Year in Review: Best Songs of the Year.

In addition to the best albums of the year, here are the best songs I’ve found this year:

10. Acyl’s “Ungratefulness” from Algebra

9. Anathema’s “Untouchable, Parts I and II” from Weather Systems

8. Barren Earth’s “Passing of the Crimson Shadows” from The Devil’s Resolve

7. Bastard Sapling’s “Beyond the Void of Life” from Dragged from Our Restless Trance

6. Beardfish’s “This Matter of Mine” from The Void

5. Devin Townsend Project’s “Grace” from Epicloud

4. Alcest’s “Autre Temps” from Les Voyages de l’Ame

3. Beardfish’s “Ludvig & Sverker” from The Void

2. Ihsahn’s “The Eagle and the Snake” from Eremita

And the best song is probably from one of the worst albums from the entire year.  It is like this band took all the emotions and thoughts for this one song and then were unable to muster the energy to go further due to the drain and power of this single song.

1. Swallow, the Sun’s “Emerald Forest and the Blackbird” from Emerald Forest and the Blackbird.”

 

A Year in Review: Top Music that This Bureaucrat Heard this Year.

These are the top overall albums I listened to over the previous year.  I don’t rate by points or comparison.  I rate this way, because these are the albums to which I listened the most, enjoyed, and those to which I felt emotional or creative response.  Music is something for me that helps my creativity get started, and helps my thoughts start.  So, without further ado, here’s the list:

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Katatonia – Dead End Kings: Released in September 2012, this was the first album that I truly enjoyed   from this Swedish band.  In my opinion, it was a solid follow up that progressed the previous album “Night is the New Day.”  This album offers a more mature look at their darkly chosen topics, such as loneliness, loss, and contemplation.  I actually enjoyed this album as much as Opeth’s Heritage (which I love).

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Acyl – Algebra: I hate Djent.  I find it muddled, confusing, and excuse to use primarily charted rhythms with very little progressive movement in its structure. However, these French Tunisians nailed it on this album.  The use of North African chanting with Djent was perfect and really made me feel the tribal bent of what Djent is supposed to be.  Amazing album that is politically evocative and very tied to the band’s heritage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Enochian Theory – …And All It Entails: Warning – this is not metal.  This is a progressive rock band from England whose skill and focus build songs well through their album.  I can’t tell you which is my favorite song off it, but I can tell you it was like listening to a collection of poems to found that were well written and well performed.  They are of a similar vein to Porcupine Tree and Anathema, but their album was better than Anathema’s as I felt it carried more emotional weight and power behind it.

 

 

 

 

 

7. Enslaved – RIITIIR: This is the first album from Enslaved that I understood.  I really enjoyed the music, the perform, the power, and folklore behind the band.  It feels very rooted in the Norwegian scene, but at the same time feels apart from it and pushing the band’s sound forward.  I love growled call and response that is not good cop/bad cop.  They did a great job of using that on this album.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Ne Obliviscaris – Portal of I: A bombastic mixture of Ihsahn/Emperor style black metal, Opeth melodic progression, violins, and power metal.  This Australian band’s release had me reeling with their first release.  I loved the thoughts this album brought to me when listening to it. If there was anyway in which to make a statement on your first approach, then damn it, these guys did it.  And other metal bands, looking to make a name for themselves, should take notes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Obsidian Kingdom – Mantiis: I have been aware of this Spanish band for sometime now (I love to follow band camp/youtube to find new music from independent bands) and I had enjoyed their earlier works, but this album takes them beyond Death and Black into a truly unique and powerful sound.  Some of the songs on the album would be movements within songs for other bands, for these guys, they define where they see that song’s emotions developing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Devin Townsend Project – Epicloud: This album is just so damned happy, is filled with poppy, hook filled rock, but damn it, it’s one of his most progressive albums!  Yes, it’s Devin Townsend, and it has its cheesy movements, but some of the emotional swings on this album have made me laugh aloud or brought tears to my eyes.  Anneke Von Giersberegen’s performance on this album actually quiets some of Devin’s cheesiest moments.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Ihsahn – Eremita: Like all of Ihsahn’s solo works, listening to this album is listening to a philosophical examination of a theme.  In this case, it is regard whether the misanthrope should return to society or not.  The approaches that he took on this album pulled him further into progressive rock and even took him into using funk, hooky cock rock riffs, pop, and other strangeness for him.  An amazing, soulful performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Beardfish – The Void: This was the first album I’d ever heard from this Swedish Progressive Rock group.  It was perfect in nearly every way, in my opinion, using rock, metal, operatic, and classical approaches.  Songs on this album made me reconsider what the Void really was, and what it all could mean.  Ludvig & Sverker made me cry.  Turn to Gravel made me laugh.  Great damn album.

 

 

 

 

 

1. Alcest – Les Voyages De L’Ame: To be frank, I fell in love with Darkgaze thanks to his previous album; however, it missed what Neige wanted to do with his sound: making a traditionally dark, misanthropic sound when combine with shoegaze into something positive and emotionally warm.  In this album, he did it.  He transcended the band beyond black metal’s cold plains and icy depths and made each song a cry for joy.  This was 2012’s best album in my opinion.

 

 

 

Art of the Day: It is not the end? Thank the Gods!

 

Freyja by Robin Wood

Pen/ink

I don’t know who captioned it but I felt it fit for me today 😀

 

Merry End of The World!

Bahahah

 

Apocalyptic of the Day: Happy Holidays!

It’s near the end of the year and we’re going to be taking off regular posting from now until January 3, 2013.  There will still be the occasional post here and there, including my favorite albums of the year and other random stuff.  Thanks for reading us.  We’ll see you regularly again in the new year.

