So catchy, the songs are mostly short and sweet, to the point. Great harmonies. I love how the vocals are not perfect, instead they emote in this great way, some times they are slightly out of key, but to good effect, it adds this drone and drab to the vocals that really makes them perfect to me in creating that death in june sound. This pretty much is current 93 with Douglas P leading(this lp), well the line up on this lp any way. It is death in june, but David Tibet and Rose Mcdowell really are great on this and very present. For me it is Rose’s voice that really hypnotizes me and keeps me coming back to this record, but Douglas does a fantastic job as well, especially on touch defiles and Hail! the white grain. I started out as a Current 93 fan before the david became a born again christian, but now, I have gone back and bought all the Death in June and found it superior in every way. Douglas P is amazing. One of my idols. Not to mention he still makes great music unlike most of my idols these days.
The live video above is very different from the studio version on this lp. But you will get the idea. Death in June has done a lot of different music, many claim they invented neo folk. But to me, death in june is a genre unto itself. Because they have done so many styles over the years it is hard to put a label on them. This lp in particular is very acoustic guitar driven, and the drums are kind of like old old sisters of mercy. Very drum machine sounding. Love it. We are the lust, you can hear the coil guys making a guest appearance. My Favorite tracks on this LP are: Touch Defiles, Hail! the white grain(i love the backing vocal harmonies on this track, our death over and over), Runes and men, To Drown a Rose(this is my favorite track on this lp, so drab and hypnotic), The Fog of the World, Punishment Initiation (I love tibet’s vocals, and the awesome lyrics and spanish like guitars, the synth sounds like a juno 60 too), Burn again (also another tibet vocal track, poetic with spanish like guitar, dark, evil lyrics, love it). This music is not overly complex, but it is so catchy and memorable. This is my favorite acoustic goth rock folk whatever you want to call it music.
What really sucks about this record, it is really hard to find, I bought it when they re-issued it a while back. This is a cd I listen to over and over again. Death in june has a lot of great music out, this needs to be on itunes, and it’s not. Check ebay, and amazon often for used copies. This is a must have. Amazing.. This is one of my favorite bands. If you cannot get this, check out But what ends when symbols shatter or nada, you can get those on itunes. In the mean time Click Here! to go listen to some stuff on their site to get an idea of their sound. Be sure and listen to a lot of it, don’t assume it all sounds the same. and one last thing THEY ARE NOT A FUCKING NAZI BAND! GET OVER IT! Click Here! to read more about death in june, and how he has worked with jews in this band.
PS PS PS PS: UPDATE: Yes you can get it now, its 55 bucks, and its a super version of it, but its worth it! Buy now! Click Here to Buy The Brown Book!
Intro: When i bought my ps3, I wasn’t even 100% sure of my purchase. I got it on a whim because a guy in a game store was trying to sell it back to the store and was going to get a really horrid price for it. I offered to take it off his hands for the right price. He had 2 games (motorstorm, resistance fall of man), the component cable, and 2 six axis controllers. He first asked me for 400, I was like, let me think about it for second (this was when the price for the 60gb had just dropped to $499), then he blurted out 350, I was like, “sold”, went to an atm and could only draw out 360 not 350, so I ended up giving him 360 for it. So i ended up with a 60 gig ps3 for 360 us dollars, 2 games, 2 controllers and component cable. At the time all I had was this old 36 inch analog tv. So I played it on that via svideo. Really crappy low res. Todd and I played most of resistance fall of man like this in split screen, and it was still way better than the wii I had just sold. I ended up getting a Sony XBR trinitron 34 inch hd analog tv. 1080i. And then the ps3 blew us away.
