Best Songs of 2017

2017 was a really rather miserable year, but hopefully 2018 will be better. It wasn't all that bad in terms of music, but I'm busy during the holidays and exam period, so I didn't have time to sort out best albums. I also didn't listen to as many as last year, so it would've been hard to really honestly rank them. These 'best songs', or rather, my (40) favourite songs, are also in order of release, so this list is not a ranking. The whole thing is on spotify, but if you want a little more explanation and notes on my favourite records of the year, read on.

Album Reviews: November

November is busy and this poor college student has had more breakdowns that she could count on one hand, but nevertheless, here is the next - and last for the year - installment of the monthly album reviews. As such, regrettably, I haven't had the time to check out many new releases, but what I did check out was of really high quality, so they shouldn't disappoint.

Album Reviews: June

Here I am with the new review! Summer is usually bleaker for releases, but these are the months I have more time to write, so I work with what I have. There were two records I was really looking forward to, but there are some nice finds apart from those as well.

Best Songs of 2015

Songs, songs, songs - it's even harder to pick out a top 40 than to pick out 10 albums. There's no such thing as a bad year or a good year for songs - there are always great ones out there. As with the albums, these songs largely reflects my personal taste - too weird for the common people, really not heavy enough for metalheads - and is largely independent of the actual "goodness" of songs.

As per usual, links are in the descriptions (the song titles), but the songs are available on 8tracks and Spotify (although 3 songs are missing in the latter). As per usual, the post is extremely long.

Best Albums of 2015

The last Monday of the year is Music Monday with the best - my favourite albums now, and my favourite songs coming in a later post. I must say, despite some highly anticipated records of some of my favourite bands, 2015 was a little less impactful for me (album-wise) than 2014. However, paired with the fact that I listened to more albums than ever before, the choice wasn't particularly easier.

Album Reviews: October

Paragraph one: here's the usual stuff. Paragraph two: it's short, because life. I don't even know why I'd bother writing an introduction after all this time. October was good and gloomy, so if that's your thing, proceed as you want; otherwise, be warned.

A Halloween Playlist

This comes with the usual warning: only for lovers of all things metal. Here you can listen to it on 8tracks, and after the break there's a track-by-track breakdown with youtube links, for those who don't want to listen to the whole length. (And in case 8tracks skips some songs, which it sometimes does.)

Autumn Playlist II

Here is everyone's long-awaited sensible weather - a temperature around 20 degrees, wind and sunshine and rain and scattered, fluffy clouds. I do like autumn as well as anyone (even if my favourite is still the summer warm), if not for else, then for the opportunity to dress in more than my shortest shorts and a breezy crop top. In other words, being able to wear my leather jacket.

Since I still lack a rain-proof pair of footwear, I cannot wholeheartedly look forward to now regularly having to step out of my house and go places. Yeah, autumn also means the start of school, which I regrettably have to say, I did not want to start yet. Every summer, I start out with loads of things to do, to paint, to learn, and in the end, do precious few of them. There's never enough time for my hobbies and there never will be, something I might as well just accept.

So, to lift the mood a bit, and also because it's a tradition of mine by now, here is a playlist for autumn, loaded with melodeath and progressive death metal.

Album Reviews: August

It's time for the next album review post. I didn't expect much of the August batch of releases, and it didn't deliver much, but I kind of feel like I'm still disappointed. But I was also in the mood to write negative reviews, so bad ones are happily included as well. On the other hand, September still promises to be awesome, and at least this way I could catch up on a few interesting records I missed.

Album Reviews: July

A little late with it, but here's the July review of albums! Because of my internship, I didn't have that much time to keep up, and because it's summer, I also kind of forgot I was supposed to write it. However, it's been a reasonably good month, though what I'm really excited for is September - as far as new releases go, not about school, of course.

A Music Tag

It's Monday again, a day which would normally be like any other day in the summer, but adult life isn't as kind. I have my internship, which is rather fun, only I have to bike an obscene amount in very hot weather for absolutely no money. But at least I feel like I'm doing something relatively useful.

Anyway, after concluding the same song titles series I wanted to do a Music Monday which would possibly include me gathering some of my favourite songs to dump on the (admittedly very small) unsuspecting readership. I found this tag on (Hungarian blogger) Bree's blog, which I promptly stole. The real challenge was not to include too many songs from my absolute favourites, so I tried to stick to one song per band.
(Long post ahead with youtube links!)

