Why Quality And Personal Taste Do Not Overlap

Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting one...

An article I've been working on and off on for a few months has been related to the whole PC vs console war that seems to be ever popular on the internet. While, for me, I prefer consoles for various reasons, I do recognise the benefits of PC gaming and would even be happy to admit that one of my favourite video game series of all time is on the PC (specifically, the Dawn Of War series).

Yet some PC gamers (specifically, the ones who take the whole "Glorious PC Master Race" thing far too seriously) really get on my nerves whenever they casually insult console gamers, claiming they're deluded teenagers who have never played a PC game before and, if they were to play one, they'd suddenly reach enlightenment and stop holding the whole gaming industry back and...yeah, guys, if you seriously think that EVERY console gamer hasn't played a PC game before now and is clinging to consoles for no valid reason, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. There are genuinely people like myself out there who have played PC games before now and who recognise the benefits that PC gaming has, yet still prefer consoles overall for various reasons.

So why do console gamers, sticking with an inferior product, not want to take up the glorious benefits of PC gaming? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but, for now, the point I wish to make is that a lot of the arguments all fall upon a line of logic that a lot of people seem to get wrong: the belief that what a lot of people consider to be better will apply to all people. As unbelievable as this may sound to some people, it is very possible to understand exactly why something is so beloved by so many people and recognise the influence it has had on something else...and still not like it. Personal taste and quality do not necessarily mean the same thing, yet a lot of people seem to think that it does.

Let me give you an example that might be recognisable for a lot of people and takes me into (hopefully) less controversial waters: a lot of people say that organic food is the best type of food out there and is the most beneficial overall. And they do have a point: organic food doesn't damage the environment (...well, not to the extent that mass produced food does, at any rate) and the overall quality of the food is USUALLY higher. Yet, if someone were to say that I was destroying the planet through refusing to eat only organic food, I'd think they had a stick up their arse the size of Cuba. There are genuinely valid reasons why someone like myself might not want to stick with purely organic food. Ignoring having allergies and picky eaters (like myself on both accounts) for a few seconds, the simple fact is that organic food is very much dependant on what the country can supply for food...and that means that it can be seriously affected by what can be produced during each season. That variety can be a HUGE problem for some people, as having to change your entire diet every three months due to the fact that some foods only show up for that long (if not even less than that) does not make most people happy. Also, due to the fact that there is more crop losses means that there is less food made from each crop, which it is very possible for shortages to occur (heck, it still happens for mass produced products!) On top of that, organic food usually costs more to produce and, as such, costs more to purchase. If you're living on a low income, organic food is pretty much always going to be out of your budget. On top of THAT, "higher quality" can mean ultimately nothing in terms of the actual taste of it: I've had organic food several times over mass produced food and I've not noticed the difference between the two. If you will, you can make the perfect wedding cake if you want to, but I'm still going to go for a mass produced speckled donut when I want a snack just because I prefer the speckled donut: the fact the wedding cake is perfect don't necessarily mean I'm going to like it more than the donut.

So, before everyone starts asking me what speckled donuts and wedding cakes have to do with video games, let's say that you are a hardcore PC gamer. What does that mean you usually have? Good internet connection speed? Well, hate to break it to you, but there are places in the world which don't have that option available to them. I lived in a hamlet for several years (I actually preferred it there than living in a town, but that's not really the point) and it could take up to a minute for Google to load (granted, on a bad day, but there was still a noticeable wait between ordering the internet to open and it actually opening!), so, even if I'd had a computer which didn't react to games as if I'd poisoned it, I simply didn't have a good enough internet to play games (and the one I have now is still a bit hit and miss due to its fondness for committing suicide at exactly the wrong minute), so an offline console was the only way to go. Good quality computer? Mine struggled to run Dawn Of War and I have never been able to play Morrowind because even the best gaming computer I had (which was a laptop that could run Dawn Of War, but had a habit of crashing every couple of hours when I did) couldn't run it (yet it could run Dawn Of War...yeah, go figure), so I definitely didn't have that! Me and my family didn't have the spare cash to get a new one and nobody in my family or circle of friends knew how to build one, so upgrading it was out of the question! Good number of people to play games against? Yeah, my largest friend circle was about eight people (and not all of them were gamers), so I didn't have that! On top of that, the bus service where I lived sucked (think one bus every fifteen minutes is bad? Try one bus every two hours, and it didn't always turn up when it was meant to!), so visiting my friends was difficult at best and nearly impossible at worst. Wireless internet? Not an option where I lived: we had enough difficulties with the internet when it required a wire, we would have been stuffed with a wireless system!

For someone who grew up around computers and had those things form the offset, it's easy to say that PC gaming is always better than console gaming, but, where I was living, PC gaming was just not an option: I had to stick with a console if I wanted to play games like TimeSplitters, Tomb Raider: Legends and many others. And I nearly always had to get them pre-owned or as presents for my birthday or Christmas because I didn't have a lot of cash back then. Heck, I didn't even get a PS3 until a friend of mine sold me his last year: for most of my teenage years, I was stuck with only a PS2 due to no longer having my Saga Genesis or PS1 for reasons I would prefer not to talk about at the minute, only getting to play my Wii whenever I visited my mum's house (and, when I did, it was nearly always to play Guitar Hero: World Tour or Super Mario Bros. Wii) and having a Game Boy Advance SP for playing various Pokemon games and the occasional other game (and a Game Boy Colour held in reserve, which is paying off nicely now that my Game Boy Advance SP is refusing to recharge for any reason!). The basic point I'm making is that, for me, PC gaming wasn't an option because I simply wasn't living in circumstances which made such a prospect worth it. When downloading a game would take out the internet to the whole hamlet AND would take all day, it really wasn't worth getting the game, and it certainly wasn't worth getting the game on physical release when I was pretty confident my computer wouldn't run it without a lot of reluctance at best!

Now, I'm pretty sure my situation is a somewhat extreme example of being a console gamer by necessity, but there are other gamers out there who will bring out the preference card as their only reason. As much as PC gamers like to scoff at that reason, there is actually some valid logic behind it in this case. See, consoles are far more convenient for what they do than a PC. While one could fairly argue that the PC is worth the extra work to hook up to a TV, most people who play consoles don't have the knowledge or free time to do all of the extra work, so they're happy with just plugging their console into the TV and power socket and booting it up. A PC, by contrast, will usually require you to unplug it from your usual desktop system, carry the thing to your TV (which can be pretty dangerous if you have your PC up a flight of stairs or two from your TV, even if you can lift the PC and carry it safely on your own), set it up, find a way to allow you to navigate the system, find a way of doing all of that without it being uncomfortable or difficult to do (which can mean having to move the whole room around purely for your gaming session if you're unlucky), find your game, open it up AND THEN get to starting to play it. Then, when that's done, you have to turn it off safely, disconnect it from the TV, carry it back up to your usual desktop system and connect it back up. When given the choice between the two options like that, most people will just go "Stuff that" and stick for the easier option. And, since most people can't afford to have a PC purely for their TV gaming experience and another one for work related stuff, that means using a console if you want to play games on your TV or, if you are a PC gamer, sticking with having your PC connected up to a computer monitor. A worse option it may be, but it's the best option for most people for more reasons than just personal preference: it's financially better, it's far more convenient and it's definitely safer (seriously, try dropping a PC on a solid floor and tell me your heart doesn't skip a beat!).

Also, well, some people just prefer using a controller over a mouse and keyboard. I know I do: I find that a controller just feels better in my hands than a mouse and keyboard does whenever I play games!

Now, let me get on my soapbox and say something that may shock people: I HAVE NO BEEF WITH MOST PC GAMERS. In fact, I'd say that the PC is definitely the gaming system with the most advantages (note that I do not say it is "the overall best system for gaming"). My beef is with the people who take the Glorious PC Master Race thing far too seriously, as it is often them who make the whole thing out to be like a war, and treating console gamers like crap just for preferring consoles doesn't exactly put them on my list of people to want to talk to. If you are a member of the Glorious PC Master Race, then may I make a suggestion to you, from one person to another? For the love of god, drop the holier than thou attitude and try a more friendly approach if you want to encourage someone to try out gaming, as your attitude is actually making console gamers like myself have MORE reason to avoid taking up PC gaming because we don't want to be associated with assholes like you! A little kindness and willingness to have a civil discussion to help console gamers at least consider getting into PC gaming without resorting to insults will go a lot further than you think it will!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to playing Rayman: Legends on my PS3. Because it's an awesome game that makes me remember when gaming was fun and gamers weren't tearing each other to shreds just because of the systems they played and stuff like that...

...God, that's made me feel depressed, having to say that! Where'd I put my Freedom Call album, I might need it...

Robin Thicke "Paula" Review

...I have to be totally honest, this is an album which I picked up for review fodder. However, this is a rare case where I've picked up something for review fodder where I feel that I have a reason to review it beyond "I need to review something". See, everyone who has even faintly heard of Robin Thicke will have no doubt heard about his separation (and, from the looks of things, soon-to-be divorce) from his wife, actress Paula Patton, in February this year and the fact that this album (which came out in July) is based upon material that might very well have been written around the time that they were going to separate does NOT make it an album that will appeal to most people, especially considering that it appears to be a love album towards Paula, which is INCREDIBLY awkward in light of recent events connected to the couple.

