In 1995, I remember myself saying that if I died, I would like my family to play in my funeral the song "Life - another shape of sorrow" by Dismember. With other friends, we listened to "shadows in the deep" by Unleashed and we actually enterred the damp cave of the afterlife, encountering the grief of souls deceived by religions. We were actually terrified by songs like "Jumping at shadows" and "subconscious terror" by Benediction. We were getting depressed with "Icon" and "Draconian Times". The eponymous song from the first black sabbath album was giving as the creeps, and when I would leave my friend's house at 1 o'clock in the morning, I hoped I wouldn't come across the figure on the layout! We were getting home from school and we would headbang for hours listening to Maiden (I always picked "the loneliness of the long distance runner"), Helloween, Savatage (the killer part in Strange Wings (at 2:15)!), Slayer and so on. Heavy metal, thrash, swedish death metal were in our minds and hearts 24/7 (hence the bad grades)! What happened and these scenes don't give me the chills anymore?

To get one thing straight, I don't say that I stopped loving all the forementioned bands. I still love them, listen to them, and go to the gigs. But when they release a new album ... it just doesn't feel the same. OK, I admit that some scenes like traditional heavy metal apply more to teenagers, mainly due to their simplistic lyrics and juvenile attitude and appearance. But what about death metal? Don't let me get started on the revival of the old swedish death metal scene and crap like that. Bands like Kaamos, Bloodbath, and so on are plain ridiculous. But lets take one thing at a time.

First of all, bands that used to play old school swedish death metal at the same time created that scene! They didn't say "Lets start an old school death metal band"! That was what they knew to do best and they did it. Bands that start to play old school death metal today are out of context. Old school death metal and contemporary times, are two incompatible things. Even in 10 years time, Bloodbath will not be old school swedish death metal. They will be a third wave brutal death metal band without an identity! The sole reason the first Bloodbath album sounds old school (and has some awesome 'edge of sanity' riffs), is Swano who is old school! Who are the other members? Did they ever do anything decent in the death metal scene before Bloodbath? The Opeth guy has always been a 'Swano wannabe'. He replicates Swano's voice and with his band (i.e. Opeth) he proposes things incoherent, some of which "Edge of Sanity" and "Panthymonium" did In the early 90s! Other new bands that say that they play old school swedish death metal, are in my eyes bands that study old death metal bands, like british kids study in their schools how to become successful pop-rockers. You don't learn how to play old school swedish death metal.

Of course, it is obvious that for more than 10 years, playing death metal means making a lot of cash. That's how the exponential expansion of the death metal scene, especially the technical american one, the past decade is explained. Technique and professionalism of course killed death metal. It made it devoid of emotions and friendly to the masses. Anyone who is a passerby in the scene or music in general, finds it easy to like new death metal because it has "proved its worth"!!! Its technical, so I should not feel ashamed listening to death metal anymore! I will refer in more detail to this issue in a post in the future though... My point now is that the guys from Bloodbath clearly made that band to gain extra cash. Other bands reunite, or play "like in the old times" because it sells.

However, this post is about a personal problem, that is that I can't relate to and love the things I was supposed to love. Well one of the reasons I don't like the new swedish death metal scene is because it is a fake one. Another reason the scenes I loved in the past are unable to give me the chills anymore, is because, as I mention in an older post (i.e. Internet and Demystification), these scenes are demystified. The more mainstream a scene becomes and the more access to information about the bands' personal lives is granted, the more the image of the rebellious youth that plays extreme music and wants to shake the moral foundations of society and shock, is destroyed.

Another issue is that the death metal scene, in contrast to what most people believe, has always been a highly comercialised and conventional scene. This means that death metal musicians like other metal musicians want to become rock stars! Maybe an even more "masculine" version of past rock stars but definetely rock stars. Further, record companies view them as and promote them to be rock stars. Bands want to make more money, companies are interested in maximising their profit. Even with bands like "Dismember" who never became extremely successful, it is evident that they did not have freedom of expression inside their company. In the DVD 'live blasphemies', members of the band explain how Nuclear Blast wanted them to sound like Entombed (Wolverine Blues era) on their new album. Of course Dismember, could not sound like Entombed because they listen to completely different music (Dismember listens to british heavy metal, Entombed listens to Punk and alternative bands), and so they released the masterpiece named Masive Killing Capacity.

The reason why today american (and european) death metal bands play hyper-fast technical brutal death metal is because of a historical event! The fact that a couple of bands like Nile and Suffocation became really successful! In the past bands played technical death metal as well, but they sunk and hit rock bottom. Who remembers Oppressor a band really ahead of its time, or Broken Hope (GODS!), or even Disincarnate? They all played technical death metal but they did not cause a revolution in the scene. None copied them. These bands did not become rich. Thats why kids did not become obsessed and did not start playing like them. But Nile and Dying Fetus, were obviously fabulous (until 2000!), and happen to have lived in a time where information is easily passed around, so they became successful. All kids fueled by their desire to (and the high possibility of becoming) become famous, accompanied by record companies' desire to maximise profit, led to a homogeneous, fake, emotionless scene of technocrats playing brutal death metal.

There, I said it! Because of the nature of the music business, styles and scenes that persist are fake and not interesting! A scene that is original is original only for a few years. A handful of bands start a new scene, like with the old swedish death metal scene. At that time, the bands are playing what they want with themselves making the rules. If this early scene produces profits for the record company, that means that the record company will advertise that style of music. Thenceforward the scene will become both boring and later on fake. Boring, because bands will become bored of playing the same thing over and over, but will be forced by their company and fake because new bands will learn how to copy the original sound (like Bloodbath and Kaamos). If this scene does not produce profits, it will cease to exist, like the old swedish death metal scene, which by the mid-nineties had vanished.No wonder why I am not interested in the contemporary swedish (or american for that matter) scene. The same goes for the contemporary punk scene. I still listen to the old bands playing but it still does not feel the same.

Less then a week remains before the very first concert of the emblematic gothic metal band CREMATORY before their Bulgarian fans. On 27^th this month the Germans will be rocking in Hristo Botev Hall in Sofia and what makes us expect it even more is the fact that the promoter ART BG promised premium sound on the event with outstanding high definition sound system. Well, we really hope that finally someone will put more efforts than usual and will show us that even in this hall one can get quality sonic experience. Till then, we couldn’t resist and we gave CREMATORY a call to check the mood a week before their performance. Here it is what their drummer Markus shared with us on a Saturday morning, around 12 o'clock, just woken up: 

How did you decided to finally come in Bulgaria and actually your concert is part of your tour or you are coming especially to our country?

