Fixed – Nine Inch Nails

This is the remix album companion to Broken. Broken is pretty good but this is better. I like the combination of decent drum beats and blistering guitar sounds. I even played this in the car with my sons so they could listen to lots of drumming.

This is very much worth owning.

The Fine Art Of Killing Yourself – Terrorfakt

I really like this album. It’s most definitely aggrotech. The beats are heavy and a lot of the sounds are distorted. There’s not really any singing but they do use many samples. If you want to get moving then this is a great album. I’d almost say it hurts to listen to!

Fever – Bullet For My Valentine

I’ve a few things to say about Bullet For My Valentine, but thinking about it I probably wrote some stuff here and here. This album was the first by Bullet that I had listened to. I think I would say that it is largely ok but nothing special. It doesn’t really hit the spot for me. The heavy bits are good but the rest is ok.

It’s ok.

The Fat Of The Land – The Prodigy

Well, I’m not sure where to start with this album. There’s a lot to say and this will end up as a ramble through my history. There’s probably not a lot new there given some of the communications on this site.

I bought this album on the back of previously purchasing Music For A Gilted Generation. This new purchase BLEW ME AWAY. It is heavy and nasty and yet brilliant and perfectly produced.

I used to play quite a bit of Doom and back in ’97 or so and this album was placed in the CD tray to keep a nice background track to me blowing shit up. Fat Of The Land is perfectly moody for this task.

If you don’t own this album then you suck. Go get it. Download it. Play it. Make your ears bleed.

There isn’t a bad song on this album.

Faith Hope Love – Kings X

I saw this band a long time ago in Wembley Arena. I have a feeling they supported Bon Jovi, but I could be wrong. I bought this album on vinyl shortly after and then obviously I bought the CD to update my collection many years later.

This is very melodic rock/metal. In fact I think metal is NOT what it is. The whole album is very musical with tight long harmonies in the vocals. I like it but you have to be in the correct mood otherwise you’ll hate it.

This is also a very “summer” album. It’s a bit jangly. Quite possibly this is an acquired taste. I know that Andy would hate it.

“Fine Art Of Friendship” is a good song.

Facelift – Alice In Chains

This is, as far as I know, the first album by Seattle giants Alice In Chains. It opens with “We Die Young”, quite simply a brilliant song that introduces the whole Alice experience. The guitars are generally heavy and slow while the vocals haunt me.

Alice In Chains formed part of the Seattle sound, a mixture of grunge and anger, but I think they stood out from the rest. On the occasions I have seen them they blew me away.

This is a brilliant album. My favourites are the opening track and “It Ain’t Like That”.

Other Alice in Chains communications are here.

Extreme – Extreme

If this is your type of rock then it is a good album. I had a slight Extreme revival about a year ago where I got their albums. I listened to them quite a bit in my late teens. This was their first album. You should get Pornograffitti instead.

Avengers – Age Of Ultron

So, I went to see this film last night. As ever I rated this film on IMDB, you should read this communication before moaning about my rating system.

Overall I enjoyed this film. I don’t think it was as good as the first film. The action sequences were perfectly fine although nothing really stood out for me. The buddy aspect of the film was ok but the best parts of that were dealt with in the first film.

Look, this is a solid superhero film and works very well. It is probably better than most of the standalone films that have been released, it just wasn’t as good as the first film. Sorry.

Insurgent

I went to see Insurgent. It’s the second film in the Divergent series [if that’s what they are called]. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and you should read this communication for a better understanding of how I rate films, it’s subjective you see. I reviewed Divergent.

I’m not entirely sure this film had a stand out moment. It was a quite pedestrian storyline. I have a feeling it could have been made more exciting, but I may be suffering from YAL overload. You see, I watched Maze Runner recently. It’s probably fair to say that the overall plot of the films are exactly the same. I’m not sure the youth can claim this kind of dystopian future for themselves, but then every generation needs their own films and music to claim. We have to give the youth these views so that they feel empowered to contribute and change the system.

I feel a certain nostalgia for the badfuture films of the 70s and 80s. Granted, we did have a cold war and the threat of death within four minutes [if you were lucky] but we also needed the films to promote social change. The problem as I see it is that the wrong kind of social change happened. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that politics, power and greed gets in the way.

The poor youth of today constantly worried about the extremely low probability of being killed by a murderer [or terrorist as we now call them if they are a little different to us], they must find it very upsetting. Bollocks. It’s been worse in the past. It’ll get worse again.

Anyway, the film was OK. Nothing brilliant.

Chappie

I saw this film last night. As ever I have rated it on the IMDB website, or rather the IMDB app.

I think a little next morning rethinking means that I could possibly downgrade this to a 6/10. If you need to understand my rating system then read this communication.

I really enjoyed this film. Within the last six months I watched District 9, made by the same people and I enjoyed it and also found it a very interesting film given the storylines and location. District 9 dealt with the legal repression of a race of beings in South Africa. I thought it was a great film you can sit and watch or an even better critique of the recent past.

Chappie [apart from having an awful title] was quite similar. Many of the locations seemed very similar as it was films around Johannesburg. The laboratories looked and felt similar. I wonder whether the director has the same location or a very distinct look that he wanted for both films.

I would describe this film as a grown up version of Short Circuit. There was so much about it that I liked. There were some science-type issues that I had, but I am willing to let the film have those technological problems for free. This film is worth a watch, just make sure you put the kids to bed first.

An aside is that there was a couple sitting next to me. Before the film they were talking, I was reading a book on my phone, I don’t watch adverts or trailers. The girl asked why the screen was curved. The bloke responded because it makes it look nice. Now that’s not really the case is it? The screen is curved so that all points on the screen are the same distance from the projector so that the focus works properly. I didn’t interject, that seemed rude but I really wanted to. Also, if you have a question like that why don’t you look up the real answer on the internet and learn something. don’t except any answer you hear, even the one I’ve just given, look it up, find out the real reason.