Oh dear, you've found the secret slime cave lair of Enforcer @ Draggian Universe where they put their awful little thoughts. Get out while you can. Established June 2024 as somewhere to put my angsty thoughts about how Falling In Reverse sucks other than the void and annoying my friends.
Enter at your own risk; this is where I put spur of the moment random nonsense, angst, and opinions to get them out of my brain. When I say slime, I mean slime. And possibly full on possession. There will be no content warnings.
The 50 most recent thoughts are being shown. A curated selection of old thoughts I thought were useful, funny, and/or interesting can be found here.
Clarity note: Timestamps on thoughts might not be accurate. I update from both my desktop and my phone. Desktop Librewolf thinks I'm on UTC, but my phone uses local time.
CD Stack #16: Lankmar - Self-Titled (Tox Records, 1995)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
I've discussed how much I dislike MetalArchives, but they're the only source on this band. However, what is there is pretty thin on the ground: they're metal of some sort, they're from Montreal, and this is their only released album. If you're wondering why I bought this, other than the baseline of "metal of some sort and probably worth 3 dollars to check out", refer to the title of track #3.
It's definitely thrash metal. Pleasant enough to listen through, but I can't say any tracks particularly stood out to me. I'm glad that I could get it properly archived and documented online.
CD Stack #15: 21st Century Arabia (Compilation, EMI Music, 2000)
Method of acquisition: Used CD store
This is a compilation of Arabic-language new wave and dance music. I know nothing about those genres and don't speak Arabic, so there's little I can say about this. I bought it because it had cute Y2K graphics and was completely nonexistent online, so I figured archiving it was worth a dollar. I'm listening to it because hey, why not? I might as well get my money's worth.
CD Stack #14: Sum 41 - Heaven X Hell (Rise Records, 2024)
Method of acquisition: Used CD store
Sum 41 is a huge Canadian band described as various flavors of punk and metal, but mostly a pop-punk / metal hybrid. They may or may not be some sort of hardcore or metalcore depending on who you ask. This album is their final release before breaking up in 2025, and it's also two albums: the first disc (Heaven) is more pop punk based; the second (Hell) is more metal.
This is personally interesting to me because if we believe I Can Explain, that's also what The Drug In Me Is You was originally going to be. In practice, the entire timeframe of that album is a mess and the TDIMIY2 concept is only documented in I Can Explain, so who knows if that ever made it out of being a twinkle in Ronnie's eye. (Long story short: the album being recorded in December 2010 and Ronnie getting out of prison on his birthday in '10 are both in FIR folklore but can't both be true.)
Also, I saw someone on Art Fight while hitlist hunting last week who had a Sum 41 stamp in their bio along with several for Falling In Reverse. (I commented on their profile, of course, and grabbed the FIR graphics for personal use.)
Heaven is standard 90s-style pop punk which you will like if you like that sort of thing. Compare Green Day, and things trying to sound like Green Day. It's at its best where it has some faster / more vaguely hardcore-like production, at which point it resembles lighter tracks from Hawthorne Heights and maybe Just Like You-era poppy FIR. (The latter also describes the lyrical sensibilities, albeit less egotistical. This is not a compliment.)
The lighter clean vocals are a bit weak, as is the production on slower songs. Radio Silence and Dopamine are the worst tracks due to said. Really, it's at its best when the songs are less than 3 minutes long. Otherwise, they overstay their welcome -- they hit my typical problem with pop punk where without hardcore or metal influence, there's little going on.
To be honest, I don't see much difference between Heaven and Hell save that the latter has more guitar solos and metallic distortion, and some sporadic attempts at "harsh" vocals. The structure is still pop punk. It reminds me a lot of Senses Fail and early Falling In Reverse, and to a lesser extent the less emo tracks from Hawthorne Heights and Atreyu. The FIR resemblance in vocal style and lyrics sticks around, which may not be a positive trait depending on who you ask.
I generally enjoyed it, but acknowledge that as alternative metal goes and even as a metal / vaguely-punk hybrid, it's pretty lackluster. Again, it's a lot like early Falling In Reverse: it makes up for generic lyrics and weak "harsh" vocal delivery (there's very little screaming in this, but it attempts some aggressive cleans in bridges) by having excellent instrumentation and mixing.
The TDIMIY style scratches a particular itch in my brain, but I wouldn't describe it as "good" at what it's trying to be -- it's just that it misses its goals in a way that becomes itself enjoyable. If you want to see what TDIMIY (and probably this) wants to be and isn't landing on, refer to Get Scared, DRUGS, early Atreyu, and/or The Used. Still, I will never object to another slime-free Ronnie substitute, although this one doesn't get the same arrogant RSD vibes since their lyrical themes are more genre-standard. Same excellent guitar solos, though.
I'd recommend Hell for FIR-like hybrid fans, and pop punk fans who want a little more edge and interesting guitar work, but not for metal-focused folks. Heaven you can skip unless you're into 90s dime-a-dozen pop punk. Sum 41 has been added to the Like FIR With Less Nonsense list, and I'll probably look into the rest of their work.
Tracks I especially liked:
Future Primitive (Heaven)
Bad Mistake (Heaven)
I Don't Need Anyone (Hell) -- probably the most FIR-like
Over The Edge (Hell)
You Wanted War (Hell) -- best guitar solo on the album
It's All Me (Hell) -- probably the heaviest. You Wanted War and It's All Me are the two most metalcore-like tracks.