 It’s a big bless for us to visit Bulgaria for the first time, we know that we have in your country a lot of fans, we thought it’s time to visit also Bulgaria and we found a really professional organizer which is booking the concert in Bulgaria and yeah we thought it’s time to visit your country and to visit our fans in Bulgaria and it’s a big pleasure for us.

Would you promote your new album on the concert or we would be able to hear something from your previous albums too?

We would play a “best of” show from all the albums we’ve ever made, we do this every time we play in a new country, we did this also in Russia and Romania, Poland. For us, I think that East Europe is a really big market and the fans are really good there, we see this when we play in Russia, Romania and all the East European countries. It’s fantastic for us, we have a really big fan base there and we are really happy that we can visit you at the end of the month.

Are you having some free days after you concert in Bulgaria, do you plan to stay for few days?

Yes, we would stay one day before the concert and one day after the concert in Bulgaria, to look a bit on the culture and style of your country.

Are you happy with the results from the promotion of your new album “Pray” till now and with the reactions of the audience when you present your new songs? 

Yeah, it’s fantastic. On the new album “Pray” we are getting very very good feedback all over the world and it’s more than we expected for the new album, it’s fantastic for us and we are really really happy that we can win new fans with the new album and it’s fantastic for us since February when the album was released.

You named the new album “Pray”, are you religious? You and members of the band?

We are normal religious like every other people, we are no Satanist. Religion, it’s a normal thing, there is no deeper meaning behind the title, believe, behind “Pray”; we only chose “Pray” as a title because when we were making the photos for it with our cover girl we thought this is the best title, for our music, what is in this album and it’s best for our songs what we have in this album, it’s no deeper meaning behind that.

In 2006 you came back to your first label “Massacre” after few years with “Nuclear Blast”, why did you make this turn back?

It’s a normal business thing, I’m also the manager of the band and the contract with “Nuclear Blast” finished and we had a lot of offers from many record companies and “Massacre” offered us the best deal for this album. And this is why changed to “Massacre”. Now the deal with “Massacre” is also finished and we talk at this time also with other record companies which we will work with for the future. We will see, it’s a normal business thing, I don’t know exactly, it can be possible that we stay by “Massacre”, it could be possible that we go back to “Nuclear Blast” or change to another record label, we will see. It’s a normal business thing that when a contract is finished, you go shopping… to all record companies that have interest for Crematory and then we make some meetings with labels and talk about the details for the marketing, for the money, for the advance, for the whole promotion. And when we think it is the right thing… We will see what will we do in the future, we are really happy with this situation that we have at this time and we had a lot of good offers from other record companies, so we will see.

Around what time can we expect this decision to be made? Rather you stay with “Massacre” or you change?

We will see, I don’t know exactly, I got few offers now. I think we will start around February, March next year to write new songs that we will release in the next studio album in the beginning of 2010. We will see.

How do you find things now after the pause you made with Crematory before few years? Any changes in musical business, in the audience?

Yeah, everything changed since we come back, ‘cause we handle the music business much more easier than before. ‘Cause in the first period of Crematory we lived all from the music and now we have families, children, babies, we’ve got also normal jobs and this is the reason why we play shows only in the weekend. We handle Crematory more as a professional hobby than then and yeah, since we do things that way everything works perfect, much more better then in the past.

So everyone is having another job and Crematory is just a side project?

Yeah, that’s right. The first ten years Crematory was our main thing and we had some small jobs aside, and at this time everyone is having a normal job and we do Crematory as a professional hobby, beside, but on a really high level. That means we work the same style as in the past for Crematory, really professional, but differs in the time, we don’t insist on writing an album every year as we did in the past, record an album every two or three years and we don’t want to play 200 shows or 150 shows, each year we will only play 50 shows. And since we do this way everything works perfect. Less is small! (laughing)

Bulgaria has never seen you live and honestly, here you have really lots of fans, already from 15 years, so playing in front of “virgin” audience, do you have something special for the occasion?

The first special thing we have is we really play a “best of” show, of all our hits we have in every record, we play 90 or 120 minutes, we will see how much time do we have, we play a really good “best of” show and we want to have really good party together with our fans the first time they see us on stage and the first time we visit your country. We will do some “meet and greet” there, the local booker organized a lot of interview there for us, they organized some autograph sessions, some “meet and greet”… We will do everything there for our fans in Bulgaria. We are really really happy to see you at the and of the month, so see you there!

I didn't really know what to expect coming into this album. The two previous All Shall Perish albums, Hate.Malice.Revenge and The Price of Existence, were straight up deathcore albums. I went to their myspace to check out the new tracks a while ago, and these were not ordinary deathcore tracks. They felt like a mix between All Shall Perish, Necrophagist, and Between The Buried and Me. There were some crazy riffs, a few crazy bass and guitar fills, and a whole bunch of other stuff that did not play a large part in their previous efforts. Upon listening to the whole album, only then did I realize that All Shall Perish really are trying to redefine their sound an image, and break down some walls - with force.

The first track on the album is a prefect example of what I am referring to. "When Life Meant More..." is backed to the brim and overflowing with new intensity that sounds very similar to that of Necrophagist or Between the Buried and Me. The technical shredding happens while the heavy parts lie underneath, and the song does not lose touch with what it's supposed to be - brutal. It's still got all the staggering rhythms and growling vocals, with little extra kick.

From there, the song becomes increasingly varied, some ranging more towards the old All Shall Perish, and some that stray away from the mold even further. The next song on the album, "Black Gold Reign" moves from the BTBAM and Necrophagist sort of sound to a more As I Lay Dying and In Flames sound. At about 1:50 in, there is even a power metal wail, which REALLY caught me off guard, but seemed very necessary. There is even an airy interlude for a few seconds, which would have never happened on other All Shall Perish albums.

But, enough comparison. This album really delivers in it's own way. As much as certain parts of the album sound like someone else, it's never enough to really give it much thought. Combing a huge amount of styles, they bring it all together in a neat little package. Quite little, at that: the album is only 36 minutes long.

The album does not pass as though it is only 36 minutes long, however. There are so many different things that happen throughout the album that it feels like it should exceed 50 minutes. The songs fit so perfectly together, and seem very lengthy at times toward the end of the album when the more airy drawn-out sections become more prevalent, and Story/Orem get into solo mode. All in all, this album is filled with very tastefully technical musicianship, something that really is under-appreciated in many cases. The sweeps, the weeping solos, the shredding, the chugging, it's all used tastefully in almost all cases. On the opening track, there is a very significant amount of shredding, but is is lower in volume than the rhythm guitar, which is almost unheard of.

