It's very much a Motörhead record but it's still different in some way. I just like this one a lot. If this was the "aftershock", I don't think I even wanna know what the actual main shock was. I wouldn't be able to brave it.

Favorite track: Coup De Grace

• 2015: Bad Magic

Comment: And so we're down to the last album by Motörhead. This one was in several ways a quite strange album, I believe. I remember as it was being released, I was thinking about how Lemmy just keeps on going and going. As the album was released, however, we got some clarification. For the first time we got proof that the man indeed is growing old. For the first time ever we all got to hear Lemmy's voice now obviously aged. Shortly after the release, as we all now know, the man started to experience serious health issues. Then just like that - Lemmy was gone. This album, in a way, showed Lemmy being aware of his mortality. At least that's what I believe. Some songs on here are so hauntingly suggesting that was the case anyway. It's like Lemmy bid his farewells and just went out the way he wanted. It's a great album in my opinion. Definitely a worthy swansong album.

Favorite song: When The Sky Comes Looking For You

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So that was my retrospect of Motörhead and their career. While I did not include a hell of a lotta live and compilation albums, the studio releases are the most essential to bring. Motörhead had a great career, that much is sure. They had their fair share of ups and downs just like every other band out there, but they never made one truly bad album. That's more than I can say for the majority of bands I listen to.

Motörhead is one of my all-time favorite bands. They were one of the first bands I ever got into and they've had such a huge impact on my life growing up. Lemmy always was an iconic inspiration for me. Not a rolemodel by any means, but definitely a huge inspiration in life.

My father also once told me (while drunk) how I was conceived to the song "Fire Fire" from Ace Of Spades. It doesn't surprise me one bit seeing as he's a huge fan himself. During my upbringing he would listen to Motörhead a whole lot. Maybe that's why I have suge a huge love for Motörhead? I bas basically nutured on their music my entire upbringing.

Thank you Lemmy for all the great music!

Watch Dogs: Thoughts and opinions

Watch Dogs - the most hyped game of 2014? I would say so, at least from what I've seen and heard around the globe. I have been very keen to try it out as well, as I was completely blown away when I saw it presented at E3 back in 2012 (who weren't?). So now the game is finally out, after quite a delay and yada yada. I was not a first-day-buyer this time around since I was short on cash and there was some other stuff I wanted more at the time. Now I have tried it out, however, since the local library is awesome and has got lots of games for a very cheap rent price, so I booked it about a month back.

Yesterday it was finally my turn to get my hands on it, and I sure did. I went home straight away to try it out, installed it and launched it. My personal anticipation had pretty much died during the month I had to wait, and the lukewarm reception from fans I've heard and seen during that time didn't help me either. But finally, I was playing Watch Dogs for the first time ever.

The intro is immediately very 50/50. It's kind of interesting, but mostly I wasn't very impressed ... at all. To be honest, what was I going to expect from it? I don't know, I just love free-roam and open-world games. I pretty much try everything that is one, and I'm horny as hell about the GTA-series, have always been. With that said, I didn't even know what I expected, but it sure was something more unique (the hype has been big, especially from Ubisoft themselves) than this.

After the very mediocre introduction, I'm launched into some action gameplay. Now this is looking more promising, thank Satan, and I play on. Since I'm a constant GTA-player I'm used to these kind of controls, so I pretty much get a hold of it quickly. That's probably the first thing I notice - the controls - and I don't like them. Overall they do feel clumpsy, yet still somewhat dynamic. It's so 50/50. Later on I also notice, probably the biggest question, the graphics and their overall feel and looks. What can I say? This is so goddamn totally disappointing! When we saw this game being presented at E3 back in 2012, everyone was blown away! But now, this just looks like and old and ugly piece of shit game made in like 2007.