Hell is worth a listen as a full album if you like FIR and their ilk; I enjoyed it all the way through.
god I'm so fucking sick of the word "dopamine" in pop-cultural context. when it isn't being used to be ableist (stop using the term "iPad kid" or similar!), it's so clear that "I know one neuroscience word for Impulsive Chemical" and that is NOT WHAT IT DOES or at least not all of it
CD Stack #13: Seaweed - Weak (Caroline Records, 1992)
Method of acquisition: Pawn shop
This album is referred to as punk and grunge by Wikipedia, but allegedly the band took on some emo and post-hardcore influences later. Which, since this is happening in the 90s, emo and post-hardcore aren't meaningfully different things from each other or necessarily from baseline hardcore. As of 1992, nothing anyone cared about was referred to as "emo" and you'd probably only know the difference between alleged "emotional hardcore" bands (who would call you homophobic slurs if you called them "emo"; genre gatekeeping and emo-bashing are and always have been prejudice with extra steps) and their regular hardcore counterparts if you looked at the liner notes.
Anyway, I'm not expecting emo influence here because Seaweed was on the wrong side of the country for anything anyone would eventually call emo to exist in 1992, but it'll be interesting to see where the "punk" and "grunge" parts intersect -- I can see it accidentally landing on something emo-like on grounds of combining punk or post-hardcore structure with grunge crunchiness and angst, and I'm wondering if that's why they got called "emo" by journalistic sources rather than any intentional subcultural alignment. Early bands are always interesting because they showcase that genre gatekeeping is a made up concept -- everyone was crossing over with everything they could get their hands on if we're talking about foundational bands, because the rules weren't set yet and never existed to begin with.
To clarify my stance, though, based on substantial historical and musical research via things other than social media: Genres are inherently fluid, but emo is a fundamentally music and performance-based concept and subculture. If what you are doing does not have punk or metal(core) elements and a degree of dark theatricality, you're just playing dress-up. Wearing black and breakup songs long predate any "emo" musical tradition, so are not sufficient on their own. It's like how an artist may wear a biker-inspired outfit for a music video, but that doesn't actually make them a biker. This is how I feel about TX2 and most "emo revival / emo rap" bands.
Also, neither "scene" ("The scene" is a shorthand for "the music scene" in punk and alternative spaces going back to at least the 80s. This is how contemporary artists, fans, and graphics use it, and it's interchangeably called emo before becoming an "aesthetic" and getting bastardized out of all musical relevance post-2014 crash. No notable "scene" bands from what I can tell, even the electronic / crunkcore ones, are anything but straight emo / metalcore aesthetically), "screamo" (used as a generic term for "emo-influenced music with screaming" including post-hardcore hybrids at least as early as 2002), nor "Midwest emo" (light alternative rock without post-hardcore influences is not emo, and I've seen plenty of bands called this that are neither emo nor Midwestern) are historically real. This concludes my blasphemous scientific findings.
If you would like to complain about this, fuck off. I'm just saying what I've observed from my assessments and research into said. I don't care if you call yourself, bands you like, or your OCs any of those things; I just think it's important for folks who fancy themselves as Edgemasters to put the music they like into historical context. Otherwise, it's way too easy for harmful ideas and misinformation to spread, especially for music and subcultures linked to marginalized communities.
The closest comparison I can make from the spreadsheet is Split Chain, but with faster and more upbeat punk production. Most songs are less than 3 minutes and quite fast, but it's not hardcore; it doesn't have the fast and compressed drumbeats or screaming. It's got the same grungy crunch, but with punkier vocals and guitar work. I can see how this has some emo syncretism; it reminds me of some of the similar 90s skater punk bands that are sometimes credited as emo progenitors. I'll probably look into the rest of Seaweed's output, especially since it's pretty small.
Tracks I liked:
Stagger
Taxing
Bill
Clean Slate
My #1 beef with French is the adjectives -- from my understanding, Spanish is at least consistent: they go after the noun, no matter what. From what I can tell, whether any given adjective goes before or after the noun in French is completely arbitrary. I've already DONE this unit in the Canadian version (there's a different slang word for "guy" -- "gars" vs. "mec") and I'm still getting questions wrong regularly on grounds of adjective ordering. If there were a rule like "the contents of one's character go before, and appearance goes after" (which is usually the case but not always) that wouldn't bother me, but there's NOTHING. I assume that modern French got infusions from languages that do both orderings and we all have to live with that, or maybe whatever dialects of Gallic Latin it started as weren't consistent.
My other beefs with French are the numbering system and an excessive number of non-pronounced vowels.
CD Stack #12: Latefallen - Bloody Kiss (Early Rising Records, 2008)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
I'm looking forward to this one because, well, look at it. It clearly wants to be Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, or possibly it wants to be whatever DIYLF wanted to be. When I got this album at the thrift store, the only documentation I could find was r/AskACanadian, that they were in an episode of Degrassi, and a profile on Soundclick containing one single, which is not on this album. Searching now, I'm finding a little more, but not the Soundclick profile.
the only aesthetic difference between this and dying is your latest fashion is that these actually are all definitely guys
What I could find is as follows:
The post from r/AskACanadian. According to this, they have 2 releases: an EP in 2003 and this album in 2008, but both are hard to find because they got removed from streaming. It seems that auto-aggregators may have reversed this, since Bloody Kiss is now on Spotify and Yewchube. They're probably from Toronto and were on an episode of Degrassi. If I had to guess, the band's official accounts ceased to exist, given the music videos' absence. There is a page on Facebook under that name, but it has no profile picture and I couldn't scroll down because I'm not logged in.
