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: October

October was a good month. Naturally, the autumn months generally fit the mood of the genre better, but the quality of the releases was still superb, even after September, which had many favourites for me. These months see me sitting at home with my laptop working a bit more, so there's always some music in the background, and the memorable ones help me get through those dreaded all-nighters.

Album Reviews: September

September first and foremost means 'back to university', or as we say, sleepless nights and long commutes. Both give to long hauls of listening to music, either to tune out the melody of Budapest's infamous metro 3 line, or to keep me from going crazy as I pull yet another all-nighter. September this time round was a great month for metal, even if I'm still hung up on a few summer albums. (Specifically Be'lakor's Vessels, and Thrawsunblat's Metachthonia.)

Album Reviews: July-August

The combination of a busy summer and the lack of many great or interesting releases makes for this two-month combo. I really didn't have time to discover new music. On the other hand, the defining musical experience of the summer was listening to Be'lakor's new album whilst traveling in Croatia - somehow it's the perfect summer metal record and I doubt it won't end in the top five, with all the memories stuck to it now.

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.

Album Reviews: March-April-May

Honestly, I most missed my monthly reviews of my favourite albums. It's a bit late now, and it's a monster of a post - so mostly just blurbs go with the albums - but here is my favourite 15 from this spring; as per usual, in chronological order.

Album Reviews: February

Hey there. I know that these days - despite my plans - I just don't write here as much. I don't have the time to write the more in-depth posts I'd want to, and I don't have the patience to write a usual one, say, about fashion (I didn't even have time to follow the fashion weeks). The one thing (thing, as in, beside people and necessary activities) in my life I always value enough to spend time on is music. So if nothing else, the album reviews are going to be here for a while.

February was a good month, especially compared to January - good heavier and more technical records, and some of my definite contenders for year-end lists.

Album Reviews: January

No reviews for December - it's pointless among all the year-end lists, and then it's exam period, and then it's already the end of January, so I don't think it'll ever happen. I'm sure I missed many releases in this past month as well, not having spent much time scouring for new music, but at least the banner looks very unified in its colour scheme.

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: November

November: the hell month with increasingly less sleeptime. This of course means that I barely had time to listen to new records - so this month only has 3 (well, sort of). At least it's short.

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.)

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!)

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.

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.

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.

In Flames Concert

The Autumn Playlist

Yet again another seasonal playlist! I didn't want to wait until the equinox, and September 1st is a fitting date for a little-or-not-so-much melancholic playlist. (Au contraire, there are quite some songs which qualify as happy songs with me.) With the end of September and the new In Flames album and the concert coming, I'll have quite a other music topics to write about anyway.