Now I'm pretty disappointed. Sure, even I get that an Xbox 360 would never be able to recreate those graphics we were presented with at E3, but this is silly, really. There are so many more games, which are several years old now, that look so much better than Watch Dogs. I wasn't expecting those E3 graphics, but I did fucking expect more than this. Now it's up to everything else to surprise me, but that pretty much doesn't happen either.

I play on and I'm not really getting curious about the story. It feels unoriginal and is just told in a boring way that it has been told too many times before. I also heard quite many people state that while the graphics were not up to expectations, the combat should be good, as some people called it, "a good shooter". Well, I cannot really agree there neither. This was like the last drop for me - the shooting and combat system just fucking sucks, and it's boring. The hacking was also highly spoken of by Ubisoft as something "fresh and unique". Yeah, right. You press and hold the X-button everytime. Once in a while you get like a small mini-game where you must hack. But I have seen and done this all before. Particularly in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is a very good game by the way, you get to do a lot of hacking, which is much more developed and fun than in Watch Dogs.

Really, what can I say? I'm so goddamn disappointed with this game. I was very hyped about it before it's release, and while it calmed down after its release, I still was looking forward to play it. Now the only consolation I've got after two years wait is that I did not buy it. I rented it for 15 Swedish kronor (about 2 bucks). I'm happy that I did not buy it for like 70-80 bucks. That is a consolation that I'm very happy out, and sadly enough, it's the only thing I am happy about with this game.

I give Watch Dogs a greatly disappointing 3/10.

Review: CRASHDÏET - The Savage Playground (2013)

Background story: Having been a fan since my early teens when they first appeard on the Swedish TV-channel ZTV, with their "Riot In Everyone" video that rotated real good for quite some time. I believe the year was 2004 and I loved their sound and just wanted them to do an album. In 2005 things started to happen and their infamous debut "Rest In Sleaze" was released in September, I believe. I remember buying the album the day after it came out and I pretty much loved it. Then in early 2006 I was saddened to hear of Dave Lepard's death, as CRASHDÏET was a band I was looking forward to follow over the years. They split-up, got back together and the rest is history. I never liked that muscle Mary guy they replaced Dave with, he pretty much sucked big, mean horse balls. In 2009 they announced that Simon Cruz and I got excited again, CRASHDÏET was reborn for real now. The guy sounded a lot like Sebastian Bach but I always loved Skid Row, so I didn't have any problem with that. He's pretty much everything the muscle Mary wasn't for CRASHDÏET. 2010 saw the release of my personal favorite CRASHDÏET album, "Generation Wild". Now it's 2013, I've waited almost three years for a new album and now it's arrived, "The Savage Playground" ...

Before I start listening, my thoughts and expectations are something like "it's their forth album over an eight year spun, their second album with the same singer as the last album. Things will probably sound more mature and maybe somewhat different than their old stuff." Well, this album actually did live up to all those thoughts of mine, but after listening to it, I honestly don't really know to think about it. My first impression is confused. Very confused. The album starts off promising with a track called "Change The World", which also reminds me that some of the song titles on this album feel different in some way, for being CRASHDÏET songs I mean. They don't sound like the "typical" titles the band would go for, but they did it and however, the first song is a solid one, if maybe not the best. I like it a lot at least and it did its purpose: it made me excited.

The second track is the album's lead single, "Cocaine Cowboys". Not an original title and not very cool anymore neither, but the song rather is, though. As much as I usually hate it, I think I have to admit that this is as good as it gets on this album. The songs starts off with a cool cowboy, steel guitar kind of intro, which just makes me (yet again) connect them to Skid Row. If "Generation Wild" was CRASHDÏET's "Skid Row", then this album is starting to sound like their "Slave To The Grind". Now that is not a bad thing as it's my favorite Skid Row album, but everything's about to change, and that quickly. The next three tracks are rather a dull and bland collection of what can be classically called "fillers", but when "Circus" and "Sin City" kick in I'm enjoying the music again.