A tour in 2007, at which Latefallen accompanied some other notable emo / post-hardcore hybrids including Senses Fail, The Used, and Mr. Sex Cult himself who isn't getting assessed until everybody involved is dead.
The portfolio of a former staff member who did music videos, on which none of the videos are accessible because they got removed from streaming services. This removal is also documented by r/AskACanadian. Reddit also thinks that this guy was the lead singer, but apparently he's doing acoustic stuff now.
The Degrassi Wiki, backing up that one of their songs was on an episode.
This terribly written article from 2016, which thinks that they're some sort of metal, agrees that they're from Toronto, and states that they've been disbanded since at least the time of its writing.
A list of songs used in films from a group of snowmobile athletes (I think), which enthusiastically reviews 3 songs, shows the band's logo, and links to MySpace. Presumably this is the Canadian version of making it onto a skater playlist.
A random post on r/PostHardcore on which some commenter brought up Latefallen as a recommendation for someone who liked Pierce the Veil and Get Scared.
Their SoundClick profile, containing one song that isn't on this album. This is the same logo and also from Toronto, so probably the same band. They tag themselves with "punk", "metal", and "emo".
A list of downloadable MP3s from IDN Music, containing the same track (dated to 2005) as the Soundclick page.
So, from the sources we have, I'm pretty confident this is some sort of post-hardcore / emo / metal hybrid in the DIYLF tradition, so if it's any good, I'll probably really enjoy it. It definitely has the classical historically accurate "scene" aesthetic what with the conflation between feminine beauty and violence and black and red chiaroscuro. Unfortunately, unless that 2003 EP turns up, I'm going to have a hard time finding any more of it, and it seems that the bands they were affiliated with are folks I've already assessed. Which does bode well for their musical merits. Conscience Called In Sick has no documented tracks, no label, no nothing, so I'm not even sure where to go from here. Searching it only turns up the Fall Out Boy song that used the phrase.
I don't think "Conscience Called In Sick" exists, going through the archived website. What is documented, but doesn't seem to survive to be downloadable via Latefallen's own site, MP3s.com, or MySpace (but you could buy it for 6 dollars, which would be useful if we could time travel), is a 3-song demo in 2003 and a self-titled EP in 2005-6. So, open bounty for either of those. The self-titled EP has no surviving cover.
Also on interesting historical notes, Latefallen calls themselves "post-alternative rock" on MySpace, while also being tagged as metal. Their own site's bio uses the same "heavy alternative" wording as Soundclick. All sources point to them being a DIYLF / Senses Fail / The Used / Atreyu-esque post-hardcore / emo / metal hybrid.
I now know the tracklist of their self-titled EP, and at least one song from a demo that didn't make it onto there. These songs are as follows:
Sleep It Off (this is also on Soundclick and IDN. Downloads don't exist, but I can screen record it.)
Not So Useless (was also on Degrassi; got reuploaded to Yewchube.)
Let Me Breathe (was previewable on MySpace at the time, but that didn't get archived.)
Bent (was previewable on MySpace at the time, but that didn't get archived.)
Bottles & Hearts (Also on the album.)
Back In Place (Also on the album.)
Stale (mentioned as part of the demo on their site in 2003, but nowhere else.)
Sometime in between 2005 and 2006, the self-titled EP went from 4 to 6 songs. Not So Useless is also documented as being on Degrassi as early as 2004, so they made it into two episodes: Bloody Kiss on Heart Of Glass and Not So Useless on Back In Black.
Here's the album cover for the 2003 3-song demo. No album cover for the self-titled EP survives. This has exactly 0 reverse image search results via TinEye; Google Images thinks it's a cover from a totally unrelated song that came out 23 years later. Or from Split Chain, who is also completely unrelated but I assessed them because I saw them live so it was weird to encounter in the wild.
This is definitely an emo / post-hardcore / metal hybrid, but it's got a more metal and less "core" in its ancestry and is more predominantly melodic and guitar-focused than many. The vocal layering is also more metal than core; it doesn't do the screaming / melodic layering of many of its conspecifics, for example. There's definitely some post-hardcore / emo hybrid whininess in the main cleans (compare Get Scared, DIYLF, Pierce The Veil), but the overall structure is more alternative metal than post-hardcore or emo.
You'll probably enjoy it if you like DIYLF and its ilk, but I'd compare it more closely to something like Atreyu, Three Days Grace, Violent New Breed after Max leaves vocals, A Smile From The Trenches, or even the lighter work from Escape the Fate with Craig. It's got much more melodic alternative metal in it as opposed to the pop punk infusions of somebody like DIYLF or Get Scared, and most songs don't contain meaningful screaming at all.
Regardless, I quite enjoyed it and would recommend you listen to this album and the 2 non-album tracks we can find. Hopefully the others will turn up, but it's been 20+ years and no one's found them yet who's willing to share.
Tracks I especially liked:
Bloody Kiss
The Fly
Jealouside
Play Dirty
Back In Place
Killing Conversation
Bottles & Hearts
canada did a good job today apparently. go sports!
next game is Mexico vs. Korea who both have really cool logos
I'm vaguely considering going back here for Canada vs. Switzerland just out of curiosity and because it's kinda fun to be watching and have no idea what's going on but be able to recognize that other people are really excited about it. Since it is a national big deal, it feels relevant in a way most sports doesn't.
Some Canadian player, I don't know who, scored a "hat trick" which is good and has not happened in a long time. And possibly the bracket vs. Switzerland is related to number of goals?
"David (CAN): 3rd international hat trick (first since 2021)"
Do you care about me liveblogging my attempts to derive the world cup from a random game and first principles? Probably not, but it's enrichment.