Yet...I feel that most people who reviewed that album actually looked at it not through the perspective of what the album itself sounded like without the knowledge of what was going, but, instead, let their knowledge of events influence their reviews of it. I'm not going to say that nobody reviewed the album fairly, but the overall feeling I get is that most people who reviewed it spent more time focusing on how the album fit in with what was going on with the couple at the time than focusing on the album itself, and that's not really a fair way to judge the album. Yes, it's important to mention, but suppose someone were to pick up the album months down the line with no knowledge of the events that inspired the album? Are they going to be able to join the dots? I think not, and it is for them that I am going to write this review.

That said, before I start, I do feel that I have to give context on why, despite not liking Thicke much and feel that most of the events that lead to his separation (and possible soon-to-be divorce) from Paula Patton can be fairly blamed upon him, I do have to say that I do actually feel a bit sorry for him. See, he and Paula have been a couple possibly since before I was born (I'm 21 now, for reference, and have a birthday in May) and have certainly known each other since before I was born (they apparently met in 1991). Let us put that into context: everything I have seen and done in my life has been while the two of them have been a couple. That's a HUGE amount of history to sweep under the rug and forget about, and even friendly break ups between couples who have only been together for a few months can be really tough to get through (...from what I've heard: I've never even been in a relationship, so I wouldn't know how tough break ups can be from personal experience): imagine trying to sweep nearly 21 years worth of memories under the rug with someone who you have been married to for nearly a decade AND have a child with.

Yeah...let that all sink in and think about it.

Now, while I think that Thicke's behaviour does not make him particularly deserving of sympathy (if some of the reports I've heard are correct, he's been involved in infidelity, which is hardly behaviour most people's girlfriends will take kindly to, let alone wives that you have kids with and have been with in some form or another for over two decades!), I do have to say that I honestly wouldn't have blamed him and Paula of wanting to take breaks from the industries they are in or imposing a ban on discussing their private lives with everyone until they feel like they're ready to talk about it if they wanted to. It's ultimately a very fair thing to say "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about that just now" when it comes to painful matters like this (no matter how the press likes to spin stuff like that into making it sound like you're angry with the other person) and I do say that the two of them deserve to have their privacy respected until such a time as they're ready to discuss these matters in public. I don't know whether both of them have done that, as I've not followed them (I'm a metal fan, for goodness sake: why would I follow the private lives of an R&B/pop singer who I cared nothing for when I heard his breakthrough into mainstream popularity (sorry, but I didn't like "Blurred Lines": I'll stick with "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk and "Treasure" by Bruno Mars when I want to hear disco influenced hits from last year, thanks!) and an actress who has not appeared in anything that I've watched before now?), but, if they haven't, then I'd be very surprised!

Now, why do I bring all of this up when I'm going to ignore it once I actually start the review? Two reasons: I want to highlight why this is an album that is REALLY awkward listening experience when you listen to it if you have those factors in mind, but also explain why I think that a lot of people have been surprisingly insensitive to both Robin Thicke and Paula Patton by focusing on the circumstances surrounding the making of this album and, in the process, done a bit of a disservice to the people who wanted a real review of the album. Yes, it would be impossible to talk about the album without mentioning it, but there is a difference between mentioning something for the sake of context and speculating on everything connected to the album purely because you think you know why the album was made and using that to form your opinion of the album, and that is what I feel most people who have reviewed this album have done. Some people might feel that is justified, but, at the end of the day, the quality of the material on the album is the actually important thing, not the circumstances surrounding it.

And that really is the question which needs to be asked: is this album actually worth listening to or are the circumstances surrounding it more interesting than the album itself? Well, let us put aside the circumstances of this album and let us find out!

First up, the cover art. I'm not going to lie, I took one look at this and thought "Well, that's one black mark against the album already". I don't like cover art which is just a photo of the performer on it at the best of times, but this feels kind of like it's taking the piss a bit. Seriously, Robin Thicke in front of a black screen with various lights (that oddly make me think of a stereotypical Rastafarian hat) covering him? That's pretty fucking unimaginative! I'm not exaggerating much when I say that I probably could come up with a more imaginative idea for cover art for this album in less than five minutes...in fact, I have: an image of a somewhat realistic looking heart (obviously, drawn, not a picture of an actual heart!) with cracks covering it to form the album title (the cracks can be removed if that's not the point of the album, but the idea is still basically the same). Want to know how long it took me to come up with that? About a minute (technically two, as I came back with the idea for the cracks to form the album name a bit after writing that and moving on to continue writing this bit), and I did it sitting in my chair without having actually listened to the album (beyond a snippet of the first track of the album) at this part of writing the review AND without putting any real thought into it. In fact, I got the basic idea for it from Good Charlotte's album Cardiology, so it's not even me being original! And I STILL came up with a possible cover art for the album that is more imaginative than the one we've got here! Either I am in the wrong industry or everyone involved of working out the cover art for this album was being completely unimaginative...

Well, that's that over and done with, so let's finally move on to the album!

The good thing that I can say about this album is that it's surprisingly varied: musically, it does a lot more than I'd have expected from an album by a pop artist. You get some points which remind me a bit of big band music, some more typical modern pop music and a few RnB influenced songs. The variety, unfortunately, doesn't stop most of the songs from being uninteresting outside as background music...and it's REALLY tough to do that when you get to songs like "Lock The Door" and "Black Tar Cloud", which both can be downright harrowing to listen to even when you don't know the circumstances behind the album, as they're very harsh depictions of things which you'd not expect to see in a pop album at all.

This is not an album that is easy to listen to, even with forward warning like I had, because it's really not an album that's meant to be listened to so much as experienced. If that was Thicke's intention (creating an album that sums up the breaking up of a marriage in rather unpleasant detail), then I have to admit that it's an intriguing idea that I could get behind if it was very well done. Unfortunately, the album hits two pretty serious road blocks which drag the album down for me: the fact that it is based on reality (which I'm trying my best to ignore, but it's very hard to do that when some of the songs indicate some VERY unpleasant behind-the-scenes stuff!) and the fact that so little of the material leaves a proper impression upon you (or, when it does, for entirely the wrong reasons!). I almost feel like this album is looking inside the mind of a man who is on the verge of falling apart...and I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually pretty accurate for summing up Robin Thicke at the minute, as it doesn't feel like an album that Thicke wrote when he was wanting to create an album to be listened to by the general public, but, instead, wanted to use the album as a reason to get his thoughts on the breakdown of his relationship out into the public. Some artists have done that and made it work, like Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, P!nk (yes, seriously: Funhouse was produced after she separated from her boyfriend (or husband? Not sure which he was...)), Adele and Paul Simon (seriously, anyone else notice that most of those artists have been solo artists of some sort?), but Robin Thick isn't going to be on the list of artists who can make classic (or, at leave, very good) albums with that idea on their minds. He probably won't be the worst artist to have made an album running on this idea, as I can at least listen to some of the songs on this album without complaint and, on another album which...isn't like this one, they could be rather enjoyable listens, but, when the best songs feel like they're still lacking something to make them worth listening to frequently..."abandon all hope, ye who enter here" sounds about right.

OK, dropping the cynicism for a second, none of the material on this album strikes me as being completely unsalvageable. Sure, it's HIGHLY awkward to listen to if you know the circumstances behind the album's creation and there's very little material which is worth taking from the album...but it's not in that position out of being insufferably bad. Mostly, it's just not especially memorable, which is not the same as bad, but is arguably WORSE overall in terms of what you expect from the album, as being left with a bad impression of the song at least means the song had an impression on you. This album, however...most songs leave either a poor impression or no impression on me. The closest song to being a highlight is "Something Bad", as, despite being a bit repetitive, it is at least given a fairly enjoyable hook and is pretty catchy overall, although the lyrics to it do let it down pretty seriously (in particular, the final two lines to the second verse would probably make Steel Panther blush and left me going "Did you seriously just put that line in a song? Because I've heard more subtle innuendos from glam metal bands!"). No word of a lie, if this song was given better lyrics, I'd actually be inclined to call it a fairly good pop song! No luck with the rest of the album, though: "Get Her Back", despite being the album's single, leaves me bored, "You're My Fantasy" is an overly long song that doesn't even warrant being nearly six minutes long and, while I like the swing jazz influence to "Time Of Your Life", it's not interesting enough to really warrant repeated listens. These songs all had potential to be good, but, whether it's due to their lyrics, their overall connection to a theme for an album that is somewhat uncomfortable to listen to or just not being especially interesting in their released forms, that potential is never really capitalised upon.