The vocals are also very well done on this album. They're a good as ever and about the same as always; a couple instances where Hermida switches it up a bit when he adds in the power wail (and sometimes goes other directions with it) adds a small amount more dynamic than before. The same goes for the bass and the drums - nothing new or overly exciting, aside from the fact that the production quality has been improved on these for this album.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to give this album for a score, and I really still rest undecided about it. Part of me wants to give this album a 9.5/10, but something seems wrong about that, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Track picks: "When Life Meant More" and "Awaken The Dreamers"

Overall score: 9.5/10 devil horns
Since I can't think of any good reason not to give it this score other than the length of the album, I'll go with my gut feeling. I strongly considered a ten, but with it's "Colors" by BTBAM nature, it simply does not live up to that, which is a ten in my book.

portable bomb shelter

Originally uploaded by micahnova

She had this reassurance, for reasons unknown to her, that if a nuclear weapon were to end the world as she knew it, a magical force field would suddenly surround her, and she would be protected from the blast. Although this did set her mind at ease a bit, she did hope that she was not the only one in the world with this sort of thing. And she also hoped that this other gifted person was a male somewhat her age with not too much back hair and who did not snore too terribly loud and also who did not have really stinky feet... all very important when trying to get along with someone in a post apocalyptic social situation.

Manowar!!!! It is impossible not to know the self-proclaimed KINGS OF METAL!
There are people who hate them and there are people who admire them but the news they have announced are just incredible! For the 20th anniversary of the Band, DeMaio and co have planed a festival (9th-12th July) in Bad Arolsen (near Kassel), with 20.000 l Free Beer, 20.000 free copies of the new MANOWAR single , 4 Custom Built Choppers owned by MANOWAR band members given away and much more!

In an interview wit Nuclear Blast, DeMaio and Adams explained that they are currently rehearsing like maniacs, because they want to play in only two days every single song of the first six records!!!
Furthermore the Festival is very interessting for newcomer Bands because on 9th and 10th July there are unsigned Bands which are going to fight in a Battle of the Bands against each other to get a slot during the 11th and 12th July. Joey explains that there are so many talented young Bands which don't get any assisstance, so Manowar wants to help the Metal scene!

The festival is called Magic Circle Festival with Heavy Metal Gods like:
Manowar
Whitesnake
Def Leppard
Alice Cooper
Ted Nugent
W.A.S.P.
Gotthard
Doro
MSG
Majesty
Holyhell
Benedictum
Mob Rules
Beloved Enemy
Stormwarrior
Sixth Sense
Brazen Abbot feat.Joe Lynn Turner
Jack Starr´s Burning Starr
Titanium Black
and many more

True Metal Shall Reign Forever! Death To False Metal! Hail and Kill!

4-day tickets at 80,- EUR (+ surcharges) are now available at www.nuclearblast.de, www.magiccirclefestival.com, www.eventim.com, www.tickets-online.com and many other outlets.

For more information, please visit www.magiccirclefestival.com and www.manowar.com.

!!MY RESPECT TO MANOWAR!!

innerwille

Callejon haben bei Nuclear Blast unterschrieben und werden im Sommer vier Wochen lang an ihren neuen Album schrauben.
Glückwunsch zum Deal !

Monochrome sind weiterhin Live unterwegs :

05. JULY — STUTTGART, Sommerfest@Rocker 33

01. AUGUST — ESSLINGEN, Burg
19. SEPTEMBER - Oldenburg, umbaubar
20. SEPTEMBER - Köln, Gebäude 9
17. OCTOBER - LUZERN, Treibhaus
08. NOVEMBER - DORTMUND, FZW

Matula sind zusammen mit Nein Nein Nein auf Tour.
Auf den Shows gibt es eine neue Split 12inch mit beiden Bands !!!!

07.06.2008 Kassel, Bazille
08.06.2008 Freiburg, KTS
09.06.2008 Ravensburg, Café Balthes
10.06.2008 A - Linz, Kapu
11.06.2008 Passau, Zack
12.06.2008 Regensburg, Alte Mälzerei
13.06.2008 Hof, Grüne Haidt
14.06.2008 Bad Frankenhausen, Domizil
15.06.2008 Berlin, Subversiv
16.06.2008 Hamburg, Rote Flora
17.06.2008 Kiel, Rathausbunker
18.06.2008 Flensburg, Senffabrik
19.06.2008 Münster, Proberaum Lappe
20.06.2008 Oberhausen, Druckluft

Durchde

Umea, Svezia, 1995. Una delle creature più mostruose della storia della musica sta per uscire definitivamente allo scoperto. Tutto è pronto: un più che discreto disco d’esordio, un superlativo EP, una serie di concerti in giro per l’Europa che sbalordisce fan e addetti ai lavori, un pressante passaparola tra i seguaci dell’underground metal più sperimentale e violento, e quel nome così esotico e particolare, Meshuggah, che presto diverrà marchio di fabbrica di un suono inconfondibile e, purtroppo per le migliaia di bands che proveranno a renderlo proprio, inimitabile.

Tutto nei Meshuggah è programmatico; dal nome (in ebraico gente folle), al titolo del disco, ai testi. Nulla è lasciato al caso. Già nella prima traccia ci dicono di essere una Future Breed Machine, una macchina non umana. E ci svelano il loro intento: Destroy Erase Improbe. Distruggere, Cancellare, Migliorare.

Da sempre nel rock e nei suoi derivati la classica strumentazione chitarra. basso e batteria è stata un mezzo per sprigionare emozioni attraverso melodie o ritmi trascinanti. Si è sempre cercata una dimensione “umana” per modulare e indirizzare quel flusso etereo che è la musica. Ai Meshuggah tutto ciò non interessa, ragionano da macchine. Sono macchine. Imprigionano le note in strutture ritmiche complesse dalle quali è impossibile uscire. Hanno l’urgenza di disumanizzare il primitivo retaggio thrash e le forti influenze jazz fusion privandoli del calore che li alimentano. Nemmeno quei rari e preziosi barlumi di melodia che si colgono sotto cascate di ingranaggi riescono a corrompere il prestabilito andamento della Macchina, dando vita a quelle parti chitarristiche che più che ad assoli assomigliano a complessi calcoli matematici. L’unico barlume di umanità è l’urlo freddo ma disperato di Jens Kidman, la cui voce è ormai uno strumento ritmico, il mezzo attraverso il quale la macchina comunica all’uomo il suo disprezzo per questo mondo e le sue leggi millenarie.