Anyway, I think my answer to "how well is Canada actually doing at the world cup beyond hosting" is "pretty well", I think?
they did a series of cities with fan reaction recordings, but only Montreal, toronto, some arena somewhere (idk where), and Vancouver. Nothing in the Maritimes :(
I don't even know where or if the big world cup watch party near me is. Clearly not here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=volX-Wy_hSg
the mildly amusing great Canadian superstore world cup ad
per whatever guy they're interviewing, the intent of this year's world cup is to be a "national movement" for Canada, which is currently winning 6-0.
I think the game might be over. If I am understanding the commentary correctly, Canada's next match is Switzerland, and they will probably advance to the next bracket round given their winning most (all?) previous qualifiers even if they lose to Switzerland. I don't understand how the world cup works. I didn't understand the brackets on Neopets and I sure don't here.
I guess I'm watching Canada vs. Qatar. I ended up at Boston Pizza because it was open, and it wants to be vaguely sports bar like. Apparently there is a world cup game today. Evidently their attempts at being a sports bar aren't working too well given the lack of people.
The world cup's relevance in my life for the past month is roughly comparable to that of the winter Olympics, in that while it's wholly osmotic it's still weird that it's non-zero.
From my understanding, the world cup is a big deal because one of the host stadiums is in Toronto. I'm not sure how well team Canada is actually doing. I know that the world series (also Toronto) and winter Olympics were quite exciting because I get the impression that Canada doesn't win sports events that often? I'm pretty sure from my vague awareness of the Olympics in general that Canada isn't that good at the summer Olympics.
The last time I "watched" the world cup was Germany vs. Mexico in 2017. I was at a summer program at the time. The group of boys who all knew each other and spent the whole week harassing me and my best friend were busy being racist towards both teams.
I don't even care about the Neopets world cup, so, like.
It does have themed ads like the super bowl, with a nationalist flair. I wonder if its proximity to Canada Day has to do with anything? Or if they would have as many aggressively Canadian ads during years it wasn't hosting. I know rationally that everyone's history sucks, Canada is also a colonial power, and nationalism is toxic no matter what, but the aggressively Canadian ads (there's an amusing one for Great Canadian Superstore with an aggressive goose pursuing various world cup enjoyers) don't feel like they're attacking me like their US counterparts.
I suppose that is on brand for Ronnie, what with the wet burritos. (He had a meltdown about that in Albuquerque last year, which pissed off the Albuquerquians.)
I would call it localization, but uh, no. I am not the target audience for poutine. I have no valid reason to care, nor sufficient knowledge to form an opinion on the subject of fry shape.
I will say that I don't especially like curly fries in general.
Wandered out for dinner, because food supplies are low and I hadn't left the house. Also, it had gotten rather hot and stuffy in said house / apartment. Walked past an Arby's which was advertising poutine with curly fries, and the monologue proclaimed it an abomination.
Dude. We've had poutine exactly once. Even if we were actually Canadian, being vegetarian, we have no dog in this fight.
It does feel wrong, but I don't know enough about poutine to dispute it. More concerned with why I / the apparition has opinions about poutine. I've had it once and it was fine. It tastes exactly like what you would think it would. It's fries with gravy and cheese curds.
I suppose that is on brand for Ronnie, what with the wet burritos.
In and out of universe, Elaphe kinda lost the plot when she got possessed by EE, but I like the modern version because it is an absolutely valid interpretation of Team Instinct. And valid in that Spark and the rest of Canon Happy Fun Times Team Instinct would find it absolutely terrifying. Basically, Elaphe is kinda like Batman, where the whole thing for what she is and does, beyond being on some level a literal snake, is taking advantage of primal fear, and her core motivation has always been a very primal sense of territoriality. Territoriality, dominance, efficient violence (doesn't make sense to be sadistic outside the bedroom), casually licking up blood and occasionally swallowing small Pokemon whole, and taking advantage of how humans find their whole snake thing rather unnerving is a completely accurate form of trusting one's instincts and using instinct as a concept. It is also completely opposite in vibes from canon.
And at the same time, going with being basically Batman, they're by no means impulsive or random. Everything they do is calculated for efficiency, because nature is ruthless and doesn't permit anything but. Which explains why Blanche likes them. Now, they are still into sadism for its own sake and legitimately enjoy battles outside of their sector control, but now that's been cordoned off into their personal life, both in regards to what they and Blanche do in the bedroom and the ritual that Elaphe fights their way through everyone in Mystic HQ when they go to visit, even though they have a keycard and basically live there.
The logical edgy interpretation of Team Instinct is something like a classical werebeast or berserker, where someone totally loses control to primal urges in the heat of battles. Elaphe has outgrown that, so is now the other logical interpretation of someone who takes advantage of other people's instincts via a reputation of fear and intentional association with darkness, blood, snakes, etcetera.
CD Stack #11: Endo - Songs For The Restless (Columbia Records, 2003)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
According to Wikipedia, a nu metal / post-grunge hybrid, which I agree with. The heavier tracks are pretty fun. The grungier ones are less so. There are a lot of these particular hybrids from around the same time as this, and I have the same basic feelings about all of them. This one does seem slightly more metallic than some of the others, but still doesn't have a great concentration of the nu metal grime I like so probably won't get detailed assessment. If I saw another CD, I'd pick it up.