I have to give some credit to the performers for their very good work on this album. While nothing they do is particularly difficult, they perform the music very well. Also, credit to Robin Thicke for one thing, he doesn't actually have a bad singing voice: he has a very pleasant tone to his singing voice which makes him very listenable, he has a fairly decent range (although I wouldn't say his singing range is exceptional either) and he doesn't really try to force himself to do something which his voice isn't suited for. I don't think Robin Thicke is likely to have any major lasting appeal as a mainstream pop artist and his lyrics put forward some very unsavoury opinions about women which makes me wonder whether Steel Panther could just cover a Robin Thicke song without changing the lyrics and nobody would notice much beyond the lack of strong language or sexual references, but he certainly has a voice that paints him as at least a passable vocalist and I can understand how he managed to maintain a career for about a decade before getting noticed among the mainstream.

If I did have to give the album proper praise for something done well, I have to say that the production is actually pretty good overall, aside from my usual complaints related to modern production rearing their head (although, happily, to a much smaller extent than usual!). It's got the polished production job that you'd expect from a pop album, but none of the instruments feel like they've been neglected to me in the mixing process and the mastering, while still a bit loud, feels a bit more respectful to the ears that a lot of metal productions that I've heard. I almost feel like commending this album for the production values alone...but, in all seriousness, this album's simply not good enough to suggest checking it out just for the production.

So, overall...actually, I think this review makes my point clearly enough to not really need to sum it up here. This just isn't an album that I can recommend, as there's so little to it that's worth checking out that I actually feel kind of surprised that Robin Thicke (or his label) thought this album was release worthy. If you're a die hard fan of Robin Thicke, you might find this worth at least a single listen (and might come out finding it an acceptable album), but, for most people, this is not really worth checking out, even ignoring the elephant in the room about the album's creation. I highly doubt Robin Thicke is reading this, but, if he is, I'd suggest he take a break to allow himself to get over Paula before he writes his next album, as making another album like this one is just not going to be a good move for him in the slightest!

Final Rating: 3 Out Of 10

Personal Favourite Tracks: Erm...none really, but "Something Bad" (ironic, when you consider the title of the song...) had the potential to be pretty good and only sabotaged itself due to the lyrics being pretty poor.

Toy Story 4: A Franchise Ruined Forever Or A New Start For A New Generation?

One thing which has popped up in my Facebook's news feed recently is this little gem: there is going to be a Toy Story 4 coming out in June 2017, and it's going to be directed by John Lasseter, who directed the first two, but NOT the third one (that one was directed by Lee Unkrich).

Now, I have to say that my first response was not euphoria OR immediately screaming that the franchise was officially going to produce its Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (which I actually liked, but that's another matter for another time...), but was "Well, that's an interesting decision...". Don't get me wrong, I was excited about the idea of it, but I'd felt that Toy Story 3 was the perfect ending to what I consider to be the best trilogy ever made (yes, I would seriously put the Toy Story trilogy as the best trilogy ever made in the history of film, and I'm saying this as someone who loves The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and the original Star Wars trilogy! I won't even say "best animated trilogy" ever just to attempt to hold some form of critical integrity (since when have I ever had any?), because I hold that animation is a completely valid medium in and of itself to tell stories (if anything, I'd argue that it's STILL an underrated medium for telling stories due to the status among most people for animated works to automatically mean that it's only for children), and making out animation to be a lesser form of art than live action works is completely wrong to me, as I'd argue the inverse is actually true when you sit and think about it hard enough!) and, even now, I do not feel confident that there is any way to continue the story from where Pixar have left off today.

However, after some deeper thought, I think there is some potential in this idea, but, as shocking as this might sound when I say it, I do have some concerns for potential pitfalls which could make this the worst Toy Story film to date...although, granted, that's probably like being the worst Golden Globe winner, as you're still talking about something which is still likely to be really good, just not the most exceptional of the best!

Let us look at this cynically for a bit and see what potential pitfalls this film will be facing before I turn towards a more positive (and, hopefully, interesting) take on this.

First of all, focusing purely on the reputation that the Toy Story trilogy has, you're dealing with a fourth addition to a film series that is one of the best film trilogies ever made AND which is having to tell what is likely to be a story without Andy (because, let's be honest, getting Andy in Toy Story 4 is not really likely to work out well). This is going to mean a whole new environment to get used to, so this sequel already is starting off on a poor foot: the characters are the same, but the setting they are in is going to be VERY different from the last three films and, with that, is likely to come a change in tone. Toy Story 3 got VERY dark at points (incinerator scene, anyone?), but I don't see them being allowed to go further than that, so the tone of Toy Story 4 is likely to be more light hearted compared to Toy Story 3...and that's going to feel like a step back, no matter how well it is handled. And, well, any step back is going to hurt the film, even if it's for a justified reason in the creation process. In all honesty, weighing up the reputation of the Toy Story films and thinking about it hard enough, one could fairly argue that there is no way to make Toy Story 4 without it being seen as a decrease in quality on some level: if the film goes darker than Toy Story 3, it's going to probably be too dark to be considered a family film and, as such, would cause complaints from quite a few people, but, if the film takes a step back, everyone who liked the darker tone of Toy Story 3 is going to dislike it for taking a step back. It's really a bit of a lose-lose situation, from where I'm looking at it at the minute.

Secondly, moving to my earlier complaint, I think that there's no real way to continue the story of Toy Story without hurting the perfect ending to Toy Story 3. I've used the word "perfect" twice to describe the ending for Toy Story 3, and I do not use that word lightly: the ending hit every emotional note I should have expected from it, did it in a way that struck a chord with me, being about a year away from entering college myself when I saw it, and was a conclusion to the trilogy that I simply think could not have been bettered. Everything was just done to perfection, and I couldn't imagine a better ending to a trilogy that I hold so close to my heart. I do not exaggerate much when I say that the first two Toy Story films defined my childhood, alongside Monsters, Inc., The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame and The Pirates Of Penzance, so for me to say that I consider Toy Story 3 to be on the same level as the first two films...that is not just me saying that to seem impressive, that is me basically saying that, if Toy Story 3 had come out when I was still a child, I would have considered it a defining part of my childhood. Let that sink in...

So having the ending of Toy Story 3 effectively turn out not to be the end...I'm really sorry if I sound like I'm stuck in the past, but I simply cannot picture a story that I think would work to follow that film up or improve upon that ending in any way. For me, and most other people like myself who grew up with the first two Toy Story films, that was the ending we all were looking for, as heartbreaking as we might have found it when we actually saw it happening, so there is no way that a continuation can take that and make something new work without ultimately making that ending seem hollow now. I'm actually fighting back tears having typed that now that I've realised that, that's how much that film's ending meant to me and how hollow it's going to seem now that I know it isn't the final end to the trilogy any more.

The third issue is one which might not seem obvious at first, but requires me to look at the fact that John Lasseter is going to be involved in this. On paper, that's a brilliant thing: the guy who helped write all of the Toy Story films and A Bugs Life AND the guy who executive produced films like Frozen, The Princess And The Frog, Wreck-It Ralph and WALL-E is involved in this? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

...Except he's also the guy who co-wrote Cars, Cars 2 and Planes? I WANT A REFUND ALREADY!

...OK, in fairness, I did actually like Cars (it was a fun watch, if not one of Pixar's finest moments by any measure), but the point still stands: since he co-wrote three of the worst received Pixar films, that indicates that it is possible for him to drop the ball, and the fact that his most recent involvements on a writing level (except for possibly The Pirate Fairy) have been among the worst received Pixar films means that there is a valid reason to have a healthy level of scepticism about the strength of the writing for Toy Story 4.

That's all I can really say for now, as no other details have been revealed. So let me try that other spin: maybe Toy Story 4 isn't going to be a film for the audience who grew up with Toy Story and Toy Story 2 being watched frequently on VHS (anyone else remember those?), but is for the audience who are coming up today who never got to experience the joys of Toy Story like I did. While the old grumpy sods like me will probably be sitting and complaining about how it's not the same any more when we see it, it should not be forgotten that, when we were in our early childhoods, it was films like Toy Story, Cinderella, Hercules and Pocahontas that entertained us when we were growing up. Yet, whenever I look at animated films today, I see no films like them out there any more (and I'm not just on about the 2D hand drawn style of the last three I mentioned, although I would really like to see more films like them today). In this day and age, there isn't the next generation's Toy Story. There isn't the next generation's Dragonball Z. There isn't even the next generation's Harry Potter. In this day and age, so many of the great works which defined our childhoods and inspired us to become writers, artists, actors and critics simply do not exist any more. And that is truly heartbreaking for me, as it leaves me with the sad belief that so many great creative mediums are going to be lacking the John Lasseters for the generation after the next, the Akira Toriyamas of the generation after the next...even the J. K. Rowlings of the generation after the next.

So, in essence, I feel it is our duty, as the generation who is watching this new generation start to develop, that we step up to become those people who they will look up or, if we cannot be those people, to guide them to find the works that will inspire them to become those people themselves. And, if that means we have to watch as our childhood icons have to become the icons of a new generation, then I feel that is a small price to pay if it means that we can inspire the great artists, writers and actors of tomorrow to become who they have the potential to be.

So let us inspire them.