“Programmed to appease you. We are symbols of perfection. Humanoids ruled by your laws. Destroy Erase Improve. Lesson first: submission. We are docile servant dogs. Our leashes are your limbs. Computed deep within”

Tracklist:
1. Future Breed Machine
2. Beneath
3. Soul Burn
4. Transifixion
5. Vanished
6. Acrid Placidity
7. Inside What's Within Behind
8. Terminal Illusions
9. Suffer In Truth
10. Sublevels

As regras:

• a banda não pode estar em nenhum selo
• tem que tocar metal
• não ser banda cover
• ter os direitos das músicas
• sem material ofensivo (racismo, fascismo, etc.)
• músicas de pelo menos 2 anos pra cá
• músicas em ingles
• a banda tem que conseguir se comunicar em ingles
• não mandar mp3, só páginas do myspace

maiores detalhes aqui

A banda que ganhou o concurso de 2006, Sonic Syndicate,  está fazendo turnê pela América do Norte com o Nightwish.

São meio bixonas, mas até que o som é bacana. Sabe, metal sueco moderno? Tipo isso

ouve no myspace dos caras

When Tiamat signed with Nuclear Blast a year ago, my first thought was that a really big band with great potential and an important influence in Metal music again sold itself to the evil mainstream. Without having heard one single song of the new record Amanethes, I imagined in my nightmares a Tiamat “blast” tour with “Liquido” and “Dimmu Borgir” through North Korea, but then all of a sudden I was disabused.
Amanethes is the first record in 5 years and nobody really expected that Johan Edlund and Co would tie in with the class of an “Astral Sleep” record. Well "Amanethes" doesn't sound like "Astral Sleep" at all, it rather sounds like a best of Tiamat and every single Band influence can clearly be heard out!
From the Hippie sounding ballad rock song "Meliae" with nice soulful guitar solos over to the typical 80ties rock song "Summertime is gone", to the evil rock and goth song “The Temple of the crescent moon”, Tiamat shows the listener that they have great skills in mixing different styles without sounding boring or immature. The record sounds in spite of variety , consequent and extremely coherent.
Seventies melodies alternates with evil and dark riffs and synths, and the voice of Edlund fits absolutely perfect in every single song!
With "Amanethes", a mixture of the best Tiamat has ever created, they will target a lot of the older Fans but they will also get the attention of the rest of the music world!
The Best “(goth)Rock” record in 2008!?!

Listen to the complete album: www.myspace.com/tiamat
"Tiamat - Amanethes" new album out May 2, 2008!

8/10
(innerwille)

Now this is a very hard review for me because IN FLAMES are my favorite band ever! The first metal album I ever listened to was an IN FLAMES album, since then I'm still into IN FLAMES and Metal!

Of course IN FLAMES changed. The guys never wanted to repeat themselves and that’s why you don’t have to expect a melodic death metal album ever again! I'm kinda tired of the people complaining about this.

What IN FLAMES are doing is exactly what a band has to do. Creating new styles instead of repeating them over and over again and finally drowning like other bands! IN FLAMES give new levels to their music with each release. They are an Influence for a lot of other big bands of today!

I won't talk about the past of the band here, this review is about the present and future of the band, and I guess everyone knows the band.

I was wondering what the guys from Sweden would try on this next album, which is their 9^th full length album by the way.

"A sense of purpose"'s 12 tracks were all recorded in their own "IF Studios" with Daniel Bergstrand who also was produced some of the last works. The production is very good, clearer than on Come Clarity, sometimes less hard, sometimes heavier. Nothing bad I could tell you though! Let's move on to the artwork done by Alex Pardee, who also did the 'The used' artworks. It shows a dude in a labyrinth, searching for the way out and on that way he has to fight against some traps (what you can see in the booklet). I like the artwork, it's something very different and I like the colours too. On the other hand I do also understand the ones who don’t like it ("OMG! It's not metal!"). Anyways, the artwork is only one piece of the whole work of an album.

So let’s move on to the music.

The LP has 48mins of playtime. The first song "The mirror’s truth" is also the first single of the album. It’s a perfect song for a single, catchy riff and a full chorus. Second song "Disconnected" starts fast, going straight forward! A break leads into the chorus. Anders sings it very melodic, "I feel like shit, but at least I feel something". Again, this chorus is very catchy, the song has various parts, changing from fast to mid tempo. "Sleepless again", the 3^rd song on the album, starts with an acoustic guitar. Oh, good old Jester race times right?! Those are leading into a cool riff. IN FLAMES are using more keyboards here, especially in the chorus. A slower part in the middle of the piece gives it more atmosphere, all in all a nice song. "Alias", a mid tempo song, guitars are tuned very deep and the keys are giving this song a very intense atmosphere. The chorus is very melodic, there are some pop influences here! In the middle of the song IN FLAMES put a very nice acoustic part! "I’m the highway" the fifth song starts with a catchy riff, which I really like. The chorus is played in up tempo by Daniel Svensson (drums) the guitars are nearly not existent and the melody comes from Keys again. Anders sings with clean vocals. This is a weird chorus. I didn’t like it at all first. Besides this, the track is very easy to get into. "Delight and angers" breaks your neck! It’s a mid tempo song again but it has a lot of energy and power! The chorus is a killer! Anders tries to get that melodic screaming voice and in parts like this he has his best moments! "Move through me" begins fast, leads into a slower part, Anders keeps the song alive. The chorus is again an excellent one, "This is a call to aaaaarms!" In the middle parts the guitars are more in th background, giving space to the drums and keys. This song has, like all the previous ones solo parts which remind me of Whoracle and Colony times. Great song! "The chosen pessimist", 8 minutes long, the slowest song on the album. Anders sings it clean and kinda psycho-like. If you are depressed, don’t listen to this song because it makes you feel even worse, the atmosphere gets you down. On the other side it can also build you up! In the middle of the song it explodes and guitars are destroying the quiet atmosphere. Violins are playing along with the band, the end of the song has a lot of power! Next song starts with up tempo. "Sober and irrelevant" is fast, the chorus is fast too, all in all it's the fastest song on the album. But still, IN FLAMES manage to change the tempo and put nice breaks and arrangements between the different parts. The guitars on the song "Condemned" are tuned down, the low tempo at the beginning is followed by a faster part. But I don’t like the chorus here. IN FLAMES manage to get all those different parts together but the chorus doesn’t really fit into this song which is sad because the rest is done very well! We are coming to the end of this review: "Drenched in fear" has the guitars of the "Colony" album, the chorus lives with the clean vocals of front man Anders Fridén. Nice one! Last song "March to the shore". Fast middle parts, mid tempo chorus. The chorus is kind of epic since there are more voices in it. Anders used different ways to sing here. The solo in this song doesn’t really fit, but still, it's a nice one.