With my hope up somewhat again, the album unfortunately enters a new and longer stretch of bland tunes, and this time I'm losing it. When the chorus in "Damaged Kid" kicks in I react like "what the fuck?!". It sounds nu metal-ish and sounds like something any emo, Korn, or whatever band could've come up with. I'm not generally a close-minded music listener, I listen to all kinds of metal and music outside of metal, but I never, ever liked nu metal. This song just blows.

At this point I actually took a break from the album to listen to something good, but as I got back I saw the title of the next track - "Excited". How ironic, huh? This song does however make me satisfied, it's pretty okey. Up last we have "Garden Of Babylon" which is a pretty good one as well. Now this is probably the most interesting song on the whole album, as it sound very different from the typical CRASHDÏET we know. It also doens't sound pretty much like anything else on this album. It's not an awesome or very fun track, but it's solid and probably does the best closer this album can get. But then there's a bonus track called "Liquid Jesus" as well, and rightfully so, because it sounds like gospel glam and I'm not very fond of it.

Now this was the album and its songs. A kinda strange bunch if you ask me, but it is what it is. Beside some frustation during the tracks, I also noted that the album's production is somewhat raw and muddled, maybe? I don't think it really gives much detail to the different instruments and sounds. I feel like the riffs sometimes are hard to really hear fully out, and at times the vocals sound like rough mixes. Now I do fancy raw productions with little polished effects - if it's done right. This just feels poorly done, it's easily the worst sounding CRASHDÏET album so far.

Musically the guys are as good as ever. They do their thing like nothing's changed and I still really like Simon Cruz, he's a great singer and very charismatic for this band. There are not too many memorable riffs, drum fills or whatever to be found on this album, though. I don't know if the riffs ever where CRASHDÏET's strong side, I think it rather was the vocal melodies and harmonies that was "that special thing" about 'em.

At the end of this album I stand confused and ... disappointed, to be honest. I'm not a conservative person who wants to stay in the same way forever unchanged, but if for instance Simon Cruz made the band evolve this way, I'd rather see the band let him go and find yet another singer for the next album. But I simply just hope they did their little failure and will get back on track again, before it's too late. All I can say about my personal feelings about this album is that it feels like an unfocused mashmix and is experimenting into new sounds, which I approve of very much, but it does it in the wrong territories. While it has a lot of pretty shitty moments, it also has some mediocrity and some great ones. Maybe the album will grow on me in due time, I can only see about that.

Final rating: 4.5/10

Some personal thoughts on: Skyrim

I recently was lucky and got a copy of Skyrim exactly a week ago. As most people most likely know, Skyrim's a hit game that very many players have been discussing. Though I never was too anticipated about it when it was announced, maybe because I had only heard about Morrowind and Oblivion but not actually played 'em, I recently felt it was about time that I got this game myself.

So now a week has passed, I've had some time to play it and feel what it's all about. I'm going to do a review of it right now, I believe there's still way too much to do in it before a review, but I'm gonna share some thoughts I have about it so far. I'm close to 40 hours of gameplay now, I'm at level 20 as of this moment, and my obsession of playing it has decreased more and more during the last few days. I guess that is a first step in seeing what I think about the game - it's ultimately not as fun for a long time as it's in the beginning, not for me anyways. It's not like the GTA-series. I played Vice City from when it came to when San Andras came, probably almost every day, then it was pretty much the same with San Andreas. I kinda "lived" in those game-worlds back then. I believe GTA IV has the record now, though. Having been out since early 2008, I myself got an Xbox 360 in January '09 and GTA IV was my first game. I still play it today, it's the game I play the most and keep going back to over and over again. Now the point by all this GTA-talk is that I don't believe Skyrim will by like those in the long run.