Doctor Who Finale Part 1: A Brief Look (Contains Spoilers)

I figured I might as well do something related to Saturday's episode of Doctor Who, so here we go. If you've not watched the episode, then go do that BEFORE you read this article: I'm going to be discussing a few things which are very important to the plot of the episode and giving my take on them, so this is not going to be a review so much as examining some of the more important (and, arguably, controversial) points that the episode brought up and saying whether I feel they were good or bad.

Before I start, let me be completely honest about my thoughts on the season so far. While I do think there have been some good episodes, my overall opinion leans towards the only really good part being Peter Capaldi. Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor was the first person I saw in the role and, I have to be honest, if you'd asked me before this season which was my favourite incarnation of the character since the revival of the show, I'd have probably said it was his version. This was a version of the character which had anger and intensity to him and I just think Eccleston captured it perfectly. He really made the character into a figure that you could imagine as having gone through a lot and being tormented by his past, which isn't something that I feel David Tennant, Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi have done QUITE as well as he has. However, Capaldi has done a brilliant job of capturing The Doctor and, overall, I feel that he's managed to be the kind of Doctor that you could imagine from the classic series, which is not something that I feel Eccleston, Tennant or Smith managed. Tennant was an undeniably good Doctor, but his incarnation felt a bit too romantically driven for me to accept him as the alien he was (let's be honest, if you KNEW you were going to outlive someone and had to watch them grow old while you remained young, you'd find that heartbreaking!) and Smith's version of the character felt a bit too much like he was playing the role of a clown instead of an incarnation of The Doctor, although I do not think he did the role badly overall. That's really the big problem: Eccleston managed to capture the character at his most pained and tortured, but the other incarnations between him and Capaldi didn't quite have any special thing to make them really click with me. I guess the best way of summing it up is that Eccleston was the best example of The Doctor of today for me while Capaldi is a channelling of The Doctor of days long gone, and that makes him closer to being the definitive Doctor in possibly more ways than he really should be!

However, Capaldi has been the only really strong thing in the show for me this season, and I feel that this has been probably the least enjoyable season of the show for me overall. Clara and Danny's relationship has overtaken the show a bit too much for my liking, the stories have (mostly) been watchable, though not exceptional, and I'm really getting sick of Moffat building up each season on one overarching thing which only comes into play in the finale of the episode and nearly always has a twist to it that, when really stopped and thought about, makes no fucking sense. Now, that's not to say that Russell T Davis did not do this in his time as the guy in charge of the show, but at least you didn't need to practically have your own office and giant sized whiteboard just to keep track of everything that could make a reappearance later in the show! I joked with a friend that every Doctor Who fan becomes a conspiracy theorist when every new season of Doctor Who starts due to Moffat doing that and, while I imagine I'm exaggerating more than a bit, the basic point still stands: it's almost become a cliché of Moffat's writing for this to happen every season, and I really wish he'd stop leaning on it and just do good stories of Doctor Who without HAVING to have everything be connected together. There comes a point when it stops feeling like you're watching the show because you want to, and I feel like I've hit that point with this season in particular. In fact, even when I'm in the house when it's on, I usually am not excited checking when it's on and sitting down while enthusiastically going "DOCTOR WHO'S ON!!! IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!": I'm going "Oh look, new episode of Doctor Who. Well, I've got nothing else to do, so might as well watch it...". I've become apathetic to the whole series now, and I just want someone to politely inform Moffat that dangling important plot threads at the start of every season like a bunch of keys does not make you look clever (or that you have some grand plan for the season) and stops being interesting (and starts being very annoying) when you do it EVERY. FUCKING. SEASON.

So yeah...I'm not exactly coming to this season with the most upbeat and optimistic viewpoint. I'll be fair, the show has still be watchable, but here's the thing: Doctor Who never got by just through being watchable. It was the success it was through being creative, well written, enjoyable and exciting (not to mention more than a bit scary!). This season has felt like it's had none of those things in it to me: it feels like the whole season has got by just on the fact that it's Doctor Who. Honestly, if this season was of a completely show debuting now and WASN'T Doctor Who, I think I'd have stopped watching after "Time Heist"...and I'd have DEFINITELY stopped after "Kill The Moon", which is hands down my least favourite episode of revival Who...and yes, I'm including "Love And Monsters"! I could at least give that one credit for trying something new that was at least an interesting experiment, if not one that was executed very well, but "Kill The Moon" has no such excuse!

But you're not here to read me ranting about my thoughts on the declining state of Doctor Who. You guys want the article that I said I was going to do. Very well, now we all know what playing field I'm on, let us get started...and grab yourself a large amount of salt, you might need it!

First up, the decision to have Danny Pink be killed at the start of the episode by a car due to not looking both ways. For me, this is a pretty poor decision: if you liked Danny and have knowledge of how the army works, him dying like that seems a bit out of character (ex-soldiers do still have their training in their memory and one of the things soldiers are VERY good at is observation skills: after all, what good would a soldier be if he wasn't able to tell the difference between a tree and an enemy in poor light?), but, if you didn't, his death not meaning that he IS actually dead (as in, no longer in the show from that point on) will have you going "What was the point of killing him if he wasn't going to stay dead?" Yes, one could make that case that, had he not been killed, there would be no episode of the show, but, even as someone who felt Danny was being pushed too far towards the centre of attention in a show that's MEANT to be about a time travelling alien, his death felt a bit like a cheap attempt at drama for me. Something like this SHOULD have been at the end of an episode, where his death would have carried some real weight and really should have been done in the same episode as The Doctor finally admitting that Danny was a good man who he approved of, as it'd ultimately give The Doctor a reason to care about Danny beyond "Clara is telling me to". I'll admit, I didn't finish watching "In The Forest Of The Night", so I could have missed The Doctor having that moment in the episode, but still, Danny's death should have been more than just being hit by a car at the start of the episode.

The second important thing is Clara's scene where she is trying to force The Doctor to take her back in time to rescue Danny. I have to be honest...I actually rather liked this scene! It was tense, it showed just how important Danny was to Clara (as if we didn't know that already...), it gave us more than enough reasons to want The Doctor to finally agree to do something...it was great!

...Then it turns out to have been all just a dream state and there were actually no stakes to it.

I...I just...WHAT?! You have possibly one of the best scenes this season of Doctor Who has had to date and it's a fucking DREAM?! What the actual hell?!

OK, in fairness, maybe I'm overreacting a bit, but this trope in writing just ticks me off every time I see it. If you're going to do something that would have a lasting effect, having it turn out just to be a dream and, as such, completely pointless just rubs me up the wrong way. It's not necessarily lazy writing, as some brilliant twists can be done via this when handled well and I respect that it gives writers a chance to try out things which they wouldn't be allowed to do normally in the show, but it feels like a cop out here. If there had been elements to the scene which gave the idea that, when you looked at them carefully, it might actually be a dream (or it involved nightmarish imagery of some sort to give it an unsettling feel to it), I might have been able to go "OK, that was a clever way to do that", but, in this case, I'm just sitting in my chair and asking what the point of getting invested in the scene was if the writers weren't going to go through with what they were showing us. Protip for aspiring writers reading this blog: if you DO have to use this trope, you really need to be clever with it and plan the use of it out, as just using it without considering how it looks to the audience has a very high chance of annoying your audience. I've never used this trope in my own writings, but I can appreciate it when it's done very well and doesn't have the reveal come out of left field, so a good way to do it (assuming you're not working with a visual medium: if you are, then careful use of lighting can do the trick very well by having it be off by just enough during the dream sequence for the audience to recognise that something's not quite right, but not so far that you run the risk of overdoing it! I would still recommend that you consider what I'm about to say, though!) is to be subtle with it before the reveal: if the audience thinks something is a bit off about the sequence in advance of the reveal, but can't quite place what it is, the reveal that it was a dream sequence can be a very good twist that will make the observant members of the audience go "I KNEW something was off" and the less observant, on a second watch, will go "Wait...that's not quite right! That explains how this was a dream sequence!".

Note the use of the word "subtle": if you're throwing in nightmarish imagery throughout the dream sequence and all sorts of stuff which any sensible person would recognise as being completely off from the show's usual tone or the character's usual characterisation, you might as well cover the screen with the words "This is a dream sequence", as the audience are very likely to figure it out within the first few seconds (and the people who don't figure it out before the reveal will probably not be amused that you've mistreated characters they really like and may well have stopped watching the episode BEFORE you make the reveal!). Keep it to things that could be ignored by someone who isn't paying attention, such as a sandwich being pushed aside by a character (obviously, not the one having the dream) only to be back in front of them in the next shot without even being commented upon, or, if you do want to have a character act off, try to be subtle about it in a way which matches up with how you'd expect the character having the dream to imagine them: if a character is noted for being grumpy around the character having the dream, don't make them angrily yelling at them, but have the grumpiness dialled up to be about things that the character isn't usually grumpy about, or have them not comment on it at all. For example, to continue this example, let's say one character is always complaining about another character's hairstyle: instead of having the character be complaining about everything connected to the character having the dream, have them either complain about the character's choice of clothes (without discussing the haircut at all, even if it's the same one that they usually cannot resist commenting on) or, when the character having the dream asks why they've not commented on it, have them go something like "Eh, it's not bad, I guess". Both could clue in observant members of the audience that something's not quite right, but they're subtle enough for people to miss the importance of if they're not paying attention to every little thing (...well, the first one is: the second one is a bit more obvious, but is unlikely to make an impression on the first viewing to most people). Most people will say that dreams can be really weird, but most of them don't have a real flow or story to them and, short of having the character having the dream be bemused every time he finds himself in a new location (as if he's just arrived there without any warning to even themselves) or having the tone and setting of stuff change frequently and without warning (representing the chaotic nature of dreams), there's no real way to represent that without throwing subtlety out of the window!