Compare: Godsmack, Shinedown, Fuel, Seether, Ill Niño, Orgy (very early)
Tracks I liked:
In Time We'll Fall
Madness
Enemy
Shame
Ruckus (probably overall favorite)
CD Stack #10: Metal Ostentation VI (Compilation, Enclave Productions, 2005)
Method of acquisition: Don't remember. Thrift store, I think?
It's a metal compilation, that appears to be mostly European. That's all I really needed to know in order to pick it up, and that's all I know going in. It has no online documentation whatsoever outside of me. I don't know if any of the bands on here contain neo-Nazis or murderers, because none of them are documented well enough for that. A few of them have "excessively reliant on primary sources and notability questionable" Wikipedia pages, but most are only documented by MetalArchives if that. Most seem to have ceased to exist in the 2000s and don't even have self-made socials. So, even if they are horrible, they're tiny and irrelevant enough that I don't think it matters.
Along with personal enjoyment and my divine jurisdiction over edgy vibes, I rate compilations in my genre range with the following considerations:
Do they feel cohesive? I should be able to understand why these artists are all on the same CD. There aren't any songs on this CD that made me think "why is this here?", although I might not be the best example since you know how I feel about genre gatekeeping. Some tracks were definitely harder and more guttural than others, but I didn't feel any real whiplash in mood even with changes in style.
Do the songs feel distinct from each other? If it's a genre or era compilation CD, does it have a good degree of range? Yes, I'd say so. It's laid out such that no two songs of the same style are next to each other, and seems to have a wide overall range of styles within the metal umbrella.
Would this be a good "combo platter" introduction for someone trying to decide if they like the genre? I'd say so in terms of style, although I'd say that (a) if I was introducing someone to the genre as a whole, I'd go with a compilation whose artists they can actually, you know, FIND and (b) at least the first half of this CD does trend towards the harder and more guttural end; I'd probably lead with something with something more accessible (or shuffle this CD, since its leading tracks may give the wrong impression if listened to in order). Still, there's a wide range of styles, themes, and degrees of brutality on this disc, while they all share the hard to pin down metal Vibes.
Would someone who was already a dedicated genre fan get something useful out of it? Seeing as the majority of these bands, and this CD itself, aren't documented online, almost certainly. Especially if you're in North America, since this compilation doesn't contain any bands based in the US, UK, or Australia. The simple fact that most of these bands don't exist online means that unless you were there and plugged in when this compilation came out in 2005, there's going to be at least one artist on it who's new to you.
Overall, I think this is an excellent compilation. You're not going to find it anywhere but my web archive, but I ripped and uploaded it, so if you like metal, you've got no excuse not to listen to it.
Tracks I liked:
Endymaeria - Realm of Betrayal
End My Sorrow - Broken
Dark Deception - Of Heaven's Lava
Aeon Vortex - Oxidizing World
Melancolia - The Dark Reflection Of Your Soul
Estrepito - Desert Place
CD Stack #9: Arlibido - All The World's America (turtlemusik, 2000)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
Arlibido is poorly documented, but seems to be punk or alternative of some sort. They're from Halifax, based on this Reddit post. The other documentation of their existence is this adorable Comic Sans-overusing website, a Medium interview with some irrelevant punk guy also from Halifax who mentions them as an influence, and that the Dawson's Creek wiki (and a Geocities site) says that one of their songs was in an episode. A band by the same name posted some politically-themed songs to Facebook in 2025; I'm not sure if they're the same entity or meaningfully share personnel.
This album has a weird, not quite on-key vocal style I don't especially like. I'm not sure what accent it's trying to be. I don't think it sounds like the East Coast Canada accent, at least not the version in No Funswick. It feels like they're trying to imitate Green Day but not landing. I really started noticing it on Nervous. Along with the obvious Green Day comparison, it reminds me vocally and production-wise of Simple Plan, except not as fast and without the vague emo elements.
It's standard, mediocre 90s pop punk. People who like this sort of thing will find this to be the sort of thing they like.
Tracks I liked:
Nostradamus
Unchained Melody
CD Stack #8: deadmau5 - Album Title Goes Here (Mau5trap Recordings, 2012)
Method of acquisition: Vinyl expo
I really like Professional Griefers, and I liked Ghosts N Stuff back in 2019. That's the sum total of experience with deadmau5 I have. Outside of one collab with Gerard Way, I can't really describe this guy as scenemo canon, since his work lacks even Skrillex's metal(core) influences. But I figured that since one of the tracks on this album has been among my mainstays for 7 years, it might be interesting to put in context. I'm unlikely to do further assessment because ever since my rave phase, I've known that I find post-2014 scene crash EDM rather dull.
I've said in regards to pure thrash metal that if a song is going to be more than 5 minutes long, it needs to have enough going on to justify that runtime. These don't. They're acceptable background music to play Neopets to, but that's all they are. Frankly, other than Professional Griefers, I find this rather dull. Professional Griefers has both grimier and "harder" / more compressed production, which I like, and also has actual lyrics and stuff happening in it. There's a sense of progression which the long, super-repetitive tracks elsewhere on this album lack.
I liked The Fine Line Between Love And Hate (Distorted Reality), which is somewhat trance-like, because it has edgy lyrics and some more intense production. Stuff happens in it. I like hardcore techno because it has breakdowns and again, more intense production. I like 90s / 2000s Eurodance and I'm not totally sure why other than Nightcore being the first thing I was exposed to when I became capable of forming my own tastes and figured out the Internet existed outside of classes and Neopets.
Eurodance, hardcore, and songs with lyrics command your attention. You can use them as background noise, but they still feel like you're listening to, you know, songs. This feels like tracks from a video game. It's background music. You're not supposed to think about it, because if you do, you notice that it's 6 minutes of the same single-digit number of notes, and that's just not very enjoyable.