Though I'm at almost 40 hours now, I guess I already around 15-20 hours felt the game was getting somewhat annoyingly repetitive. In my opinion it's just way too much of the same "speak to him and get a quest, go to that cave and get that item, return it to the quest giver". I would've liked more different tasks and environment than just caves for most of the quests. While this tends to be somewhat bad with the game, it still has tons of other great things to weigh it all up. Just pointing out a few other bad things quickly, which would be the stiff facial expressions during conversation, some bugs, and many annoying loading screens.

Now I'm going to focus on the things I really like about this game and what makes it unique. First off - character creation. Rather than having different human races, this games has different races all-in-all. Now I do not remember the race names, but you can be a human-like cat and lizzard, orc, elves, and of course some human-looking races. Being half Swedish, half Finnish myself, I play as a Nord because I'm fascinated by the old, nordic vikings and that stuff. You also join different factions which I really like. I instantly joined the Stormcloaks and fought against the Imperial. That's what I would've done in real life too, I guess - being revolutionary. After that I joined the Companions, whom I really as well. The third and so far last faction I've joined are the Thieves Guild. Them I do not like. I do not like their attitude at all and only does it all for the quest. Other than these three factions, I don't think there is any other I'm really too interested in, but I will probably do them anyway.

This game also has a great system of weapons and magic. I really like the possibility of having magic and (one-handed) weapons at the same time. There are also plenty of spells and weapons to use, as well as expand the weapons with magic and such, though I'm not good at this yet. I also like to go and wander around the world. It has its charm and places. I really like the college of Winterhold, I think it's a beautiful place when it snows a lot, and I can find myself just standing there and looking around. It's also very beautiful when it's raining. The "cities" are also great in this game, majestic and beautiful. My favorites are Whiterun and Riften I think, but Solitude is great too, especially when seen from the outside.

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All in all it's a great game so far, but in the long run I think I will let go of it, unfortunately. I do not see why there is so much fuzz about this game. While it certainly is a solid play, there are many games that I would easily prefer over this. But then again, I don't play games like Call of Duty any more. I do not see what's so special about some of those biggest names, with CoD as a primary example now. I really thought Black Ops (the last CoD I played) was nothing special at all. There are too many overrated games out there, Skyrim unfortunately being one of them. While I love many, many things with it, there are too many things to not make it "crush the competition". While I can probably say it's better than its closest rivals, like the Fable-series, I would rather pick up and play games like GTA, Gears of War, Deus Ex: Huma Revolution, Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row 2, and so on. But then again it's all just opinions.

My current rating for Skyrim: 8.2 / 10

Review: Overkill - The Electric Age

 Overkill have always been one of those thrash bands that to me, never released any bad albums. Sure there were a few that obviously wasn't as good as the others, but never an album I felt "what the fuck is this shit?" about. Though it seems like the band had their peek during the eighties and early nineties, like most thrash bands, Overkill seem to have gotten a new peek in recent years. Ironbound was a bomb that got dropped in 2010, a thrash album every true fan of the genre had wanted for a long time. The Electric Age is no exception two years later as the band is in the middle of a nuclear war, it seems!

Since its release I've had the time to go through it a bunch of times and it sure is one solid piece of metal music! While unfortunately most other big thrash bands today put out mediocre albums, Overkill really do the opposite. I think it shows in albums sales / popularity as well. When the album kicks in with "Come And Get It" my first thought was "is this Megadeth?". It sounds like something Megadeth should've done, but did not. It's a very great opening track that shows what this album is like. After the Megadeth-like opening the song kicks into traditional Overkill style, but the song has one more big surprise ahead! The middle section turns into a sort of marching thing reminiscent of many great eighties heavy metal bands. Throughout the whole album there actually is an Iron Maiden-feel in particular songs, so think classic Overkill meets Megadeth cirka 2007-2009 meets Iron Maiden. Next song to go is the lead single "Electric Rattlesnake" - a catchy, fun, and to-be live staple kind of tune. As the album continues we hear "Black Daze", a mid-paced song that also is very catchy and reminds me a little of Megadeth's "In My Darkest Hour". "Drop The Hammer Down" is a given to-be fan favorite and the ending track "Good Night" stands for this album's most "ballad" like tune, which is a very common and great thing Overkill have on most of their albums. It's very catchy and I sure only hope the song doesn't point at that this could be the last Overkill album. In between all these stick-outs there are some very solid and good Overkill album, though maybe not of lead single-caliber?