I do like this IN FLAMES album a lot. The band uses a lot of fast middle parts and tried to write full bodied and mid tempo chorus parts. Acoustic parts like in "Alias" or the intelligent use of Keys overall the tracks (without getting annoying) give the songs a new level and make them sound different to previous stuff of the band. You can find a lot of short but nice solos in the tracks, nice breaks and tempo variations. Anders Fridén does an awesome job! His screaming is not as aggressive as on the previous albums though. His voice only has some problems in the melodic "The chosen pessimist". Daniel Svensson’s drums are more present than on previous works, and the guitars are amazing. Jesper Stromblad and Björn Gelotte are palying with different tunes. This gives the album a lot of new space for new stuff. Unfortunately Peter Iwers always has the part to be ‘only a bass player’. The bass could have been better and way more present.

Call this a good or bad point; you have to give the album a few listens to perfectly recognize the qualities of each song.

The album won’t do much to cheer those up who are already pissed off at the band's evolution, all other fans will probably like the new album. After a few listens this record starts to get a hold on you, and before you know it it won't let you go and you will sing along with Anders! You gotta see this for yourself!

On the 3rd of October the band will playat the Atelier! Don't miss them because it's probably one of the best live bands ever!

9/10

While I believe I have a chance of sustaining no injuries or only minor scathing from the affects of the blast, there are many variables to consider and I’ll return to those risks—from shock, heat, fires and flying debris—at a later time. Ultimately, it may be too difficult to determine risk because of unknown variables. For example, will I be standing next to a window that gets blown out or will I be in an interior room? (The U.S. Dept. of Energy website on the Manhattan Project discusses Hiroshima: “…and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away.”) In any case, I feel blast affects are secondary to radiation risk, where there is a calculable risk of death.

It’s impossible to know the full risk of radiation without knowing wind direction. If I’m upwind of the blast, the best-case scenario, the risk is from immediate radiation or what’s call “ionizing radiation” (the RAND Corporation report cited below calls it “flash radiation”). I’m having difficulty calculating the precise dose of immediate radiation from 10 kilotons at three miles so, for now, I’ll quote a RAND study, which says the zone of 100% mortality is about a radius of three quarters of a mile: “For a 10-kiloton airburst, everyone will be killed by lethal doses of flash radiation to a distance of 0.7 miles.” This is from the RAND Corporation’s Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, page four of a report titled, “Considering the Effects of a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack.”

So, beyond three-quarters of a mile, some live and some die. Even if certain death is unlikely from immediate radiation at three miles, there will be some low level of radiation exposure, which could eventually manifest in health problems. But, at the moment, I feel immediate radiation affects are secondary to “residual radiation,” aka, nuclear fallout. On a bad wind day and sans a fallout shelter, I could be fatally zapped.

Quoting from page six of a report by The Preventive Defense Project, a joint Stanford-Harvard program, titled, “The Day After: Action in the 24 Hours Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City” (the link is a pdf file):

“Further downwind from the detonation point, a plume of radioactive debris would spread. Its shape and size would depend on wind and rain conditions, but the area over which people who did not shelter themselves or flee within hours would receive lethal radiation doses within a day would range from five to ten square miles: the area of Brooklyn for New York, northwest Washington for Washington, DC, or the upper peninsula for San Francisco – but the direction from ground zero depending on the wind.”

(Note: I thought fallout begins to hit the ground within 15 minutes so I’m confused about the above phrase, “flee within hours.” I’ll return to the topic of evacuating versus sheltering in place with better information on how quickly I need to evacuate.)

While immediate radiation creates a circular pattern of radiation exposure, fallout creates an oval pattern that moves downwind from the blast. The Preventive Defense Project’s “The Day After” report has a map of Washington, D.C., with two overlapping ovals placed on top of the map to show the approximate fallout patterns. The smaller, dark oval is the 50% fatality zone, and the longer, lighter oval is the 10% fatality zone. The visual isn’t that important to see (on page eight if you want to follow the link above to the study) but the caption to the illustration tells me what I need to know:

“Over 50% of the population within the dark red oval (approximately 5 miles long) would incur fatal radiation in the course of the first day if they stayed unsheltered in that area. Absent elaborate shelters people should leave as soon as possible.

“Over 10% of the population in the lighter oval (about 8 miles long) would incur severe radiation injury, sometimes fatal, in the first day if they stayed unsheltered in that area. Light shelters could offer significant protection. There and nearby, sheltering offers the better option.”

The bottom line for me is that there’s a 50% mortality risk in an area five miles downwind of the blast. I’m three miles from my target so, depending upon conditions, my location has a high risk of death and, short of death, a high risk of severe radiation exposure. I don’t have access to an “elaborate shelter” so, if my target is nuked, I’ll need to jump into action.

Fortunately, I’m upwind from my target so, on most days, I’m at low risk. I could dig up historical weather information to better define my risk, and I may do that in the future; but I’m not sure if calculating risk based on the weather, reliably unpredictable, is a good use of my time. Also, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to convincingly monitor wind direction in the immediate hours after a blast.

I’m beginning to wonder, what if I’m over-reacting? What if the probability of a nuke attack is infinitesimally small?

SUBSCRIBER NOTE: I added a new “feed” for newsreader subscribers, which you can update to by clicking on the orange subscribe button on the right.

Basta il nome per spiegarci, quel nome strano ed enigmatico, non certo da metal band. Quel nome che da dieci anni a questa parte sempre più frequentemente ha acquisito le caratteristiche proprie di un aggettivo quando si parla di musica estrema e non solo. "Senti 'sto riff, sembrano i Meshuggah". Sembrano appunto, perchè gli originali sono di nuovo tornati tra noi con ObZen, l'atteso successore dell'enorme Catch 33. Dico la verità, stavolta la cosa che colpisce (e stupisce) di più è il ritorno dei quattro svedesi a una forma canzone più "semplice" e diretta. Prendete con le pinze quest'ultima affermazione, ci troviamo comunque sia di fronte al più feroce Leviatano in circolazione, al mostro che ha generato e continuerà a generare dei terrificanti deliri sonori, non delle canzonette. Combustion, la prima traccia, è certamente una sorpresa, quasi "divertente" oserei dire, una specie di rivisitazione del classico death metal scandinavo in chiave "rimbalzante". I nostri picchiano e vanno veloci, tempi più "dritti" (su ObZen c'è il ritorno di Thomas Haake dietro le pelli) e voglia di far male come agli esordi. Bleed è terrorismo sonoro, una canzone devastante, non umana, non eseguibile o replicabile, assolutamente estrema e rabbiosa, con quel giro di doppia cassa assassino, le chitarre come affilate lame rotanti e la voce di Kidman abrasiva e tagliente come mai prima. Forse la Angel of Death degli anni '10.

