Category: Music misc.

I have recently listened to new albums from known and unknown bands. I’ve revisited In Cauda Venenum by Opeth, such a solid album. I have a new favorite part on the album. It’s not a whole song. It’s the outro of Allting tar slut / All Thing Will Pass. It’s one of the best outros from the whole Opeth‘s catalogue, only rivaled by the outro of Deliverance. I prefer the Swedish version of the song, Allting tar slut, which I never thought I would.

I have also listened to the German band The Ocean, especially Permian: The Great Dying, the final track on Phanerozoic I: Plaeozoic. It’s a complete banger. I adore the beginning, it’s been stuck in my head for days. Also, the Tool-esque melodies in the clean vocals are really good and also surprising. I love the huge-sounding guitars which seems to be The Ocean‘s signature sound.

Another new song that has been stuck in my head is the song Bråtebrann by the very popular Norwegian band Kvelertak. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve heard this year. Sadly I can’t say the same of the rest of the album Splid. Bråtebrann is a very classic hardrock-sounding song with harsh vocals where I also can hear some Rush and Porcupine Tree influences, which is always a huge plus in my book.

Alcest is a new name for me, it’s dark, atmospheric and kind of gloomy, but it has a quality that I really like. It’s a band I really want to look into more. I get inspired listening to Alcest, which is always great. The song Sapphire is my favorite, along with Protection and Kodama.

I’m also looking into the band Soen, which is very interesting, but for me somewhat inconsistent and feels like they haven’t sound their sound. It’s pretty unique, awesome musicians, but like I said, it’s very up and down, even within songs.

To end this post, I have also revisited an old favorite. It’s not new in any regard. It’s the mid 90’s classic by At The Gates, Slaughter of the Soul. One of the best metal albums ever recorded in my eyes. I’ve been playing along with Blinded by Fear and when I’ve got that down, I’m moving on to the title track.

The last couple of years Spotify has made playlists on my most listened songs. So I thought it would be fun to just sum up the last three years in music for me. I’m actually pretty excited to see how 2021 will differ from previous years.

2018

In 2018 I didn’t listen that much to music. I was mostly listening to youtube videos when walking or going to and back from work. All songs on my top 10 is by different artists/bands. It’s a very mixed list, some rock, punk, an a humoristic acapella song, 70’s “jazz rock”, metal, bluegrass pop, video game music, a classical piece and a radio hit,

2019

In 2019 everything changed, the main reason is the release of Tool’s Fear Inoculum which got me to find Tool again, something that really shows on the list. Besides Tool I also rediscovered metal with Deftones, Edge of Sanity and At the Gates.

2020

A weird year with many changes for me personally. I discovered Motoi Sakuraba’s solo projects from the 90’s, and the album Gikyokuonsou was my most played during 2020. Something that is very evident on the top 10 list for 2020. The grip that Tool got on me during 2019 continued the year after. You can also see that metal from my youth still had a place on the top 10, as well as an 70’s Swedish prog favorite.

This is very unusual. For the first time in years I have played so much electric bass that my fingertips are sore. It’s a fantastic feeling to be honest.

I was learning the guitar part for the pre-solo section on bass for the song Silent Wars by Arch Enemy. Which was a challenge in itself, to play a guitar part in bass. It was very fun, especially to prove to myself that I could do it. Despite the rust.

The feeling of accomplishment is very satisfying and I hope I’ll keep this up. I really want to play more.

I have been listening to a lot of music from my youth lately. That means that I listen to those song with new ears. The last year or so I have been very interested in music that incorporate odd meters.

Going back to music I loved prior to my obsession with odd meters, I’m noticing thatvthe parts I liked the most in the song back in the days usually have Odd meters, something I was not picking up on when I was younger.

It’s pretty nice to see that even though I didn’t know exactly what I heard, I knew there was something exciting and intriuging about those parts.

One of the prime examples is Arch Enemy’s song Silent Wars. The pre-solo part in 13/8 or alternating 6/8 and 7/8 is still the best thing in the song. There is a great tension in the added beat, which really makes that section so great.

The same effect can be found in the song Paradise Lost by Symphony X where the song itself isn’t the most interesting to me. The intro however (and large parts of the song), is adding a bar of 7/8 after three bars of 6/8. It really elevates the song, the intro especially.

I’m probably gonna write more about songs that gets “revived” to me. To see if I still have the same taste as before.

I recently bought an external DVD burner. The plan is to rip all my CDs to FLAC so I have good quality rips. That way I can listen to MY CDs, without having to find the CD. Especially since I don’t have any means to play CDs where I have speakers. It is legal in Sweden to rip CDs for personal use.

After primarily been listening to streamed music and MP3s for such a long time, it’s very nice to listen to some good quality rips. I do however not have any really good headphones. I will get a DAC and some nice headphones in the future.

To rip the CDs to FLAC I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) which seems to be the best way to make FLAC-files. I am currently ripping Katatonia’s excellent album The Fall of Hearts, which is also the first one to get ripped to FLAC.

These files will be transferred to a external hard drive and in the future to a NAS so they are accessible from all devices in the apartment. When the first rip was finished I noticed that it took 31 minutes to finish a one hour long CD. Even though I don’t have too many CDs, this will take a while.

I followed a guide on https://doujinstyle.com/eac/ripping.html