The album sound continues in a similar vein to Ironbound but the songs are overall shorter and not as progressive. Think that this is a stripped-down, more straight to the point Ironbound version and I think you've got the idea. I think this was a great move by the band as another "that" progressive album maybe wouldn't have matched its predecessor. Instead Overkill take the energy and quality of Ironbound and put it into a more "classic Overkill album" style.

In conclusion this album was both very surprising and not. It was surprising that the band managed to do an equally good album after the awesome Ironbound, but at the same time it's not surprising as I imagine that the band got really fired up by the great response Ironbound got. In the end this album shows that Overkill are in a new peek in their career and I feel a need to mosh and drink beer while listening to it. I raise my fist in honor of Overkill for succeeding once again, with hope that there will be more albums of this caliber in the near future!

I feel pretty secure when I say that Overkill will most likely be the winners in 2012!

Final rating: 9.5/10

Listen to album for free with Spotify! Listening with Spotify gives the band money while it's free for you!

Gears Of War - A personal look-back

                      Some of the gears in the third installment.

I'm a big fan of the Gears of war-games. They're lots of fun, deep in story, have awesome soundtracks, characters, gameplay, just everything! I recently bought the last one (of this saga anyway), the third, about a month ago. Played it some hours here and there for a couple of days until I was done. I have to say, after having played through all three of them, the one thing about this series that surprise me the most is that it got better with each game. I think that's kinda rare among games, that they only get better and better? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not THAT much of a gaming nerd really, I just play now and then when I'm bored and so on. But anyway. When I bought and played through the first one (in 2009) I thought it was fun, epic and quite varying (I hate games where you do the same fucking thing over and over again. Examples: Assassins Creed (1, the others were much better), Crackdown, etc.).

Maybe a year later, my ex (miss you...) bought me the second GoW and while I have forgot much of it (only played it through once so far), I do remember that I liked it even better than the first one. I do think I even liked it quite a bit more, to be precise. The one thing I hated with the first one was that there were THREE fucking beserkers. Well, I was fucking happy that they were sleeping or doing homo-erotic lesbian shit or whatever during the second, because there were no beserkers in it. As I said, I've forgotten much from the second by now, so I can't really remember what / if there was anything in compensation for the beserkers.

Well, now 1,5 years later I got on with the third and last one. It's the last game, but I've heard rumors (or fact, don't remember, too fucking lazy to look it up again) that there will be new GoW-games, just another story, characters and so on. If this is the case, and I can well imagine that since GoW brings in a lotta cash, I'd think it'd be cool if they showed how it all started. Maybe be playing as Dizzy or someone in his squad when they were young, I don't know. It would be cool, but that's one of my opinions and potential requests. Anyway back to the third game now. I think there were more gears in this that were close to you during missions compared to the other installments. As you see in the top picture, that are nine gears, and that's excluding Dizzy and that general or whatever he is and his name was (don't remember...). The third is also best story-wise among the games if you ask me. I really liked it, it was good action and the environments were also nicer, I think. Well, it's a destroyed world in decay, but still it's an environment and the third one's got the nicest. I also think there are more weapons which, of course, is always cool like hellfire. Liked the ending too, yap yap yap.

In conclusion: one of the best game-series I've ever seen and certainly one of the best I've personally played. I'm very happy that each game got better and better and I hope too see a new Gears-saga take form in the future. I sure as hell will play them all.

Gears of War:       8.5/10
Gears of War 2:    9/10
Gears of War 3:    9.5/10

            Clayton Carmine (GoW 3), one of my fave characters. Bad-ass dude.