Il resto del disco è stranamente facile da digerire e da assimilare, vuoi il fatto che non sia un concept estremamente cervellotico, vuoi che alcune soluzioni stilistiche ormai le conosciamo bene, vuoi che sotto sotto i nostri abbiano voluto giocare sul sicuro; sta di fatto che la sensazione netta è quella di trovarci davanti a un ritorno (inaspettato) al metal vero e proprio, in barba alle critiche sfacciatamente leccaculo da parte di certa stampa considerata "alta".

In conclusione possiamo tranquillamente affermare che ObZen non è il capolavoro assoluto che inconsciamente tutti avremmo sperato di ascoltare, ma è quasi certamente il miglior disco di metal possibile nel 2008.

Tracklist:
1. Combustion
2. Electric Red
3. Bleed
4. Lethargica
5. ObZen
6. This Spiteful Snake
7. Pineal Gland Optics
8. Pravus
9. Dancers To A Discordant System

Back in 1998 there was a band which managed that I almost killed myself.
Ok their hit song was really cool the first 100 times and we kids were crazy about it, but then the radio stations overdid it and played the song 24 hours a day, seven days a week. From that time on this song always invoked a strong feeling of nausea in me.
I am talking about the incredible “Narcotic” by the German one hit band “Liquido”.
After their five minutes of fame they changed the label and released the second album, called “Zoomcraft”, under Nuclear Blast records(?????)!
Without any expectations, which was the best thing I could do, I listened to this record for the first time, and there immediately was this well-known feeling of nausea again but this time with the epiphenomenon of pus-filled diarrhea.
The five guys from Heidelberg try on their fifth record to follow a trend from the mid/end nineties.
Umpteen times heard melodies, infant school song structures and a forced coolness lead to a 08/15 trash dance pop band which would be cool if they wouldn't take themselves so serious.
The incredible disgusting voice and the obtrusive shitty 3 note Synth melodies in every song put you over the edge.
The questions I asked myself during the whole time were 1) Why the fuck does Nuclear Blast sign such a crap? and 2) Why does nobody help these guys to get a real job so that they don't have to make fools of themselves anymore.
If you are curious about the new "Liquido" please listen to the Bloodhound Gang!!!

I WANNA BE YOUR GAMEBOY!!

1/10
(innerwille)

Metal Mind Productions is very proud to announce a multi licensing deal signed with Nuclear Blast Records for their interesting, valuable back-catalogue.

In the first half of 2008 Metal Mind Productions will re-issue nearly 70 albums from their deep archives. The selection of bands includes Brutallity, Control Denied, Darkseed, Disharmonic Orchestra, Gardenian, Horde, Hypocrisy, Impulse Manslaughter, Macabre, Mortification, Night In Gales, Slaughter, Warhammer or Winter to name a few. This is a must-have offer for fans of good music - re-issues of classic material in new digipak editions, each title limited to 2000 copies, digitally remastered using 24-Bit process. The albums will include additional features like bonus audio or video material, biography, liner notes from Artists etc.
 
Tomasz Dziubinski, the President of Metal Mind Productions: “We are very proud to have finalized the deal with Nuclear Blast. It is a huge distinction for Metal Mind Productions that such a fantastic label wanted to start co-operating with us. We expect that we will achieve great sales results as we want to make re-releases of the highest quality: classic albums in new, improved editions. We want to achieve the best results possible. We do hope that our cooperation with Nuclear Blast will develop very well and fans can expect more and more interesting albums to be re-released” 
 
Among first titles to be re-issued as part of this deal are 8 Mortification albums, Control Denied and Macabre!
 
More details on each release will follow soon!

At any rate, Samantha searched on YouTube and found the video for one of their newer songs, Amaranth. It's the better one of the two official videos that are on YouTube. Here it is:

They also have the video for Bye Bye Beautiful. After reading the lyrics, Samantha thinks the song is directed at Tarja. After reading them, I'd have to agree.

You can watch that video, as well as others published by Nuclear Blast, by visiting the official YouTube page for Nuclear Blast.

As a side note, Samantha got the Dark Passion Play album for me for Christmas. :-)

EDIT:

Samantha found a blog entry that pretty much covers my feelings about Anette. Here's that person's opinion on Amaranth. For some total weirdness, check out what Tarja's been up to.

That blog almost looks like a copy of another one (possibly a scrape) as it includes language tags that are not compatible with Wordpress. Also, it has numbers for the page address instead of words.

Samantha found another site that goes into more detail as to why Anette just doesn't fit with the Nightwish style among other things. I find this part a little amusing:

You could put a [explicit] monkey in there and have some hot monkey metal.

This also sums it up pretty well:

Is it good? Yeah. Will I buy it? Yeah. Duh. But it’s NOT Nightwish.

I knew the girls were better when they had three fights in quick succession yesterday evening, refused to put their laundry away until threatened with the death penalty, and spent an hour making evil potions in the bathroom with Oscar their short assistant.  He came out covered in purple glitter and small pink stickers, which I thought were spots until I noticed that they were in the shape of roses.  He was most annoyed when I tried to take them off, and as he had about thirty on his person, it took a good hour of random plucking to get him clean enough to have his bath. 

As a random aside, may I say that the death penalty should be revived for the person who invented glitter and decided to market it to small children.  Once you have a child there is never a day of your life that goes by when you won't come up against glitter in some form or another.  It is indelible, pernicious and ever-lasting.  Even when they eat it you get sparkly pooh.  The stuff is hideous.  Along with cockroaches it will be the only thing to survive a nuclear blast.  They will be very festive cockroaches.

Whatever I do this morning I shall no doubt have to be quick about it.  Tallulah was skipping to school this morning in gleeful anticipation of being free of an increasingly shouty mother when she fell down and grazed her knee.  Grazed knees are an acceptable, and in my opinion, mandatory part of childhood.  You cannot be a real child until you have permanently grazed knees.  Knowing my luck however, they will probably ring me in half an hour to tell me that it’s gone septic and if I don’t rush over there immediately they will have to perform an amputation using a ball point pen and some play dough.   