...Wait, I was supposed to be talking about why I don't like Clara destroying the TARDIS keys in the lava being a dream sequence, wasn't I?

Well, anyway, the problem for me is that the stakes were too high for me to accept it as a dream sequence and there was no indication in advance of the reveal that it even WAS a dream sequence. I guess one could say that Clara piloting the TARDIS to a lava planet on her own COULD have been the clue, since she's not been seen piloting the TARDIS on her own before now (although I may have misremembered if she has), but she has been technically able to pilot the TARDIS this season through the use of the TARDIS matrix thing in earlier episodes, so that actually isn't much of a clue if it is meant to be one!

Also, as pointed out by votesaxon07 in his review of the episode (thanks, dude, I forgot about this detail when I was starting to write this!), Clara KNOWS that The Doctor can open the TARDIS doors by clicking his fingers. So destroying the TARDIS keys...not actually a big deal to The Doctor. How Clara and the script writers forgot this, I've no idea...

The third important thing is more an instance of fridge logic than anything else, but how did The Doctor know that the TARDIS could find Danny AFTER his death? And, more importantly, if he knew that option existed, why hadn't be done anything involving it before now? Seriously, he could have got every companion of his who has died to return back to travelling with him if he wanted to, but he hasn't even tried that before now? Now, I guess one could make a case that it was because Clara insisted that he do it and he normally wouldn't do it, but it still doesn't explain why he hasn't tried this before if it was an option! I know, minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but it does seem like an obvious question has been ignored!

The fourth thing that I feel is worth pointing out is the whole "afterlife" thing. I'm jumping ahead a bit, but how could the TARDIS not recognise that it was in St Paul's Cathedral? It's been to London so many times now that you'd have thought it'd recognise the location of the place very easily! On top of that, why exactly would the Cybermen be happy to remain seated inside giant tanks of water for what might have ended up being years (if not DECADES)? I know the Cybermen aren't likely to have been there that long, but the ONLY reason that The Doctor found out about them was because he was looking for Danny by Clara's request: if Danny had never died, it's VERY unlikely that The Doctor would have even stumbled upon the plan at all! Were the Cybermen literally just going to sit there until The Doctor FINALLY found out about them? Because, if so, that's a kind of daft plan that relies on a huge amount of luck and The Doctor actually wanting to investigate someone's death via the TARDIS. Even considering the Cybermen (and Missy, AKA The Master) know The Doctor well enough to know that a bunch of strange disappearances is like a giant sign saying "Please come and investigate me" to him, their plan basically seems to have amounted to "Wait until The Doctor arrives". Unless the car which killed Danny was driven by Missy (or one of her accomplices), there's absolutely no way they would have even been sure they could have got The Doctor near them to allow them to pull off their plan!

The fifth important thing is the reveal of what Danny did which seems to still affect him: that, in a warzone, he killed a child when clearing a building that he thought was inhabited by the enemy. Now, this is actually a breach of military rules, as killing an innocent in war is one of the worst crimes you can commit and can result in a dishonourable discharge from the service if your court marshall finds you guilty of doing so. I'm not sure of the ins and outs of that myself, but, judging from the fact that his method of clearing the building was actually not the way the military are instructed to seize them, I imagine it is not impossible that he would have been guilty of at least improper execution of his orders! However, glossing over my (admittedly, limited) knowledge of military rules and assuming that Danny would not have been dishonourably discharged from the service for what he did, I do have to admit that it is a very powerful scene and the only complaint I have is more an instance of fridge logic than anything else: why would he become a teacher if he has what seems to be post-traumatic stress disorder from killing a child? I'd imagine that being around children would probably be a trigger for reminding him of what he'd done, so I'd have thought that he'd have done his best to avoid being around children to avoid aggravating his condition. Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, but still, it feels a bit odd that an ex-soldier who has killed a child (even if it was in a warzone and he didn't mean to do it) would have even been allowed to become a teacher, let alone would have applied to become one voluntarily! However, let's ignore those things which make the whole concept of the character fall apart far quicker than you'd think they should and focus purely on the reveal...and I'm not going to lie, it is a scene that is done brilliantly! I'd suspected that Danny had killed someone who he hadn't intended to from the moment he had the reaction to being mentioned of having killed an unarmed person, but I'd never have guessed it was a child before now, which makes the scene surprisingly powerful and seeing Danny trying to apologise to the child for killing him is a scene that is engraved in my memory. No wonder the guy has a sensitive nerve about killing being mentioned, something like that could mess you up for life as you consider the life that never was because of your actions!

The sixth important point is the reveal that the dead are still connected to their bodies. I'll not going onto too much detail about this reveal, as the thought of being stuck in my body post-death and able to feel everything it goes through is absolutely horrifying to me, but I do have to ask whether it applies purely to the people who have been upgraded or EVERY human being, even if they're not connected to the matrix thing. Because, if it's the latter...well, that's my nightmares (and, now I've spelt that out in an unambiguous way, probably yours) for the next few weeks!

The seventh important point is the reveal of the dead in the chairs being Cybermen. I've ranted in some detail about why this isn't as smart a plan as you'd think when you think about it hard enough, but I do have to give credit for this reveal, as it caught me off guard! I'd seen the Cybermen in the trailer and, as such, expected they would be in the episode, but I thought they'd be beaming into heaven (those words are making me think of a song, for some reason...) to convert the dead into them, so them having been there the whole time...that was actually very clever! Granted, it does fall apart a bit when you think about it too much (I'm pretty sure a scan of the skeletons in the chair by the sonic screwdriver would have revealed that they were not actually dead bodies, so I'm a bit bemused that The Doctor didn't check that they were what he thought they were, as it'd be something you'd expect he'd do instinctively whenever he sees something that's out of the ordinary for him!), but it was still a very impressive twist that I didn't see coming at all!

The eighth important point is Missy's identity being revealed. I will say that, like votesaxon07, I'm slightly disappointed that it wasn't The Rani, but the reveal that Missy was The Master...well, my jaw was still on the floor, so let that speak for itself! It's referencing something that could have been missed from the season 6 (of the revival, so that's...season 32, I think?) episode "The Doctor's Wife", when it was off handedly mentioned that The Corsair changed their gender through several regenerations, which was an idea that I found really interesting, so seeing The Master use this ability as well...it kind of makes you wonder whether The Doctor has the same ability and deliberately chooses not to use it or whether (as has been implied in a few classic era episodes, with Romana's regeneration springing to mind at the minute!) it is possible to control regeneration when taught how to do it properly, which is something that The Doctor never bothered learning how to do.

Lastly is everything involving Danny after his encounter with the child he killed up to the end of the episode. Holy crap, Danny was put through the mud in this episode, but, when he was able to speak to Clara and had to try to find a way to make her not go after him in death, it was just gut wrenching to watch. Seeing him holding the iPad (seriously, how the hell (pun not intended) does Apple have a market in the matrix thing? Did they branch out under the belief that even the dead wanted to have a chat with their neighbours or something?) and on the verge of deleting himself from existence...I was actually yelling "NO! DON'T DO IT!" to my TV, and I'm saying this as someone who had more tolerated Danny in the show (due to his relationship with Clara basically pushing The Doctor out of the spotlight of a show which was MEANT to be about him and his companions stopping aliens and stuff like that!) than liked him! Let that speak for itself, dear readers...

So, after all of my complaints, you'd think that I didn't like this episode too much, wouldn't you? Well...not quite. Sure, some of the plot points were points of contention for me (the dream sequence thing being chief among them), but, overall, it was a really good episode of the show that has me looking forward to the next episode of the show already. It doesn't redeem what has felt like a somewhat dull (if still very much watchable) season of the show for me, but it's certainly looks set to end the season on a high note! And I guess that's all that I can ask for, so that's what I'm going to hope for!