My first and second impressions of the so call new generation of consoles was a let down, my friend Steve had bought a 360, and I didn’t care for the controller and the games still didn’t look better than what I had on the pc at the time. I bought the wii to find out it was a gamecube with a new controller, and the same issues, only good first party titles, and not hardly any AAA titles out side of zelda, and mario the two gaming icons i loathe with a passion. So it offered nothing to me really. Once we got over wii sports it started collecting dust. I have never been a die hard nintendo guy, all ways more of a sega and 8 and 16 bit computer guy when it came to games. After the wii, when we got the ps3, we couldn’t believe how much more stuff was going on, on the screen with no slow down in resistance fall of man. I couldn’t get over the 40 players online, this is the most on a console ever. I struggled playing gears of war on the 360 because I hated the controller so much, but with the sixaxis I was able to get into resistance easily, and actually can play all the first person shooters on the ps3 well now thanks to the six axis. The analog sticks have more movement and degrees of sensitivity or so it seems, they are placed in a better place for my hands. and the six axis so so light.
But why the ps3 over the rest? I added up the costs, and in the end the ps3 is the cheapest High Def console with all the options installed. I wanted blueray for my hd tv, and now with netflix I rent mostly blueray at the same cost as dvd. The ps3 upscales dvds to 1080i and p very well, better than the 360, better than all my dvd players did. My regular dvds look better on the ps3 as well. I also download some japanese tv from torrents, mostly naruto and things like that. I can covert them to mp4 and transfer them over the wireless netwrok via windows media player 11, or twonkey media server on the mac. Let me tell you, watching downloaded content on my big tv smokes watching it even on a 24 inch imac. So the ps3 replaced my dvd player, gave me a blue ray in addition, lets me browse most web sites for no charge in high def. Can plug in a usb mouse and keyboard, I can install linux on it, I can upgrade the hard drive myself for cheap, not so on the 360 (you gutta buy over priced proprietary 360 crap), ps3 you just throw in a laptop hd. 360 has no web browser, and I don’t care how much better live is, no web browser is a big negative for me. I was also sold on the future of home, the current playstation network is ok, and I can download demos, and hd trailers for movies and games and that is easy to do and works great with no fee, on the ps3 its free, on the 360 it’s 50 bucks a year, so in 5 years that will cost you more than your initial purchase of the 360. What a joke. Microsoft claims to be cheaper, but they nickle and dime you for options, the network gaming with no browser is 50 bucks a year. Gotta buy a big hd well that will put you out a couple hundred, extra hundred for the wifi, extra 175 for hd dvd. no thanks. Ps3 delivers it all at a much cheaper price point. I like playstation network enough, i can play games online, look at the web, and download games and trailers for no charge. Besides, you can play online with Velvet Acid Christ, my user id on playstation network is: hexfix93 . The future is home (comes out in march 08 i think) and it looks like it will smoke xbox live, check out the videos below:
But what is the most important thing about a console? The games. The ps3 offers a much better console oriented gaming experience. The 360 is mostly PC ports and first person shooters. The ps3 offers that as well as games like uncharted: drake’s fortune, ratchet and clank, warhawk, heavenly sword, singstar, hotshots golf 5, little big planet, metal gear solid 4, Killzone 2 and more. Check out the Video below:
Let’s not forget the ps3 has the cell processor, which is 2x times more powerful than the 360’s processors. What we are seeing in the cross platform ports, well, un-optimized code that runs on a single core. The ps3 doesn’t fair to well in this regard, if you use the ps3 like a single core processor it will only yield the performance of a top end mac g4, not the g5, the g4. The 360, when it runs single core code it acts more like a p4 2.4ghz pc, so it does a better job and single thread apps. But that is not the future, all pcs are multicore now, and the ps3 has 7 cores, not 3 or 2 or 4, 7. When the code is multithreaded with optimized code to work well with the cell, it will beat even the fastest pcs on the market and out run the 360 easily.We are starting to see multi-threaded code. And yes, i know Uncharted could not be done on any other console, neither could heavenly sword or ratchet and clank. As more and more first party software comes out for the ps3, you will never see any console catch up in terms of graphics and how much stuff is going on, on the screen. Even with that said, most of the ports do run well from the pc and 360, just not as good. Who cares though, i mean i think sony’s games are better in my opinion. The future is in sony’s favor. The price will keep dropping. This console offers the most functions for the price it’s at now, and in the future, it will drop more and offer more and more. I recommend the 60 gig ps3 for people who want to play their old ps2 and ps1 games. If that doesn’t matter to you, pick up the 40 gig.