Tilly still has a rash, but no other symptoms so I have sent her to school anyway.  She will no doubt announce this fact with great pride (because she is absolutely rubbish at lying, which you think would be a benefit, until you live with it and realise the true implications of such a curse), at which point I will get a phone call to say that if I don’t bring her home immediately I will be sued by the board of governors for being a spreader of pestilence and plague.   

Oscar is fine, but this is bound to change as it is far too unusual for him to be this healthy for this long.  He’s probably brewing a minor bout of diphtheria, but just lulling me into a false sense of security before he unleashes it on an unsuspecting nation. 

Although I should be shouting Carpe Diem and doing deeds of derring do, I am naturally, not doing anything exciting at all.  I just don’t have the energy to struggle into my flying suit, or even slough off my fluffy socks.  I’m even drinking cold coffee from the cafetiere because I’m too enervated to make a fresh pot! 

What I’m doing, apart from speaking to you, is sitting wrapped in forty layers of clothing and debating with myself whether I would be disappointed if I went back to bed for the morning!  I think I would, which is a bit of a shame.  I am however, slightly too awake to just crash under the duvet and pass out. 

If I go back to bed this means having to strip off, which in this weather is unappealing for the second time in one morning.  I would have to make a warm bedlike nest, possibly involving a hot water bottle, and then I would have to get sleepy.  This is not as easy as it sounds. It would probably take at least an hour of limbering up to get to this stage, by which time I would then only have an hour in bed before I would have to reverse the process because Oscar needs picking up at lunchtime today.  The two hours of getting in and out of bed is not worth the potential one hour’s extra sleep I would get.  It’s a fine system of checks and balances you see.  You’ve got to have a system as Harry Hill would say. 

I actually feel quite good about the fact that I am not tired enough to grab sleep wherever and whenever it is offered to me.  It makes me feel that I have moved on from when Oscar was first born, when I would fall asleep in the middle of making tea and only wake up because my hair was on fire.  At that point in my life the children developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of television programmes as I was too tired to do anything with them except sit and stare at the television screen pretending to be awake.  We would watch a lot of CBeebies because it was more educational than other channels and made me feel less guilty that my kids’ brains were turning to mush.

I was chatting to a lady in Borders the other week while Oscar and her son were playing in the activity bit.  She apologised to me for the fact that her son had named all the characters from the childrens' programme: 'In the Night Garden', and justified guiltily why she let him watch the television.  She assured me that she had only ever let him watch two episodes, and that he just had a prodigious and gifted turn of memory.

I looked at her in amazement.  I was really taken aback. Who cares if her kid watches the television?  It's not like she's spit roasting him over an open fire whilst feeding him blue Smarties and swigging from a vat of gin is it?  I didn't tell her how much television my children watch.  She would probably have reported me to Social Services and the children would have come top in the: 'Sing the television theme tune' quiz they use to convict lazy mums. 

Jamie (the ex) once tried to persuade me to get rid of our television when Tilly was small, saying that he had read in a report that too much television rots a childs' brain cells and slows their developmental progress.  He was horrified when I told him that I really hoped it was true, as she was too much for me to cope with and I was hoping to find something that would slow her down, other than a bit of two by four.

Yes.  Television is valium with a plug. I whole heartedly agree, and if you try to take it away from me I will rip your head off and spit down your neck.  It's the only time I can get all three of them to sit together without killing each other (as long as there is consensus on the programme being watched), and it's a blessed miracle when you're in desperate need of five minutes to sit down and drink a cup of tea that hasn't been stewing for five hours previously.  Long may it reign.

The children got quite used to this frankly relaxed way of parenting and would cover me with a blanket when I started to dribble and snore, and would fill me in on the missing plot lines when I jerked awake in that embarrassing way that only adults have.  Children never wake up like that do they?  They’re either AWAKE or so asleep that if you detonate a bomb next to them they just snort and roll over.  Matilda used to be able to crawl around the bottom of her cot and still be fast asleep.  Half the time I find it difficult to tell whether I am awake or asleep and that knee-jerk ‘Whasssup’ type noise and peculiar jack knife motion are a kind of apologetic cough reflex of the terminally zombified. 

I used to go to university with a girl who was permanently tired and/or asleep all day, because she used to party hard all night, every night.  She had a formidable constitution and would drink the bar dry on a regular basis without losing consciousness or her liver.  She would also turn up for all her classes, which was most impressive.  She would however, invariably sleep through them.  In one class, which she attended with a dear friend of mine she fell asleep at the table and started snoring.  It distracted the tutor, who very kindly took the rest of the class to another room and continued teaching, leaving her to sleep.  She slept in that empty classroom until lunch time! 

My most vivid memory of her was when we were in the lecture hall one time and she decided to bring a cup of coffee with her in an effort to keep herself awake.  It was a commendable idea.  Unfortunately it did work, but not in the way she had planned.  She sat with pen in one hand and coffee cup in the other, resolutely staring ahead at the lecturer and trying to look both wise and wakeful.  The effort was too much for her.  Her head nodded and her arms relaxed, at which point she poured hot, black coffee straight into her lap.  She woke with remarkable speed and dexterity, leaping into the air and screaming quite a lot.  The people around her, who weren’t even asleep, also leapt into the air screaming as she managed to wave the half full coffee cup round her head with disastrous results for everyone within throwing distance of the scalding liquid. 

It was a fine lecture.  One of the best I’ve ever attended.  It easily makes the top three lectures of my life, although I’d be hard pushed to put them in order.  I shall naturally tell you about the other two. 

In my first year there was a brilliantly gifted boy who suffered from two unfortunate disabilities, the first one was epilepsy, the second was a prodigious appetite for non-prescription drugs.  These two disabilities did not sit well with each other, as the non-prescription drugs tended to clash quite violently with the anti-epilepsy drugs.  Sometimes he was fine, and we would attend lectures and he would be startlingly brilliant, to the point where the lecturer would quite often defer to his expert opinion.  Sometimes he was less than fine and he would sit in a corner ticking (as in physical and verbal ticking rather than like a giant bomb!) and mumbling. 