Exodus "Blood In Blood Out" Review

...I know I normally try to say stuff as fairly as I can and save hinting towards my thoughts on the album before I actually get to talking about it, but I have to say this right now: I called the problem with this album back when Dukes was fired (I still have the article I wrote (but didn't publish) on the same day Zetro returned to prove it) and I'm not ashamed to gloat a bit by saying "Told you so!" Zetro does a good job with what he has to work with, but let's face it: this album showcases why firing a singer and then getting your new (...OK, old in this case, but you get the point, I'm sure!) one to record the material the previous singer left behind without any real changes to help them get material that suits their voice better is just a flat out TERRIBLE idea, and I feel vindicated by seeing so many people (critics, fans of the band...heck, some of them even people who hadn't liked Dukes in the band!) going "This album would have been better with Dukes singing it"! And the Zetro fans who demanded his return have nobody to blame except for themselves that the band are now weaker than they would have been had they kept Dukes for at least this album. Maybe that's proof that even a stopped watch is right twice a day, but still, vindi-fucking-cation!

...OK, now I've had my little moment of smug satisfaction, back to pretending to be a professional.

As my somewhat emotional outburst would have no doubt told you (or my review of "Salt The Wound", which you can read here), Exodus brought back their most iconic lead vocalist Steve Souza for this album after firing their former lead vocalist of nine years Rob Dukes (and did it about four months before this album came out (specifically, Souza was announced as being back in the band on June the 8th of this year), so you can imagine that Souza had to record the vocals VERY quickly to ensure this album didn't miss the deadline it had for it!). This album has been in the works since at least the summer of 2012, as the band started writing material for the album back then, and the band even entered the studio to record the album in March of this year, so you can imagine that this album has been taking a while to get done thanks to Gary Holt's commitments with Slayer.

And that is honestly why I have always said that this album, despite Souza being on vocals for it, is a Dukes-era Exodus album: had Hanneman not passed away and, as such, kept Holt busy for long enough that Dukes ended up being fired during the recording of this album, this album would have almost certainly been released with Dukes on vocals and it would not be pretending to be a reunion album for Exodus with Souza. I do not intend to sound like I'm blaming Hanneman for the fact that this album is the way it is, as that is completely unreasonable and clutching at straws which simply do not deserve to be tugged at for ANY reason, only that the knock on effects of Holt remaining with Slayer in the aftermath of Hanneman's passing delayed the release of this album significantly (although, to be fair, Hanneman's illness did also delay work on Slayer's upcoming album, which has been in development (in terms of writing material) since November 2011) and that, had these delays not happened, it is incredibly likely that this album would have had the vocalist the material was written for singing on it.

But you guys don't want to hear me ranting about this kind of thing constantly, I imagine. You want me to review this album and back up the bit of gloating I made at the start of this article.

Well, your wish is my command! So let's just to the cover art analysis!

Well, it's...I like the real dark vibe the artwork goes for, but I have to be honest, it just doesn't do much for me. It feels like the cover for a death metal album that accidentally got given to Exodus, as it doesn't completely fit in with what the band's previous cover arts were like, but they liked it enough to keep it. It's not necessarily bad, but I wouldn't have expected a cover like this on a thrash metal album, as it's just a bit too dark in terms of what the contents of the cover displays. The colour combination is also a bit weird for a thrash metal album: it seems a bit too brightly coloured overall and it doesn't quite work because of it. I'm not saying you can't have a brightly coloured cover art with really dark contents on it for a thrash metal album, but it rarely works well and I highly doubt it's ever been done to the extent that this album has been done.

Also, zombies on the cover of a metal album. How original, not like I've haven't seen that before...now, in fairness, I've never seen zombies eating themselves before now, but still, can we stop putting zombies on everything, they're not scary any more!

Well, let's get the material looked at.

Well...the material on this album is certainly competent, I have to give the band that, but I cannot shake off the whole feeling that the album is lacking something. It's very much like a typical thrash album by an old guard member of the thrash scene: it doesn't have the speed of the band's 80's material (although, in fairness, Exodus have been like this since Tempo Of The Damned, so this is hardly a new development) and it tries to get by through sheer intensity. While Overkill can manage that AND get some good speed up as well ("Ironbound", anyone?), Exodus...don't. More than half of the songs on the album feel like they're longer than they need to be, with the end result that there is a strong feeling that the whole album has a long of great songs on it...and the band forgot that it had to end them. This is a rather annoying trend which has carried over from the Atrocity Exhibition duo and is something which hurts this album more than it really should do, as most of the songs COULD have been really good had the band trimmed them down a bit. Even the complete snoozefest (to me) "Body Harvest" (which is, interestingly, one of only two tracks on the album NOT written by Gary Holt, being written by Lee Atlas with Steve Souza and Jack Gibson co-writing the lyrics with Atlas: the other song is "Honor Killings", written exclusively by Atlas) could have been passable had it been cut down a bit, but, at six and a half minutes where it just plods along for far longer than it should have done, it becomes nearly unbearable in how boring it becomes!

That's the word which needs to be remembered for this album: boring. Because, for me, that's what sums this album up. It's just intensity with nothing to back it up and make it worth actually listening to. Some songs get it right, but most of them are the fast short tracks (most of which, coincidentally, were the album's singles), which at least indicates that Gary Holt can write old school thrash songs very well, but the band's new style...not so much. I'll be fair, most of the songs have interesting moments, so it's not like they're complete throwaways, but good luck trying to remember which song has the good part you really like if it's not the chorus of the song, as most of the songs feel somewhat interchangeable! Now, in fairness, a lot of thrash can feel like this, but this is not a retro band trying to play thrash just like it's the 80's: this is Exodus trying to play thrash metal in their style of it, and I'm still struggling to tell the difference between each song when it's not "Salt The Wound" or the title track! This doesn't feel exciting like Nervosa did at all, and I could forgive that if it felt like I was really enjoying listening to it...but I'm not. It's perfectly fine as background music, but as a proper listening experience which I focus upon...I'm just bored stiff by it. And that's really not a phrase that should be thrown around in relation to thrash metal!

On a performance level, everyone certainly does themselves justice. Tom Hunting is a great drummer and he certainly proves that multiple times across the course of this album while everyone else puts out at least respectable performances. Steve Souza is very much an acquired taste when it comes to his vocals, as he can come across as having a REALLY nasal singing voice which can grate on you if you're not used to them (and, even when you are, you might need to be in the right mood to really like his voice), but I can't say he does a bad job on this album. The problem is...well, I'm going to have to get very boring with this bit, so bear with me: whenever I think of Steve Souza as a vocalist, the mental image that comes to mind is of a sadistic villain who is in control of every situation: he has the kind of voice that has a more subtle bite to it than more thrash metal vocalists, but is no less menacing than most thrash metal vocaists can do. By contrast, Rob Dukes had a lower, more angry yell due to his roots in hardcore punk which made him sound like he was pissed off at you and liable to kill you if he got his hands on a suitable tool to do that with. With the album written with Dukes' voice in mind, you've got a situation where it sounds like the sadistic villain is trying to angrily yell at you...and it just comes across as comical because Souza's voice simply doesn't suit that kind of vocal performance. The end result is that the vocal performance on this album, while still good on its own merits, is just not right for the material on this album.

There are three guest appearances scattered around this album, but the only one I'd say actually adds anything to the album is Dan The Automator's on the opening track, "Black 13", as his atmospheric introduction to the album opens the album on a weird (for an Exodus album) note that is nonetheless still quite the interesting addition to the album. Kirk Hammett's guest appearance on "Salt The Wound" certainly SOUNDS like him, but you could be forgiven for missing his appearance if you weren't aware of it, and Chuck Billy, while certainly recognisable as him due to his distinctive vocals, ultimately doesn't make much of an impression on this album, although it was certainly interesting to hear him singing underneath Steve Souza!

Production wise, I have to give credit for the fact that the bass is more present than usual, but it's still too quiet for my liking and the mastering...well, put it down for my usual complaints on this one.

So, overall, what do I think of this album? Well, it's a bit disappointing, all truth be told. For a band claimed to hold the true legacy of thrash metal in their hands among Bay Area thrash fans, it's not an especially interesting album overall and certainly more than a few steps down from Tempo Of The Damned. I just would have expected to have gotten far more than this album provided. If you liked the singles from this album...than that's probably all that you really need to take from this album, as the rest of the album is pretty much just longer, slowed down and less interesting versions of those songs. I guess die hard thrash fans would find this far more enjoyable than I did, but I just feel like the band dropped the ball on this one. Even if Dukes had been on this album and provided vocals that fit in more with what the album was going for, it still wouldn't have saved it from ultimately being boring, and that is ultimately the biggest disappointment for me. Nothing is offensively bad about the album and the songwriting is at least acceptable overall, so it might be worth checking out if you're a huge thrash fan, but two really strong songs from an eleven song album, with the rest being merely listenable and not really all that memorable...I'm sorry, but that's not enough for me to really want to recommend this album to anyone, and, for an album which is one of the most hyped albums of the year, that's FAR less quality material than I would have expected to have gotten from this album. Put this album down as an album for the die hard thrash fans only, I guess...or just put this album down, ha bloody ha...

Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Personal Favourite Tracks: "Blood In Blood Out", "Salt The Wound"

Offline note: I was going to give this a 5 Out Of 10, but I started to find this album growing on me while I was writing the review, so I bumped it up. I still stand by the rest of my review, though!

