An update from your favorite blogger

If I am the blogger, does that make you guys the bloggees? I think that would mean that I am blogging about you, not to you. Anyhow...

Hi, and welcome to the latest edition of "an update from your favorite blogger." Every now and then, I decide that everyone who follows my blog would really enjoy it if I filled them in on a bunch of things that concern me (even though they'd probably just rather hear me rant about politics or the economy). The topics du jour are:

1) Avenged Sevenfold's new album really sucks. There are maybe 2-3 just okay songs on it. The whole album just lacks any sort of definition or groove... all the songs sound pretty much the same and don't stand out in any way. The weird thing is I don't understand why it's so bad. It's not like all of a sudden they "sold out." A7X has been pretty poppy since City of Evil came out, and even before that, some songs like Unholy Confessions and Second Heartbeat from Waking the Fallen had elements of pop-punk in them. Some might blame the album's quality (or lackthereof) on the death of their drummer, The Rev, but he actually wrote about 60% of the material for the album before his death, and his parts were recorded by the very competent Mike Portnoy.

Now that I think of it, I think Avenged Sevenfold are a victim of their own success in that they tried to much on this album to replicate the things that people liked about their old records. The guitarwork on this album is technically excellent, as always, but it's not good. The dueling lead guitars overshadow both the rythm guitar track and the bass guitar to the point where every song is like a pair of Yngwie Malmsteens stroking each other. There is hardly a memorable riff played above the 12th fret. The drumwork is mind blowingly complex, fast, and accurate, but it's not good either. One of the things I liked about The Rev (which I described in a previous post) is that he didn't just play fast and complicated stuff all the time but instead played beats that were perfectly appropriate. I'm not sure to what extent the drum parts were written before Mike Portnoy came in, so I certainly don't want to discredit The Rev, but a lot of the drumwork on this album focuses on the fast double bass beats and tom fills that are usually associated with cliché metal.

Let's hope they find their groove again for the next record and can put out something that stands up proudly next to their older stuff.

2) Speaking of music, I am back to work on my own. After a period of being very very very distracted by everything from video games, to girls, to work, to girls again, I've decided that I'm just going to put everything on hold (except work of course) and get this EP done. While I resolve my Pro Tools iLok situation (I am ordering a new one because I seem to have lost mine IN MY OWN APARTMENT) I've been seriously practicing the drums... not just dicking around but actually practicing songs with a metronome and shit. First on the list when my new iLok gets in is a new song I wrote in a rather interesting way...

I came up with the chorus while screwing around with my loop station. It's nothing special, just some backing chords with an octave bit played over it, similar to What It Is To Burn by Finch. It is pretty catchy though. The intro/verse/pre-chorus parts I actually came up with while playing the drums. So I came up with these cool beats that I like and then wrote guitar parts for them. The end result is a very heavy drum based song with a big open chorus. I like it, and I think you will too.

3) StarCraft II will be arriving at my door very very soon. This is epic. I'm not quite sure how the best way to explain this to people is. Think of like, the best thing that you've ever experienced in your entire life. Now imagine they announce a sequel. Every year, it keeps getting delayed and delayed until it seems like they're never going to make it. 11 years later, the sequel finally comes out, and it's even better than the original. The wait has been epic. The game is epic. The story is an epic of epic epicness...

...a won't be able to play it. Because if you read #2 you will know that I have committed to finishing this stupid record, even if it means not playing StarCraft II for the first month after its release. But I mean, what's a month when I've been waiting 11 years? I have all the way to 2021 until StarCraft III comes out...

4) Reading webcomics really makes me want to start my own webcomic. Although highly unlikely because of how busy I'm going to be playing StarCraft II instead of recording my music, if I did have a comic, I'm not sure what it would be about. I'm pretty sure it would be funny in one way or another though.

If you have any cool comic suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Mo out.