Professional Griefers is fun. By virtue of Gerard Way's presence, it's a pretty fun hybrid that borders on electronicore. The rest of this album doesn't feel like it was intended to be consciously listened to. I guess if you like steady, repetitive beats for work music and want something that won't distract you, this would work for that? But I can't really recommend it as a work of music or art. Nothing really happens in it.
Honestly, some of the tracks here (e.g. Maths and Take Care Of The Proper Paperwork) kinda frustrated me, because my hardcore sensibilities were EXPECTING a breakdown or a drop or something to happen after the buildup...and then it didn't and was just more of the same. As I crudely but accurately described Popular Monster (2024), it feels like it's pulling out right when things are about to get good. Which is just frustrating and unsatisfying. If there's a buildup of intensity, it needs to be released. Onanism is a fun word (and "pulling out when it's about to get good" is the problem with Onan textually, not masturbation).
I guess if I had to pick favorites other than Professional Griefers, Maths and Proper Paperwork are the closest to my production sensibilities, but I didn't find anything here all that interesting. Failbait is also reasonably fun; there's a certain aggression to it and the hybrid production makes it more compelling than the pure repetitive EDM.
I've known I don't really like modern EDM since around 2016, and that hasn't changed. Good to know.
Got woken up by the brain hitting the holodeck override on unpleasant dreams which i don't remember, but seemed to be of the trauma variety and scored to 2018 Nightcore Hell.
I have no goddamned idea WHY this is relevant. I haven't encountered any triggering stimuli that I know of recently.
CD Stack #7: Hardcore For The Headstrong: The New Testament (Compilation, Moonshine Creative Media, 2001)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
I had no idea when I got this CD if it was "hardcore" as in punk, techno, or hip-hop. I picked it up because it was a dollar and I figured it would be a fun time regardless. It's the techno kind, which I have very limited experience with: I listened to some happy and UK hardcore during my rave music phase (2015-17) but didn't really pursue it or investigate it beyond what Soundcloud showed me and DJ S3RL and Eufeion's entire findable discographies. Its main impact on me was being a gateway drug to emo-adjacent edge by way of Nightcore. So, I don't have much to say about this in terms of genre canon, but I do generally like fast electronic music and it's got edgy cover art and titles? Also, apparently the guy who mixed this (Omar Santana) is still active which is nice.
Anyway, I can't say much about it as hardcore techno, but I enjoyed it. I don't see a need to look into the rest of this guy's work, though, much as I've felt about previous electronic CDs. The tracks kinda blend together, but it's a continuous mix so they're supposed to. Despite the edgy titles, there's very few words in these and they aren't that different from each other in terms of vibes. It's quite repetitive, but that's how rave music works, and it made it good background music while drawing.
Good to know that my experience with a subset of hardcore techno is sufficient to understand its conventions, because I didn't feel surprised or blindsided by anything going on here. The closest track comparison I can make from my rave phase days is Dougal & Gammer - Snakebite, save that these are less melodic. (You get 3 guesses for why I got attached to that song specifically, and the first 2 don't count.)
Tracks I enjoyed:
Cold Get Stupid
Hardcore Eternal
CD Stack #6: Divine Heresy - Bleed The Fifth (Century Media, 2007)
Method of acquisition: McKay's (by way of mom)
My mom got me this CD because it looked vaguely metal-like. Wikipedia calls it metalcore, groove, and technical death metal. They nominally reformed in 2022, but haven't actually released anything since 2009.
Compare Trivium's harder tracks (e.g. Down From The Sky), Sylosis (but with more metalcore breakdowns), and Godsmack (for their more groove metal vocals). There's not that much death in it, but it's overall quite pleasant metalcore with thrash metal elements and solid lyrical themes. TBH, the only song with notable groovy elements is Closure; I wouldn't call them groove metal if they hadn't been externally classified as such.
Tracks I enjoyed:
Failed Creation
Savior Self
Rise Of The Scorned
CD Stack #5: Sugar Ray - 14:59 (Atlantic Records, 1999)
Method of acquisition: Thrift store
Unsure what to expect from this one. Wikipedia says that reviewers called it a bunch of disparate rock subgenres which don't really go together, but average out to some sort of punk. It'll be interesting to see how much genre blending it actually does, or if it's in a category I've also seen: a band gets called a bunch of different genres, none of which they are, in order to either make them sound cooler and more innovative than they really are or using the terms as derogatory labels (emo, nu metal, and metalcore all get used for this, hence why I don't trust Wikipedia or MetalArchives' lists worth shit for anything but "this is probably punk or metal of some sort"). Or it could be a complete incoherent mess.
Upon listening to it, I'm leaning on "trying to make it sound cooler than it actually is". I'm reminded of the marketing for Fame On Fire. Anyway, this is perfectly serviceable pop punk. It resembles early Green Day (Nimrod, Warning) at its best, and some tracks have light vaguely metallic post-grunge elements (e.g. Shinedown, Staind, Fuel), but most of the time, it's delivering standard poppy work, except when it has vague hip-hop or pseudo-reggae interludes that accomplish nothing other than feeling vaguely culturally uncomfortable and reminding you that this is from the 90s. Compare All-American Rejects. I don't really see where all the claimed metal influences are.