On the day in question he seemed fine for the first half an hour, but presumably had ingested something that wasn’t best suited to his needs, which only began to take effect towards the end of lecture.  We were just reaching the pinnacle of our intellectual journey when he let out a kind of war whoop and came out of his chair into a perfect forward roll, landing in the curtains and remaining in a foetal position wrapped in yards of fabric.  It was so neat and tidy and altogether dramatic that we assumed that he had done it on purpose because he was bored by what the lecturer was saying.  We gave him a round of applause!  When he didn’t unravel himself and take a bow, we ascertained that he had in fact had a fit, but nobody had realised because whatever else he had taken had rendered it unrecognisable. 

He was fine after a bit, but it was decided that university wasn’t good for his health and he left after the first year, which was probably for the best.  I hope he didn’t join a circus. 

The other one of my top three is a bit mean, but there you go!  There was a girl who lived upstairs from my friend Kate.  She was very annoying in so many ways, but her two major faults were that 1) she was shagging a rugby player and 2) she had flicky hair.  Now this might not seem like much to condemn a girl on, but bear with me. 

The problem with the rugby player was the fact that they liked to have sex, lots and lots of sex, at all times of the day and night.  This is normally not a problem, especially if it’s you that’s having the sex.  It only becomes a problem when you live in a hall of residence with paper thin walls and you have to exist within earshot of this sexual activity. 

Naturally the first couple of times were very amusing, and we would be summoned to Kate’s room for tea and biscuits and a good listen to the carnage taking place above our heads. Marks out of ten would be awarded and stares would be stared when they were seen afterwards in the corridors.  All was bon. 

After the tenth time or so it became a bit monotonous, and after that it tended to make Kate, and anyone else who was in the room with her at the time a little suicidal.  It’s hard to write a coherent two thousand word essay on the Reformation (Kate took Church History and Latin – don’t ask.) when there is relentless amour being made above your head.  It’s distracting, it’s messy, and it’s that time in the relationship when they started to have pet names for each other, which in the privacy of their own home, might have been cute and winsome, but which for everyone else in earshot was merely nauseating and added insult to injury. 

I feel that someone had probably had a word with the loving couple about the noise levels at some stage, because after a while they started to play music to drown out their sighs of passion.  Unfortunately, because they were exceedingly noisy lovers, the music had to be put on at ear splitting levels to make any difference whatsoever.  They also chose romantic music, which I presume was more fitting to their activity than the Best of Napalm Death (clearly they weren’t into S&M.  Good job.  With walls that thin they’d have come crashing down onto Kate’s bed in a mess of plaster and chains.  Nightmare) but which was godawful. 

None of us can listen to Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ any more without succumbing to serious flashbacks. It turns out that ‘Your Song’ must have indeed been their song, as within three weeks of testing out various love ‘choons’ this was the one they settled for on a permanent loop.  Not only that but we were now heading into summer, so they would leave the window open, thus completely wasting any sound deadening qualities Sir Elton had to offer.  The effect was thus: 

Sir Elt: ‘It’s a little bit funny… ‘Uuuhhh! Uuhhh! Yeah baby! Uuuhh’ …I’d buy a big house where…’Ooohh! God! Yeeess!’ If I was a sculptor ‘Aaah! You minx!’ I know it’s not much but…’Yes! That’s right! Oh!’…this one’s for you…’Urrghhhhhghshshssthssh!’ 

And so it would go on, and on, and on, for months, nay years.  Thankfully we all got to swap halls in the second year, which was a blessed relief, as they stayed together for the entire three years of uni.  One year was enough to leave Kate wild eyed and twitching.  She’d have been institutionalized if she’d have had to put up with much more.  She would play The Doors to try and drown out the Elton John Sex Concerto in D Minor, and they would bang on the ceiling and ask her to keep it down! 

Now then.  We must move on to the flicky hair.  This girl was always immaculately turned out.  She had a perma tan, nails that were as long as the Severn Bridge (she could definitely have gotten a job in Boots.  She was a natural), and so much make up that if you slapped her on the back her face fell off. 

Her hair however, was her pride and joy, long and curling and glorious.  She was forever shaking her mane and neighing.   I actually made the neighing bit up, but you get the picture.  Usually the only people that flick their hair about like that are women in adverts who are being paid to show us that they don’t have dandruff, but this girl was addicted to flicking her hair, she just flicked and flicked.  It was a compulsion.  To be fair to her, she definitely didn’t have dandruff, but this did nothing to help the fact that she was exceedingly annoying, and under no circumstances did you want to be sitting behind her, as you would invariably end up with a mouthful of hair you didn’t want. 

Normally you could avoid her.  The only times you couldn’t were if she was a) having sex with Elton John and a burly rugby player above your head, or b) sitting in front of you in a crowded lecture hall (you knew we’d get there in the end.  All comes to he who waits, as my mother so annoyingly, and untruthfully says.).  Now the lecture hall seats were fairly closely packed together and so whenever she flicked, you would end up being caressed by her glorious mane.  She flicked all the time.  It was exceedingly irritating, and dare I say it, unhygienic, although she probably lavished more care and attention on her hair than I do on my children, but nevertheless.  Urghhhhhh! 

For some reason she often liked to sit in the row ahead of us in the lecture hall.  Now the hall was invariably crowded and once you had your seat, unless you did the annoying theatre half crouch and bobbed and wove your way apologetically to a small stool at the back of the room, you were in, and that was where you stayed. 

On the day in question, my friend Rosalind had the great misfortune to be sat behind flicky sex woman, and had just about had enough of her when she had an absolute brainwave.  Attached to the back of each chair was a tray table device which could be raised and lowered by hinges.  Naturally, as we were all diligently taking notes, our tables were raised.  She noticed that the hair of flicky hair lady kept trailing across the hinge of the table.  She then noticed that if she took her ruler and quietly and carefully poked the hair, it would fall down the gap by the hinge beautifully.  Once this was done, she sat back and lowered the table to its resting position. 

All she had to do now was notify the rest of us, and wait.  It was a tense but delicious time in our lives, and our only sadness was that Kate was not there to share it with us (we were all literature bods).  The lecture ended shortly thereafter and flicky woman went to stand up gracefully and no doubt flick her luscious locks.  All that happened was her head jerked back brutally and several clumps of hair came out while she screamed the place down, as if someone had just severed her leg with a teaspoon.  It was a poetic and beautiful moment, and if only camera phones had been invented by then I’m sure we would have frozen the moment for eternity.  As it was, she stared back at us with accusation in her eyes.  We looked at her with innocent sympathy, hummed a few bars of ‘Your Song’ and then scuttled off to celebrate a great victory.  Harsh but fair, I think you’ll agree!