Intolerance + Why Religion Is Not (Completely) To Blame

Well, there goes my good mood. According to a bit of news circulating metal sites at the minute, a Christian zealot in Oklahoma has murdered a fellow student at his university under the belief that he was practising witchcraft...and the victim was noted for being a metal fan.

Oh, for the love of...you know, this kind of thing makes me question my already limited faith in humanity, because it showcases idiocy on a level so ridiculous that it's just staggering to believe that people can make leaps of logic like that and not even think to check their facts. I'm only not angry at the minute because I'm too incredulous to want to yell about this in the slightest!

First of all, let me spell this out VERY clearly, for the benefit of anyone reading this who is under the belief that metal music is Satanic, occult or anything like that: metal music is NOT connected to witchcraft in the slightest and, while there are musicians who play metal music who are Satanic or practise witchcraft, most metal musicians who have those themes in their music do not actually believe them and are merely using them in the same way that most horror films use Satanic imagery. In fact, there is this thing called Christian metal which you will want to go look up, because it is not only a very real thing, but (dare I say it?) it is actually a very enjoyable thing to listen to! If you're wanting to say that Black Sabbath were Satanic, then I'm going to have to inform you that they chose their name from the title of a horror movie and opted to include the Satanic themes because they wanted to produce music in the vein of horror movies in that they were INTENDED to be scary, but the members didn't actually believe in that kind of thing at all! Metal music, to most people, is just that: music. Most people don't listen to it because they're looking for occult themes and most people who DO find occult themes in the music just shrug it off because it's not a big deal for them. Oh, it's OK for Christians when it's THEIR deity being praised in music, but put another deity in music, even when it's not being done out of actual belief, and suddenly you have to draw a line to protect the minds of young and innocent children? Doesn't that seem more than a tad hypocritical, when put like that?

...Sorry, I think the anger's setting in now.

But let us step aside from the religious debate for a few minutes and boil this down to the basics: a man has murdered another man who had done nothing to him or represented any threat to society simply because he disagreed with the other man's choice of lifestyle. In fact, the man apparently attempted to decapitate his victim...and he clearly showed no remorse for his actions, as he called the police on himself to tell them what he'd done and, when they arrived, admitted what he'd done. No matter what your views on the victim's choice of lifestyle, that is truly sickening behaviour that cannot be justified, and, on moral reasons alone, I would be condemning this man's behaviour as indefensible. All other factors just make this situation worse, for it brings together two groups of people who rarely get along: metal fans, who will be sickened at a disgusting attack on one of their own by those who have constantly tried to repress their style of music without actually understanding it, and Christians, who have the misfortune of having to be associated with the man who committed this murder in the eyes of those who look on this event with any interest.

But I am not going to condemn the Christian zealots just for being connected to this murder through the actions of the killer, as much as I would personally love to tear them a new one for various reasons unconnected to this event. What I am going to do is try to look at why it would be completely unfair to pin the blame for this murder purely on the killer's fanatical faith in Christianity and, instead, try to come up with a mature take on this event that is fair to both sides.

I am no fan of Christianity as a religion. In fact, if I'm totally honest, I find the power the religion holds over so many places in the Western world to be concerning, as it effectively means that it is difficult at best to press through legislation that would arguably be better for allowing people to live their lives how they want to without having to face a bunch of fanatics who are convinced that anything which is against the Bible is an attempt to repress their religion. For me, the world should not bow to the whims of one religion, but should instead be open to allowing everyone to live their lives how they want to...within reason, of course, as I do not think that this means that laws which prevent immoral actions like rape and murder should be abolished merely for the sake of allowing people to choose their way of living.

But, as shocking as this might sound in light of my previous paragraph, I do have to feel sorry for the sensible Christians out there, as you have to be lumped with a bunch of intolerant jerks who are using your religion as an excuse to get their way. I am not religious myself, but I do recognise that there is a benefit to religion on an individual level that most people who are not religious rarely tend to consider: it can be a comfort to feel that there is someone out there who is listening to you when you need help and can help you when times are tough. While I do not believe there is actually someone out there (I've been through enough crap in my time to be convinced that, if there is a God out there, he's not been listening to me at all!), I do recognise that the feeling of having someone who is always there is a great comfort in tough times, and a person who is always out there and listening to you can be really reassuring, as, if you're feeling at your worst and are on your own, having that can help you pull through when not having that might make you give up. This seems to be why people who go through tough times seem to find religion.

What this man did are actions that I would argue are not the actions of a sane man, regardless of his religious beliefs. No sane man would take a sword, kill a man and then call the police on himself just to admit that he did it. So I feel that pinning the blame purely on Christianity is missing the true problem behind this man's actions: this man is a man who would have been a danger to society even if religion had had no part in his life. His religious fanaticism might have been a factor towards committing the acts he did, but they are ultimately only a factor that pushed him towards committed the acts he did. He was also, allegedly, a heavy user of drugs (which, ironically, I suspect is something that Christianity itself would frown upon, but I would welcome anyone who is knowledgable of the Bible who can confirm or deny that), which could have messed him up far more than religion would have done. And his brother confirmed that he was watching videos which conformed to his own religious beliefs, which indicates that he was not likely to be a man who was willing to accept people with a religion different from his own.

In other words, this is a man who, had he not been religious, would have probably still gone on to be dangerous to society, as he would have been willing to kill someone merely for having an opinion which was not his own. Even if I am wrong (which, I accept, I could be), I think that saying that the root of the problem is Christianity is neglecting to spot two dangerous factors which could have had just as much importance to making him commit the acts he did. I do not deny that religion would have had a part in making this man commit the acts he did, but they would not have been the only factor, and the problem is that both factors showcase intolerance from the killer towards the victim: intolerance of the victim's difference in religion from the killer's own, intolerance to anyone who did not share his opinion and, arguably, intolerance of the fact that heavy drug use can be VERY damaging towards your mind.

I do not intend this article to claim that religion is not dangerous: I am mistrustful of organised religion because the hold it can have over people can be very dangerous when used for ill. However, I refuse to accept that religion can become dangerous through one person on their own UNLESS they have an ulterior motive, ranging from simply being an unpleasant person in general through to using it to hide the real reasons behind their actions. It's VERY easy to blame religion due to it being the most noticeable thing for most people, but it is rare that the ONLY reason someone does something horrific is purely down to religion itself: there are other reasons that can be completely missed due to how easy it is to spot religion over the other factors.

Let us not condemn Christianity just because the killer was Christian. Let us, instead, look at every reason the killer could have had for committed the acts he did and condemn those actions, not just the one that immediately stands out. Because, by doing that, are we not showing ourselves just as intolerant as the killer himself for leaping onto the obvious reason and treating that as the only possible reason he committed the acts he did?

PledgeMusic: An Amazing Idea Or A Disaster Waiting To Happen?

Now, I make no secret (among my friends, at least) of the fact that, for me, there's nothing that beats buying physical copies of albums, either by getting them from your local record shop (...which, for me, is about fifty miles away, so I use the word "local" about as loosely as some people wear their jeans) or buy having them arrive in the post. While most people would argue that I'm stuck in the past for refusing to accept downloads of albums are the future, I just find that having physical copies of albums is just better for me on a lot of levels. Firstly, your record collection cannot be wiped out if you (or some malicious bastard) delete your account on something like iTunes, which means that you overall have more control over your album collection than a purely download based system allows you to have. Secondly, I find that there's nothing quite like being able to sit down and read the liner notes to an album, as the amount of hard work that artists can put into them can ultimately give you an indication as to how much they actually care about the album: if they look like crap, chances are that's what the artist thought of it. Thirdly, physical copies don't have the problem of factors like battery life interrupting your album when it runs out: just put it in a CD player that's plugged in and it'll nearly always work fine! Fourthly, it's far easier to lend a CD to a friend than it is to lend a digital copy of something because, with a physical copy, you just need to put the CD in your bag or pocket and you're done! Those aren't the only reasons, but, overall, you can get the idea that a good way to annoy me is to refuse to do a physical release of an album just because there apparently isn't the demand for them: there certainly is, it's just that most people today have no patience and find the thought of waiting for something to arrive completely unbearable!

This isn't to say that I think digital copies of albums are all bad (in fact, I do recognise that some people just can't have a large number of physical albums sitting around the place, either because they're constantly on the move or they just don't have the space) and I do recognise that there are advantages to digital distribution, especially among smaller bands or from international companies who would have to charge you an arm and a leg (or, at least, a noticeably larger amount than a digital download of the CD would) just to get your physical copy to you. However, I just prefer the old fashioned way of doing things and, until I have no choice except to embrace the digital distribution method of doing things due to CDs completely dying off, I am going to remain stoutly in the corner of preferring to be able to actually hold what I own in my hands. Even with systems for stuff like games (like Steam and PSN), I will still prefer to have a physical release of whatever I own, because I just don't trust companies to keep these things constantly online. Sooner or later, things like Steam, iTunes and PSN will close down (usually along with the company that made them) and then you will almost certainly be unable to access anything you didn't already have saved onto your computer. And maybe even then, if you're really unlucky. Call me paranoid, call me a grumpy sod, call me reluctant to embrace change, call me cynical, call me Shirley (...OK, maybe not the last one!), but, in ANY situation where something is only kept online because it's run by a company, I feel that being the one guy refusing to join the new age because I don't want to be too attached to something that could disappear very easily when the company's money does is a far more sensible idea than it looks like on first glance.