Album Reviews: June

June was kind of weak concerning metal releases, slightly better in other genres - which I just don't really listen to these days. I also had considerably less time to spend on listening to new music due to exams and more exams. I did look through June releases afterwards too, and still nothing really stood out to me even genre-wise; I guess after being spoiled in May it was a slight disappointment. In any case, summer month are always less busy.

Summer Playlist II

Hey, it's the summer solstice!

It's kinda fun that it's on a Sunday. I wish I was in some kind of stupid independent drama where I would go with my friends into the forest, up on a mountain, and wait for the sunset on the year's longest day. Accompanied by a metal soundtrack, cause that's what I'm all about.

Here it is on 8tracks.

Spring Playlist II

We've entered the astronomical spring with a solar eclipse, isn't that nice? Here wasn't much of a spectacle, especially since we didn't bother to get anything to view as little as we could have. I kind of forgot about it, even, but it was still noticeable - how the tone of the light changed just ever so slightly, how it was just a little too dark without any clouds to speak of. It was eerie in a very bright way, which made it all the more disconcerting.

I say this calls for a metal sort of spring. (I mean, how appropriate is the Shadows of the Dying Sun cover?) Anyway, to commemorate, here's a playlist (I've done quite some time ago, since this is a thing I do every changing of the seasons), vaguely spring-like for those who appreciate everything from pop-rock to metal. Well, mostly metal still.

Omnium Gatherum / Insomnium / Ensiferum

I was at the Ensiferum concert yesterday. But, it's no secret that I expressly went for the sole reason of seeing Omnium Gatherum and Insomnium live. Here's the setlist:

It was awesome. It was far from perfect, yeah; but I still loved it. I knew Insomnium were sketchy as best live, and they really could do with either one more guitar or a synth, because their melodicness is one of the best things about them. To be fair, I don't know how much better they are with their usual guitarist/clean vocalist Ville, so... Because that's one thing that's definitely suffered - the clean vocals were inaudible, and poor Kari Olli messed up even the guitar a few times. Considering he's a fill-in, it wasn't so bad.

On the other hand, Omnium Gatherum were phenomenal even live. Yeah, they're a 6-member band, but like this, the sound just blew me away. They were the first performers, so they really set the mood. Also, they played all my favourite songs (Soul Journeys, New World Shadows...), so I was happy.

A Year In Music

Aka my top40 of 2014 songs. So that I maintain a certain variety (and because of 8tracks' limitations) only two songs are included by any artist, which in some cases is kinda cheating - since I've listened to Shadows of the Dying Sun excessively, and WT and Rise Against certainly would have more than two songs if going by my iTunes play count.

You neend't continue, here's the playlist on 8tracks, but if you have loads of free time or are terribly interested in what I have to say (/fangirl) about these, then by all means, do read on. There are also separate youtube links there, for those who'd only listen to a few.

Best albums of 2014

A little sneak peak, bonus points for recognizing all of them.

Now that the end of the year draws near, I finally put together the top10 list of my favourite albums of 2014. Sadly, no-one will really care about it, because I'm not a tough critic guy writing for MetalSucks or Metal Hammer or any other online magazine. Recently I've thought about it, how I should have gotten into journalism and then I could spend my whole day writing about fashion and metal music and identity and the world - who needs money to pay for stuff anyway? But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't really enjoy it as a career.

So suffer my horribly long and unprofessional opinion.

Mors Principium Est: Dawn of the 5th Era

Some melodeath musings & a short review of the new album of Finnish melodic death metal band Mors Principium Est. (Only recommended to metal fans.)

Bienvenue l'hiver

I welcome winter with sleepless nights and general tiredness, being drunk on caffeine and stress. Just as always; I only want to sleep. And we drift far away in our dreams | Gather further distance while we sleep, as they sing.

Arguably, a good majority of my songs are very winter-compatible - I could write up an entire playlist just of Insomnium songs. Think about it, moody melodic death metal and ethereal symphonic metal - definitely puts an ordinary person in a winter mood. As for I, that is my everyday necessity. So I had a hard time choosing only 20, but here it is. It's probably my favourite out of my seasonal playlists, for obvious reasons.

Here is the playlist on 8tracks for easier listening.

Metal Halloween Playlist

Last time I did a Halloween playlist was two years ago - now that I'm faithfully doing Music Monday, I thought it was time for a new one. This time, to reflect my changing tastes, one full of metal songs - I tried to choose not-too-obvious ones which still fitted thematically. This would be the starting playlist of my Halloween party, if I ever hosted one.