Tracks I enjoyed:
Personal Space Invader
Aim For Me
Burning Dog (probably favorite overall)
Glory
CD Stack #4: Korn - Take A Look In The Mirror (Sony, 2003)
Method of acquisition: Vinyl expo
The advantage of bands like Korn who've essentially maintained a consistent style over their entire careers is that you can pull out any song or album and be confident you'll probably like it if you like other parts of their work. The disadvantage is that there's not much you can say about individual albums.
I'm not enough of a connoisseur of Korn specifically to give much detail, although I will say that this one seems somewhat "harder" than the work before it. There's more traditional metal screaming, and it's focusing more on guitar work than record scratches and weird noises. I also think it's got fewer absurd / horny songs than previous Korn albums.
I think this might be my favorite Korn album of the ones I've listened to thus far, since it's keeping the grimy industrial vocal work and production values I like, but has more metal elements and better lyrics. It's not that I don't like 90s Korn, but the monkey noises and gross attempts at being horny don't go well with the intended tone.
Tracks I especially enjoyed:
the whole album is quite good and you should just listen to it
Right Now
Break Some Off (new to me)
Here It Comes Again (new to me)
Did My Time
Everything I've Known (new to me)
Play Me (new to me)
Alive (new to me)
Let's Do This Now (new to me, probably my single overall favorite)
CD Stack #3: Hoopsnakes - Self-Titled (Mouthpiece Records, 1988-89. Reprinted in 96?)
Method of acquisition: McKay's (by way of mom)
I'll listen to anything once, unless it's egregiously horrible morally.
My mom got this for me at McKay's because it had a snake on it. Online sources think they're blues rock. I would agree with that. It definitely has palpable blues and classic rock influences, and I'm not especially interested in either of those things.
It seems technically competent, but I don't feel much about it either way. The songs are just long enough to overstay their welcome, there's little of interest going on musically or lyrically, and they're too slow and/or not aggressive enough for my taste.
The album cover is quite cute, though. The liner notes also have a section for hoopsnake-related folklore, so I'll be keeping them. Just not the CD.
"Favorite" track:
CD Stack #2: Korn - Self-Titled (Sony, 1994)
Method of acquisition: Vinyl expo
Like some of the other bands from my 2019-discovery nu metal wave, Korn hasn't gotten dedicated assessment due to huge output and dubious scenemo canonicity. However, like Slipknot and Linkin Park, their output is pretty much universally a fun time so I will pick up CDs when I see them. And I've managed to get a pretty good chunk of their output from used CDs.
I was already familiar with some of the tracks here from the greatest hits album I got at a used store a few years back, but most of it's new to me. Linkin Park beats them on raw angst, but I'd say Korn is probably the slimiest of the big nu metal canon on grounds of all their grimy industrial noises and general vocal style. I can't define Slime as a musical concept, but I know it when I see it, and it's not a derogatory label because I am also somewhat slimy.
The most eloquent description I can give is whether it appeals when I'm an RSD-laden nasty boy and evokes that vibe in a way that turns it into fun Edge, which most of Korn's output (especially the earliest and grimiest with the weird little noises) does.
Favorites:
Ball Tongue (new to me)
Clown
Divine (new to me)
Faget (new to me)
Lies (new to me)
CD stack #1: Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (Warner Records, 2000)
Method of acquisition: Vinyl expo
An obvious classic, of which I'm already very familiar with about half of the tracks from vintage 2019 streaming-recommended angst, but had never listened to in full. (Linkin Park hasn't gotten full assessment due to huge output and dubious scenemo canonicity outside of a small number of songs which I already knew.)
It's Linkin Park. I don't need to describe it to you or explain why it's good. Everything I said stylistically about Meteora applies.
Favorites:
Points of Authority (new to me)
Runaway
By Myself (new to me)
A Place For My Head
What's up, friends and alibis? The Great Debloat is concluded, so that means new assessments are resuming. Starting with a big stack of CDs that I've gotten between winter break and now, with a wide range of levels of documentation and everything else. Each album will get its own post here, which will be copied to the CD Collection if I decide to keep the disk.
I'm gonna be sticking these into WheelOfNames and drawing at random so as to make the selection as fair as possible and ideally, avoid having CDs that are too similar right next to each other.
CDs that didn't have good official uploads online have been uploaded to Web Archive for your enjoyment if you'd like to listen along. Everybody else, you can find on the streaming service of your choice, or at least Yewchube / proxies thereof.
The List:
Arlibido - All The World's America
deadmau5 - Album Title Goes Here
Divine Heresy - Bleed The Fifth
Endo - Songs For The Restless
Falling Up - Crashings
Hoopsnakes - Self-Titled 1989 (uploaded to web archive)
Korn - Self-Titled 1994
Korn - Take A Look In The Mirror
Lankmar - Self-Titled 1995 (uploaded to Web Archive)
Latefallen - Bloody Kiss
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
Paramore - Riot
Seaweed - Weak
Sugar Ray - 14:59
Sum 41 - Heaven X Hell
Various Artists - 21st Century Arabia (uploaded to Web Archive)
Various Artists - Hardcore For The Headstrong: The New Testament
Various Artists - Metal Ostentation VI (uploaded to Web Archive)
oh no oh fuck the trans hissi and dark fantasy mystery capsule are both super hot
...if color's returned to Neopia, why are we still volunteering at the hospital? physical injuries?
sick of the internet but too tired and hot to be a tangible creature
(i mean temperature but also i'm too sexy for having a body)
a low growl, not aggressive but exhausted, sounding wet with slime
psa that apparently royal road is based in Israel. I did not know this until I set up an account yesterday. I don't have an account anymore. I don't feel guilty over reading stuff that is only hosted there, but I will not be making an account and they are now strict blocked on AdNauseam.
just out of crisis mode enough to realize how desperately lonely we are WOO
i've also got lik3 three mana points remaining
considered joining some new webrings but gods i don't want to send emails and people are shit
Flight Rising anniversary is cute, but ultimately, I like two kinds of games: glimmer and gloom. And I'm considering losing the glimmer. (I also play mahjong sometimes when I need something to do with my hands during tattoo appointments etcetera.)
