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

My favorite drummers (hard rock / metal)

I thought I should share my personal favorite drummers as well as biggest influences. I'm a drummer myself so this is based on personal influence. I'm not a fan of today's drummers. I don't know if it's all the pro-tools and so on, or if they really just are that secure. I hate machine-drummers! What's the point of having a drummer, instead of a simple drum machine that doesn't cost any members' fees, if he just sounds like a machine? That is beyond me! Way too many drummers today seem to focus on skill, perfection and speed, while competing with every other drummer in the world about who is the best. This to me has made drumming today really soulless, uninspired and plain boring. "Yeah, cool dude you can play like a machine" but it sounds fucking stiff, boring and soulless. One thing I can say is to all the Lars Ulrich haters and trolls: at least he's real.

I'm kinda into a lot of death metal at the moment, and it's the old school stuff. Mainly the Swedish scene at the moment and the Stockholm sound (never were a big fan of the ultra-melodic Gothenburg sound nor its bands). I don't think there's a guitar sound that I like more than the buzzsaw sound Dismember, Entombed / Nihilist, Carnage and Grave had. One thing I also like is the drumming! It's kick-ass, raw, and very alive! Not like a fucking machine! It's sounds like a human who is solid-as-rock yet has got very much heart in it. If I listen to for instance Vader today (a buddy of mine really likes them and is trying to hook me into them as well), I just can't stand 'em for more than a few tunes - the drumming sounds so fucking dead. It's just pure drum-wankery. I generally hate blast-beats because of modern drummers, but I do like blast-beats in Carcass, for instance. Why? It simply sounds good, dynamic.

So after preaching my bullshit here, and I don't say any drummers of today are bad. Obviously they have a lot of skill, but they forgot to put any heart into it. So here are some of my favorite drummers of all time:

Gene Hoglan - Before you start: I know he's the "atomic clock" and all, but back in the day when he bashed skins in Dark Angel, he sounded like a fucking tank in-battle on the drums, making Dave Lombardo on "Reign In Blood" sound like just another soldier rather than a general.

Fred Estby - A death metal legend, drummer and song-writer from the Swedish legends Dismember, my favorite death metal band. I'm glad this guy never played guitar in that band, because his drumming is so kick-ass it makes me headbang and air-drum like a maniac!

Nicke Andersson - Another Swedish legend, both in death metal and hard rock / rock 'n' roll music. To me he's the old Entombed drummer, to others he's the main man in the Hellacopters. He didn't kick ass on drums in that band, however, in Entombed he certainly did. Like Fred Estby, a very alive drummer. Entombed's first two albums show great extreme metal drumming.

Ken Owen - The drummer from U.K. legends Carcass. This guy was drumming grindcore and death metal in their beginnings and is in that way a pioneer. Too bad drummers after him didn't follow his feel when doing blast-beats. It's really sad that the guy can't play no more. Let's hope he gets better and some day will drum again.

Chuck Biscuits - Probably my very favorite drummer at the moment. The guy is mostly known for his time with Danzig, but also punk acts like D.O.A. He has one of the smallest drum kits in heavy metal music, particularly for that time. Yet he sounded bigger than any one else. Like an animal behind the kit, he is what drumming is about, at least to me.

Sons of Anarchy is back!

I'm a pretty big fan of Sons of Anarchy. I love motorcycles, the chopper style and not the sports bike kind. I love Rockstar Games' "The Lost and Damned" installment in the Grand Theft Auto-series. Nothing to say really other than it's a very suitable show for me. I totally loved season one and two, but with season three I unfortunately kinda felt the quality of the show decreased. This continued with season four, though I don't know which of s.3 and 4 I liked the least. I'm also not completely sure why I didn't like these seasons as much, but a friend and myself both agreed about these seasons not being as good. With season three I ultimately got pretty tired of the whole Abel thing, that they lost him over and over again, as well as only shit after shit happening to Samcro. In season four it definitely was that way too much shit just kept coming to them, over and over again.

So where am I going with all this? Well, I watched the season five premiere. A while back I saw some behind-the-scenes footage for season five, and they really made it sounding promising. I got some hope back that season five might be more like the first two seasons, which I'd definitely like to see now. So now, after watching the s.5 premiere, I was really surprised! I think it's gotta be the best episode since sometime in season two, for sure! It was such a great episode, that my hope really got pumped up for the rest of season five. Now the only thing that can tell how it all will end up, is time, and I definitely feel like I can spend more time finding out. I've read rumors, or fact, I don't know actually, that SoA is planned for a total of seven seasons. After s. 3 and 4 I kind of wanted it to just end with season five, but if this season shows to be like the first two, or hopefully even better, I'd really like to see the show continue for more seasons.

The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible, written by Anton Szandor LaVey a.k.a. "The Black Pope", founder of the Church of Satan. This is some good readin'.

The Gathering

Here's The Gathering and some of my favorite tunes by them! Enjoy!

This was the first song I heard and I instantly fell in love with her voice.

This is probably my favorite song by them. It's just so dark and haunting.

This is one of their most famous songs and more of a live-party-song, to me at least.

This is another fave of mine. I really like her melody she uses around the music in this one.

This is an amazing one that focuses more on the band for most part, but when Anneke starts singing around half-way through, it's like an angel started singing. Amazing.

What's crackin' at the moment.

As of this moment, week, or whatever, the bands that I really listen to right now are:  
The Doors 
Danzig
U2 
Type O Negative 
Septic Flesh 
Life of Agony 
Rotting Christ 
Aphex Twin

and a lot of other electronic artists.

I don't really now how to describe this mix, but when I'm in a calm(er) mood I'm really listening to The Doors and U2. Two bands with beautiful music, in my opinion. When I'm in a dark / more deppressed mode it's definitely Type O and Life of Agony. Septic and Rotting are kind of new to me, so it's interesting and I really like their Greek metal style. Electronic stuff is for variation and I really like some kinds of electronic music, especially with analogue synthesizers. Danzig is probably the most listened right now. I've always been a huge fan since I discovered them. Glenn Danzig is one great songwriter and he has a special sound. I like every album he's done solo, as well as some of the Misfits and Samhain stuff (and the Black Aria albums), but like most other people I prefer the first four Danzig albums. I do, however, really like the 6:66 Satan's Child album, which to me is equally as good as Danzig 4.

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!