Bottom Line: PS3! Games I like more. More out of the box, not nickel and dimmed like the 360. PS3 you get blueray hd dvd, hdmi, free network and internet access, backwards compatible on some units, better controller with motion sensitivity, bigger hard drive, easy to upgrade, dvd player that upscales, web browser, psp connectivity, wifi, and the ability to use a usb mouse and keyboard on some games. The games that sold me on the system were Warhawk, Resistance fall of man, Heavenly Sword, Super Stardust HD, Call of Duty 4 (which is better on ps3), Oblivion, Jericho, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. The games that I am looking forward to the most are, Click on names to see trailers: Final Fantasy versus, Final Fantasy 13, Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Unreal 3, Sould Calibur, Grand Turismo 5, Infamous.
Pricing
PS3: $399 for 40 gig ps3 hdmi, wifi, free network, blueray, 2 usb, but lacks memory card slots and backwards compatibility.
Ps3: $499 for the 80 gig with free network, software backwards compat and memory card slots and 4x usb plus blueray, wifi, hdmi.
Ps3: &499 for the 60 gig that does it all and has it all. full back wards compatible.
Look at it this way, on the ps3 you are spending 200 on the gaming console and 200 on wifi, blueray, free network for a lifetime. This is a great deal.
xbox 360: $350. small 20 gig drive, 2x usb, Some have hdmi some don’t. DVD drive. But now comes the nickel and dimming. $50 for xbox live network, $100 for wifi adapter, $175 for add on HD DVD player. so for $675 you have to pay to get it to match even the $399 ps3 in features and still have 20 gigs less space. Now tell me, is it really cheaper? oh and get a bonus, it’s called the red ring of death, yes 40% of the xbox 360’s sold will break and brick and you will have to wait up to 3 months for it to be repaired. This is why i will not probably ever buy a 360. I hate microsoft. The 360 is last gen, last gen dvd only, so no big huge games with big huge textures. only 3 cores compared to 7 on ps3, smaller hard drives, and no wifi built in, for god’s sake even the wii has built in wifi. You have to pay for online gaming, it’s free for the wii and the ps3. stupid. The 360 is a fools gaming console when compared to the ps3 or the wii. Sorry, but it breaks, and lack so many key options that are next gen.
WII: $250 with wifi, dvd, web browser, free network, good nintendo games, low def, dated, mostly ps2 ports. only games that are good are nintendo games. If this is what you like. Buy it. i don’t like it. But it is a reliable system, with some good kiddy titles.
I hope this helps you make good choices this holiday season. Stay far away from the over priced xbox that will break down on you in all likelihood. Click here to read another reason why i like sony more than nintendo and microsoft. Sony is more earth friendly.
In my opinion, the 2nd best anime ever made. The main character reminds me of how andrew eldridge used to look way back in the day. This is a mega cheesy anime, but in that super cool way. The boss fights are great and build up and get better and better each time. Most of the characters are really fun and neat to watch, tons of swearing, this is a dark and evil anime. If you’re into the macabre, horror, and vampires, you owe it to your self to check this out.
There are a lot of trippy kill scenes, when alacarte unlocks his powers, he turns into shadows, eyes and mouths in this super psychedelic way. This is a decent sized series, and worth it, I have watched this over 4 times, so I know it stands the test of time. and every time I watch it, it gets my psyched.
You really gotta see this, I don’t care how, it’s easily worth owning. One of the best dark anime’s you can get, especially if your a goth. At the end, you find out who he really is, and it is awsome! I give this a 9 out of 10. I give this a 5 out of 5. YOU MUST BUY THIS! Click here to buy.
Anyday now. One of my all time favorite lps ever. One word. MAJESTIC. That is the best word to describe the sound of this record. Super musical, talented beyond my comprehension, the classical style, the violins, the synths, the vocal fx, the uber poetic lyrics, the production. No other musician can tell stories like edward ka-spel can, his haunting voice, his intelligent descriptive words, he can draw you into a world. Listen to casting the runes, and waiting for the clouds, these songs are mesmerizing to me. I cannot stress enough how amazing i think this is. Seeing how this is my favorite band of all time, i could not resist to do this review. I should of done it first. But i figured i wait till i got some more attention before i turned the spotlight on this amazing band. Below is a video that uses “casting the runes” as the sound, it is not related to the band in any other way, but you can hear the song at least. NOT WORK SAFE, it contains Nudity and blood. Warning.