"Get a VPS and self-host it", because obviously everyone has more than one computer, at least one of which can be constantly Internet connected and on, and has control over their router. (Which if you live in a rental or shared building you probably don't.) If you can't do this financially or technologically, you don't deserve privacy.
Datamined Go Fest 2026 spoilers below. These texts will be added to the archives once Go Fest Copenhagen and Global are over.
This is pretty standard gameplay stuff, but hearing it in each team leader's voice is pretty amusing. Candela craves violence and would totally take on the thousands-of-players Mega Mewtwo raids by herself. I also can't read her bringing Ponyta, when we know she canonically has stronger Pokemon, as anything but condescending.
Here's the question: are they trying to protect Mewtwo from Team GO Rocket, or the other way around? The outcome of them having it would be catastrophic, but for whom?
this would be a scrolling div but it was too long and thoughts.page server-errored it, so here's a text file
Dabbing got associated with Team Instinct in 2016 as an extension of the "Team Instinct are stoners" joke. Every Instinct player on Facebook, at least, got sick of it by the end of the year.
I, unfortunately, continued to dab until well into 2018 when Team Instinct got conflated with my dysphoria issues because I thought I could "reclaim" it.
By the time it appeared in Fortnite, it was already discredited because it had been so overused just about everywhere in 2016.
spark hated the forced dabbing in 2019 and he definitely hates it even more now
despite how I don't play Pokemon Go anymore, Team Instinct / Zapdos is still an incontrovertible part of myself -- I would get a tattoo of a Zapdos if I could come up with a good design, but I can't really draw birds...
canon team instinct is still character assassination. one day I'll write a blog post about what incarnating Instinct / being a Zapdos means to me but today isn't that day
again with the reused 3D models, and a meme that most of team instinct from what I can tell got sick of by end of year 2016
How IFRAMEs work: yo dawg I heard you like websites so I put a website in your website so you can scroll while you scroll
Moved into an interim apartment before I will move to the house with the aforementioned lesbian with a boa constrictor on the 15th. Got offered cookies without prompting and help getting my stuff out of the previous rental and into my room. The burning question, which I know is impolite to ask and possibly a lingering trauma response on my part, is "WE JUST MET WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NICE TO ME".
Even if it is eugenics in the form of "people will use 'AI' companions instead of having kids", that wouldn't even work as intended. The people who would give themselves fake children are folks with access to birth control, the awareness that those apps exist and/or money to pay for them, and fast Internet, read, rich white people. The people you don't want to exist are the same people your products exclude, so if the intent of your products is to replace human reproduction, then people you don't like will be the only ones reproducing.
Even if you're not training humans to do tasks because Elon Musk and his pedophile friends and their chatbots are doing that, they still need to eat / drink, and that quantity isn't going to go down. The relevant number would be how much water / food / energy an individual adult, already trained human uses, which is lower than either a restaurant or a data center.
No one who uses or enables "generative" "AI" deserves to live.
Even if "AI" didn't have the massive energy concerns, it would still be morally reprehensible on account of being funded and developed by the world's worst human beings with the express intent of funneling all information through them, because actual art / writing / research / software may contain things they don't like.
Either that or it's a complete deflection logical fallacy, because the only way "AI is sustainable because it uses less water than raising a human to adulthood" makes any sense is if the number / rate of newly produced humans will be reduced in favor of bullshit generators, which there is no version of that which isn't morally reprehensible and/or nonsensical.
the implication of that argument is that openai intends to reduce the human population, either by way of people they don't like dying from their hand directly or indirectly or because they think the only reason humans reproduce is economics, so replacing jobs eliminates the need for new people which...wow
if you willingly used chatgpt or similar today please jump off a cliff (or into a body of water, or off a building, if no cliffs are available)
This article, btdubstep, is the one that sucks. Without the original data, and with it coming from MS themselves, what's the basis to believe that? > https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-ceo-new-data-centers-use-the-same-amount-of-water-as-a-restaurant
fuck PCmag. Deets below:
"Complaints about bullshit generators' water usage are meaningless because it uses way more to raise a human!" ...are you expecting people to stop having kids in favor of chatbots? That's never going to happen, and if it did, would end up becoming self-destructive because then there's nobody to pay for said chatbots. And also, way to demonstrate that your express purpose is killing people you don't like @OpenAI! "Population control" will never not be fascist <3
deploying the 2018 Instagram repost bullshit (there was a very brief time in my life where I was pretending to not be a time traveller. have been much happier since I stopped, but some of what I encountered was actually reasonably funny)
anyway here is the sitch
"Ronald, I'm literally nonbinary. Even if being a 'real man' was a valid concept, it wouldn't apply to me. And you're hardly one to talk about being a functional adult of any gender or people bailing you out, even if it wasn't your 'mommy' that did it. Everyone relies on others to some extent because that's how society works. What makes you not a functional adult is if you fail to use the resources you have -- say, if I expected my mom to bail me out without doing any research or initiating any messages myself. Which is not what I did, and again, you can hardly speak on this subject."
Theme is 90% by Enforcer; the rest is thoughts.page default. Kick ass, take names, fuck Ronnie Radke (not literally).