So, why am I talking about PledgeMusic? Well, two reasons: one, I feel that I have something that I wish to look at which is actually worth examining closely, in light of a few things which Jimquisition has rambled on about in the past for things like Kickstarter and Early Access games, and two, I want to rewrite a review that I was going to put up today and I couldn't find anything else to review to fill the void where the review should have been.

...Well, can't say I'm not honest!

Anyway, to bring the discussion to Early Access games and Kickstarter (trust me, there is a point to this), a trend that has become fairly popular in recent times in gaming is to ask people to help fund development of games. Kickstarter projects aren't actually exclusively linked towards gaming, as it's been used to fund things like movies in the past, but the basic point of Kickstarter is that you donate money to a project that you like the look of, with the expectation of getting something back from the person making the project in exchange. This can cover anything from merely getting a copy of the project itself when it is finished to getting to meet and work with the people making the project to help it reach completion. This is how some highly regarded games like Shovel Knight and Broken Age were funded, and many of them on nostalgia for types of games which most people don't make today (in those two examples, 8-bit platformers and point-and-click adventure games)...and it's also how Anita Sarkeesian was able to fund her web series, interestingly enough. Food for thought, I guess...

Now, on paper, Kickstarter is a very good idea, but, in practice, it is open to being exploited for personal gain. For a start, the project don't even need to have STARTED to be anything vaguely resembling developed before a Kickstarter can be opened for it: someone could feasibly open a Kickstarter project based purely on an idea they've had which they might end up scrapping purely because they aren't interested in doing it. Secondly, you have no guarantee that what you've put money down on is actually going to be good: much like when you pre-order something, you're putting down money for something that you cannot be sure of the final quality of, but, unlike pre-orders, you cannot cancel your order or get your money back if advance reviews of the final product indicate that it is a terribly made piece of crap which isn't worth buying: you paid for the product to be made and you have nobody to blame except yourself if your faith turns out to be misguided. Thirdly, there is no guarantee that your money will actually go towards funding the project you provided the money for: the person making the project could very well end up using the money for things not related to the project, if they even use the money on the project at all! Kickstarter is a VERY risky idea in practice, and there have, indeed, been tales in the past of people abusing the system, but it is certainly a noble idea on paper that I would support if I weren't a naturally suspicious sort.

Early Access runs on a similar idea to Kickstarter, except that you can at least claim to have something resembling a product guaranteed to be there when you buy it. With Early Access, you buy a game that you know is incomplete, which SHOULD help to fund further development of the game, and provide feedback on the game to help developers know what to put in the game, what to change, bugs that you've found and stuff like that. In essence, one could argue that buying an Early Access game effectively makes you a funder, playtester and executive of the game. Again, Early Access does have some success stories (one could argue that Minecraft was one, despite never actually being released under the Early Access system, due to originally being released while still in the Alpha stage of development) and it is an idea that, while I don't necessarily completely agree with the idea behind it, I can see the appeal to it.

In practice, however, Early Access suffers from the same problem that pre-orders and Kickstarter do: you don't know what you're getting yourself in for when you pay money for it. And, again, like with Kickstarter, if the product turns out not to be worth the asking price, you cannot cancel your order or get your money back: you have paid for it and you have to live with that knowledge. Now, Early Access is arguably better than Kickstarter in that, with the game actually released, you could feasibly take the time to wait for someone to review it before you consider buying it: just wait a week or two after the release date and someone will have a review of it up somewhere on the internet! However, unlike Kickstarter, you are very likely to have to deal with things like missing features in the game, which can ultimately leave you playing a game that can only get away with the fact it's incomplete because it advertised that it isn't done yet. On top of that, it is a system that can be exploited, and you only need to look around Steam's Early Access games to see games which came out and then were promptly forgotten about by their developers the moment they started getting money thrown at them.

I say what I do not to discourage people from supporting the projects they want to see succeed, only to remind them that an excellent idea for a product is not the same as an excellent product: only a finished product that is excellent is an excellent product, as an unfinished product or an idea for one still leave the question of what the final product is actually going to be like. Let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that The Matrix was a terribly made film, shot on cheap hand held cameras with very bad directing and with acting that would make a porn star look like a classically trained Shakespearian actor (...OK, I just made myself laugh picturing a pornography in the style of a Shakespeare play! It's times like this that I love doing blogging...). Would the film have still been an excellent product in that case? No, of course not! But it would have still been an excellent idea for a film. That is the crucial difference between a good product and a good idea for one: the good product can be confirmed to be a good product because it's actually been made, but the good idea could be horribly botched when it's actually made and all of the potential behind the idea would not be able to save it from being a bad product. Incidentally, this is also why a well made film does not necessarily equal a good film: some films are born for ideas which quite frankly should have not even made it off the ground, but, thanks to having a good budget, are still well made on a technical level. If you will, a expertly sculpted statue of a giant piece of shit made from pure gold and covered with emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires, at the end of the day, is still a giant piece of shit: the fact it's been sculpted from a valuable metal, covered with previous stones and been done by an expert hand does not automatically make it something you'd want to display for all of your friends to see!

...OK, I'll admit, that doesn't make quite as much sense when typed out as it did in my head.

Anyway, the same kind of logic that you can see with Early Access and Kickstarter is the same logic that runs PledgeMusic: you give a band money to record an album that you might be doing completely blind (I've seen bands funding their debut albums on the site, and without providing any demo recordings on their page to help me to see if the album's going to be to my liking!). And, while I do think that there's far more reason to want to support an up and coming band and allow them to record their album over a video game company due to how much it can cost to record an album (some local ones I've seen can come to nearly £100 per day...and that's just for the studio on its own!), there does come a point when I have to say that Bandcamp is a far better place to want to go as a music consumer to go support bands who are unsigned instead of PledgeMusic. In fact, in terms of overall service, I'd say Bandcamp is going above and beyond the call of duty, as you can stream whatever you're interested in without needing to pay for it first, which can be a godsend if you're living on limited funds and can't afford to risk buying something that you don't like. It also is very clearly laid out: I still have no idea if I can download fully funded projects on PledgeMusic, which means that some albums which I want to consider picking up for review work might well be completely inaccessible to me, while, with Bandcamp, you have it pretty clearly marked out. I guess you could say that Bandcamp is a bit like what Steam was like prior to the influx of Early Access games (and the easily abusable greenlight system, now I think on it...), only being for music instead of games. PledgeMusic, by contrast, is the music version of Kickstarter, with a bit of Early Access thrown in for good measure.

Yet...I don't dislike PledgeMusic at all. As easy as it would be to tear PledgeMusic a new one just because it's got the potential to be abused in the same way that Kickstarter has been in the past, I haven't heard of any issues with PledgeMusic. Maybe it's because I've not found the music scenes version of Jimquisition yet and, as such, any controversies connected to it have completely missed my notice, but the only time I've heard of anything resembling an issue related to PledgeMusic is when Timo Tolkki was going to do a second Classical Variations and Themes album, which he cancelled in late July 2012 after it had been in development since April of the same year (although the fact that it seems to have morphed into his Avalon project, which I really liked the first album of, doesn't annoy me too much!): apart from that, it seems that PledgeMusic has managed to avoid things going badly wrong in that way! Plus, the fact that PledgeMusic does have projects on the site where the pledge is purely for extras, with the product itself already done, does at least mean that I feel a bit more confident that I could feasibly use the site as a place to pre-order albums which I think sound like they could be particularly interesting (as I have done with Queensryche's upcoming release (which I think is going to be a new studio album, judging from the comments on their page) and am vaguely considering doing with the upcoming studio album by Michael Sweet and George Lynch, because...well, it's Michael Sweet and George Lynch in a band together, how often are you going to see THAT happening?).

So yeah...while I think there is the potential for PledgeMusic to be just as bad as Kickstarter and, as such, would not blame anyone for approaching it with more than a bit of suspicion, I think there is the potential for it to work out very well. I would like them to make their layouts a bit more clear when it comes to already funded projects so that you know whether you can get a download of the release from the site or not and I think their search system is a bit oddly done (instead of putting the search in alphabetical order, regardless of the status of every pledge, why not put the still open pledges at the top of the search list, especially if it is the case that you can't download material from concluded pledges?), but I certainly can see PledgeMusic being a good way for up and coming bands to get their name out there. I just would recommend that you be vigilant and do your research before you supply funds to a band you've never heard of, for that could save you from potentially ending up in a nasty situation in the future!

...Oh yeah, and, just so I can officially check this off my list of things that I've always wanted to say: "Thank God for me!"

...Now to start checking the mail for letter bombs or cease and desist letters from Jim Sterling, I guess!