I cannot put them into a category, to me, they are original, sure some people have said, pink floyd, but not really, some people say david bowie, but not really. I say the pink dots. They are a genre unto themselves(we “vac”, tried very hard to be like them in this regard). Their lps vary so much. This is the middle of their time line, from the middle on is their best work in my opinion. This was the beginning of a sound that would cary them into the early 90s. 1988 was a long time ago. But who cares this is a GEM, and one of the best lps ever made in my opinion. Below is another video with the music from waiting for the cloud. I think it’s from the movie Q. bloody. Not Work Safe.
Seriously, Any Day Now, The Golden Age, Crushed Velvet Apocalypse, and the Maria Dimension are the best lps of the pink dots. Nothing on this earth sounds that good in my opinion. This was my life for years and years. The beginnings of vac, we listened to nothing but the dots. No joke. Below is another stupid video using under glass from any day now.
My favorite tracks off this lp are: Casting the Runes, The Gallery, True Love, Waiting for the Cloud, Under Glass, The Light in my Little Girl’s Eyes. I don’t care what anyone else says, This era of music they did from 1985 to 1992 is simply amazing, even all the side projects, the tear garden, edward ka-spel, all of it is worth hunting down and buying if you are into this. No Dots, no VAC. They are that big of a deal to us. Seriously. If you like this, go buy it! Click here to buy.
Oh, and be nice and comment, tell me what you think of this. thank you.
Help, please post this banner on your website and link this site up. I’d really appreciate it. To save this file, right click on the image, and tell it to save picture.
I busted my ass on this site redesign. Not many people have commented. I don’t think people really dig deep into my web site ever. Which is a shame, there is a ton of vac content. And now i am spilling out and promote things i like by recommending music and video games, movies, anime and writing up reviews for them etc.
I hope it’s worth something to you guys out there. I want the fans to really get into this site and leave comments and communicate. Hell, even if you are not a fan, you can talk about what i post on here at least.. I think there is a lot of cool information on this site. My music reviews are informative, and i post videos along with them so you can see and hear the bands.. any way..
On a personal note, I am struggling to find inspiration on making music right now, so that is why I turned to the web site for the time being. I really want to work with todd again after all I think. He was a huge help on the last record. I really am proud of lust for blood. But i see it as more of a movie sound track type of lp more than a club lp. Right now the scene is being tore up with bands like combichrist, which is nothing like VAC. ahahah so I don’t think we are really getting attention in the clubs these days.. If we are, please post your play lists in the comments…
I closed out my myspace, my yahoo messenger, and I now only have my vampirefreaks account, the vac forum, and this new underground media blog to communicate with people. So please, talk to me here. This is where you will get my attention now.. myspace is evil, run by the fox assholes who lie about everything and because of that, I reverted to this media site blog, because i didn’t want to join some corrupt company’s blog. Do you really want myspace knowing who all your friends are? what you think, who you talk to etc. That is rupert Rupert Murdoch’s company, he’s a modern day fascist. If the world starts falling apart, do you really want those nazi capitalist bastards to know all that stuff about you? I seriously think the end of civilization is coming to us soon. what do you think?