 

Weekly Writing Log: In which we continued writing

Once again, I want to thank everyone that has viewed us over the past week.  I continued to work on both the Lay of Seidenbard and the game this week.  Ultimately, I think I’ve made solid progress and will have sent a draft to a friend for review of the Lay of Seidenbard’s first quarter or third or so.  Enjoy your week as we continue to participate in the holiday season.

 

Diurnal Aural Experiences: Opeth’s Night and the Silent Water from The Roundhouse Tapes

I’ve listened to this song so many times and each time I hear the initial scream I still have tears come to my eyes.

 

Art of the Day: The Children

Hrothmar ab Siedenbard

Traditional art 2012: Graphite pencil

One of the twin boys of Hrothneen and Inthilara

Trahaearn ab Siedenbard

Traditional art 2012: Graphite pencil

The other twin boy of Hrothneen and Inthilara

 

Apocalyptic of the Day: In which our thoughts are muddled in the face of repeated actions.

Over the course of this year especially, but even in the course of the previous few, the occurrences at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, U.S.A. have become all too familiar.  Across the country, there have, as always, been calls to support the community, in their times of grief, askance to not politicize this event, and every form of analysis imaginable to detail the events and why they occurred.  Ultimately, as a person that tries to reason through situations and world events, I am simply sick.  My own child is of a similar age, attending a similar level of school, as those who were murdered.  The Aurora, Colorado mass murder occurred at something I very well could have been attending.

At a press conference, President Obama took the time to address the media to make a statement in which he stated, in effect, that he does not react as a president, but as a parent.  Like him, I understand the trepidation these occurrences cause, I understand the want to feel your child in your arms and hold them against you, and I understand the increased focus that you’ll put into your child.  However, as the vocal leader of the U.S., to not react as the president in a time redolent for an official reaction is mealy mouthed.  This problem is not an issue of “violence” culture or “gun” culture or “murder” culture as the mainstream media and the gun lobby has rushed to say, rather the frequency in occurrence of mass murder and the severity of the events have alarmingly increased.

In all honesty, at this point, we need to start discerning the why.  For years, I studied, when considering anthropology instead of archeology, cultural-bound syndromes and even postulated that mass murder could be a form of these.  A cultural-bound syndrome is a combination of mental and physical ailments associated with a specific society and culture and is often defined by the following criteria: 1.) defined by culture as a disease, 2.) familiarity within the culture, 3.) a complete lack of familiarity of this condition in other cultures, 4.) no empirical evidence of symptoms, and 5.) folk way treatments specifically designed to cure the individual.  Generally, mass murder occurs in the Western Industrialized World, of which the U.S., is a derivation.  It is not typically viewed as a disease or illness, but rather as a symptom of a larger mental problem.  Mass murder has a chilling familiarity within our culture, and there is a small frequency of occurrence in non-industrialized cultures.  There are no exhibitions of symptoms and treatment seems relegated to psychological approaches to assess and determine the level of public threat; however, Western Medicine is not viewed as a folkway medicine as it is backed by science.  Therefore, mass murder does not fit the classical definition of a culture-bound syndrome.

However, there is a comparable example from Malay: amok.  Amok is a particularly violent, sociopathic rage of violence that can often turn into a killing spree.  Demographically, it effects only men in the cultures where it is most prevalent and seems associated with masculinity and honor.  A good article I read years ago in a class discussed men going amok after pledging the dowry for the hand of their wife and then failing to meet the prescribed bride price. Amok is preceded by a depressive period in which the individual who “runs amok” stops tending his fields, sleeps for great periods of time, and generally gives up on the world.  Culturally, this is representative of an evil spirit entering the individuals body.  Then, the individual explodes in a fit of blind, violent rage, attempting to kill, maim, or wound everyone in his close proximity.  Because of its magical, medical, and religious connotations, amok was tolerated in the cultures in which it occurred and was even noted by the Captain James Cook when he traveled through the area.  In the U.S., we would call this going postal or blowing up.  While I have only a moderate understanding on psychology (enough to most argue it), this seems like a dissociative condition.  This seems familiar to the reports of the perpetrators of events of mass murder.

Further, we always label the possible cultures to which the perpetrator must have been party.  They are “influenced by gun culture, violence culture,” and other experiences that  tend to desensitize individuals to death by portraying a mockery or mimicry of it. This is a missed categorization and further is irresponsible.  Supposed “gun/violence” cultures are subsets of our own culture at large, meaning that a sociological understanding would typify their dynamics better than defining or attributing groups a culture.  In fact, by attributing them a culture, it legitimizes the violence!  Yet, this is a great example of what anthropology has lost according to RM Troulliot: the facility and the strength of using the word culture.  The word culture is thrown around to positively or negatively define or fracture groups.  It lessens the burden of the mainstream individuals that have no connection to this other than being a member of the perpetrator’s cohort.  It is comforting and a security blanket to define these people as of a different culture than you; however, it was your culture that included that violence/gun dialogue in which no new or meaningful statements have been made on this subject since the expiry of the last Arms Ban in the US.  This is why it is irresponsible to define these people as the “Other” in this situation, and results in the establishment of a placebo for the masses.  The ultimate meaning behind all this that there are no established “gun/violence” cultures in the US, rather they are only facets and subsets our own culture in the U.S.  We share a responsibility as members of this culture to reason and understand these problems.

I do not have the answer, but I know how I have reasoned myself to view the issue.  My point with this is to provide a statement to be incorporated in some small way into the larger dialogue of this issue and one that is based on the cultural understanding of these terrible events.  My heart is heavy today and will be as I consider this; my thoughts and love goes to each and everyone of the Newtown, Connecticut community.

 

 

Nocturnal Ruminations: Because I love this image