Over all: These are the best graphics I have ever seen in a video game. They are on par with most of the high end rendering cut scenes from the previous generation of gaming. This is a system seller. When you see it on a good hd tv, it is simply amazing. The textures, the design, architecture, the characters, the water, the water, the ruins, the rusty ships, the leaves. WOW. This is very realistic. When drake gets out of the water, you can tell he is still wet. The game is also very colorful, not dark and grey like most of the games on the market today. It’s not a cute kiddy kind of game. When you start scaling the walls it can make you go vertigo, I’m not kidding. This game nails it, let me see, pitfall, tomb raider, gears of war, resident evil mixed with the story telling of something like romancing the stone meets raiders of the lost ark. For novices it can be difficult, but for veteran game player you will hop right in with no problem. I didn’t find the game that hard at all. I loved playing every minute of it, it plays like an old resident evil game, but the controls and camera are spot on 100%. Add that stop and pop style of gears of war into it, then throw a little assassin’s creed wall climbing(a tad), and then that resident evil 4 over the shoulder gun aiming and you get Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
I only had one tiny complaint. It’s a little on the short side. I wish it had 4 more hours of gameplay, that would of been perfect. It took me about 9 hours to beat the game on the default difficulty setting. I don’t like giving away the story, or the levels to much. So i’m going to talk about the animation, everything is smooth and perfect, when you walk through weeds or brush, the plants move realistically. The way the trees seem so alive, the water looks amazing, and moves as it should. The animations of the characters are astounding, The bad guys will react to where you shoot them. Head shots are great fun. More than anything, I noticed myself paying attention to drake when he start taking fire, when he is behind cover, as the bullets hit what he hides behind, you will see his face get angry. If you shoot near a bad guy’s head and miss, the bad guys will animate like it barely missed them and start moving as such. Very cool. There is so much detail. This is a living breathing world, and no game up till now has come as far as Uncharted in this regard. The AI is decent as well, the bad guys come out and move and react if they are being shot at in a very realistic way. They will jump out of cover and move and bob in many different ways, so you cannot just play it cheap and set your cross airs in one place and wait for them to pass in front of it.
The voice acting is good. The sound is great. The Presentation, everything. But graphics don’t mean a thing if the game doesn’t play well. Guess what? It does and then some. I really get into jumping from one place to another, and hanging on by the tips of your fingers. The animation and controls are great, i rarely miss fired on jumps like i used to constantly in games like tomb raider. This is perfect. From the gun play, to the plat-forming, it makes you want to play it, i played it with out stopping. It possessed me. Everything just moves right, and controls right. Also: you have to play defensively. You cannot just run in and start gunning without taking cover. You will die fast.
This is a must have. If you like shooters, this is spot on. You will acquire many types of guns in this game. All of them work really well. The sniper rifle, the missile gun, and the 44 were my favorites. If you like plat-forming, this is right for you. If you hate plat-forming don’t worry, you will love it this time, it’s that good. This game is gorgeous and epic.
9.0 Presentation
The story, acting, cut scenes, some of the best out there right now. The good thing is it has the perfect balance, the cut scenes are perfect, they don’t ruin the game like in some other games.
9.8 Visuals
I noticed no hiccups really, it would tear very very rarely, and pop ups almost never happen. I read some people being hard on this in other reviews. Pure stupidity on their part. This is the prettiest game currently. Not even heavenly sword or call of duty 4 can touch this as far as the graphics go.
9.5 Audio
Perfect, everything sits perfectly, the voice acting is great, the music is moody, and fits with this game perfectly.
9.5 Game Mechanics
My Favorite this year. It feels solid, it’s responsive, and you can tell they spent a lot of time tweaking the animation and how it controls. This is what sets this game apart from anything in this genre, the control. From the plat-forming, to the shooting. It’s all exactly how it should be.
7.0 Replay
I put this the same as heavenly sword, since it is like playing a good movie, it’s like any good movie deserves, more than one viewing. I’ll play this 2 or 3 times through.
9.8 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)
I have not had this much fun with a video game for a long long time. This made my thanksgiving day perfect. Ignore the family and play games. I am putting this in my top 5 as of now. I like this as much as resident evil 4. And that was my #2 favorite game of all time. Just below my #1, final fantasy 7. So i have this tied with my #2 favorite game of all time. I was not expecting to like this game as much as i did. I thought it would be just another bad tomb raider game. Boy was i wrong.. This game is gorgeously amazing. If you don’t own a ps3, this is the best reason out there now to buy one. Hell they are cheaper now, so go get one and play the most epic video games on the market. 360 gives you that pc style first person game play, the ps3 gives you epic console games that feel like movie experiences. This game proves it. Click here to buy.
Music Listened to while writing this review: The Maria Dimension - The Legendary Pink Dots.
November 30th, 2007 by Hexfix93
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