Yahoo! News – Syrian forces kill 62, U.S. tightens sanctions
Yahoo! News reports: “A medical source told Reuters that soldiers in Deraa killed 19 people on Friday when they fired on thousands of protesters descending from nearby villages in a show of solidarity with the southern city where Syria’s uprising broke out six weeks ago.”
Yahoo! News – German police arrest three al Qaeda suspects
Yahoo! News reports: “German police arrested three suspected members of al Qaeda on Friday, averting ‘a concrete and imminent danger’ of a terrorist operation, authorities said. The newspaper Bild quoted security sources as saying the three, all young Moroccans, were arrested in Duesseldorf and Bochum. It said police seized large amounts of explosives.”
Yahoo! News – Six Planets Now Aligned in the Dawn Sky
Yahoo! News reports: “While astrologers view planetary alignments as foretellers of disasters, modern amateur astronomers look forward to them as nothing more than grand photo ops. If you go out any morning for the next four days, you’ll be treated to a view of the crescent moon and all but one of the naked eye planets.”
My Way News – US urges Turkey on Iran sanctions
My Way News reports: “Iran could try to exploit growing trade ties with Turkey, a neighbor with a booming economy, in order to circumvent international sanctions aimed at forcing it to stop its suspected efforts to make nuclear weapons, a U.S. Treasury Department official said Wednesday [...] Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in February that annual trade with Iran had reached $10 billion and the aim was to reach $30 billion in the next few years.”
My Way News – Kenya cuts tax on maize, wheat; 4 die from hunger
My Way News reports: “An infant was left suckling on her mother’s lifeless body last week after the woman died of hunger in Kenya’s drought-stricken north. The heartbreaking scene is one reason the government on Wednesday cut taxes on maize and wheat. Prices on food and fuel are rising globally, but higher costs are hitting residents in East Africa particularly hard.”
My Way News – Even rescuers hobbled by worst twisters since 1932
My Way News reports: “Southerners found their emergency safety net shredded Friday as they tried to emerge from the nation’s deadliest tornado disaster since the Great Depression. Emergency buildings are wiped out. Bodies are stored in refrigerated trucks. Authorities are begging for such basics as flashlights. In one neighborhood, the storms even left firefighters to work without a truck.”
Comment: I suppose that a firehouse, a hospital or police station area buildings like any other building, but one doesn’t usually think of them being hit by a tornado. I know they’re not exempt, but it’s just one more example of the destructive power of these storms.
My Way News – Live streamed royal wedding reigns on the Web
My Way News reports: “Prince William and Kate Middleton may have had a traditional wedding, but the Internet traffic that accompanied the ceremony was something very new for the royal family. Millions followed the affair in live streams on their computers, all the while commenting on social media sites.”
My Way News – Killer twisters likely among largest, strongest
My Way News reports: “Some of the killer tornadoes that ripped across the South may have been among the largest and most powerful ever recorded, experts suggested, leaving a death toll that is approaching that of a tragic ’super outbreak’ of storms almost 40 years ago.”
This is… gonzo journalism!
This is… method reviewing!
Come on, Strasberg and Stanislavski, let’s rev up my affective (race?) memory and feel the pillage! (I’m German-American, so surely there’s pillaging memory in there somewhere….)
I, in the spirit of the pillaging Viking hordes (pretty sure that name’s copywritten), have written this entire review of Sweden’s Amon Amarth and their newest, Surtur Rising, while drinking mead.
Mead– the honey-wine every Viking and his mother drank.
- You’re welcome.
You know how Goddamn hard it is to find mead around here?
The things I do for you….
So: the Mead I actually found, Oliver’s Camelot Mead, tastes like, well, Honey wine (though apparently I should’ve tried this or thiskind).
A lot stronger than beer, less so than wine, it tastes like really light liquid honey with alcohol in it. I can’t stand wine, but this is not bad. Not as good as beer, which I do so enjoy, but not bad at all.
One 5 oz. serving in:
Opener “War of the Gods” hammers in the intro theme with a crushing downbeat with melody that segues into a chorus that you could chant over a fire…. Amon Amarth sound confident and strong, and old Viking ruler –Odin?– who’s seen a lot and knows it back to front…will make you mad mead is so hard to get in comparison to beer;
Former albums have been fairly filler-dense, with a couple or three songs that are so good you forget the rest… I’m curious how this will pan out….
“Töck’s Taunt: Loke’s Treachery Part II” follows their pattern in songwriting: somewhat memorable verse followed by hooky-in-a- somehow-Viking way chorus… not quite as good as the first track, but quite good… we fade out into:
“Destroyer of the Universe” which thrashes its ways, at 200 bpm, into a rager of a tune– sounding like a cousin to “Twilight of the Thunder God” from their previous work, this time faster and with more solos and riffs….
“Slaves of Fear” a rager, though not to the previous degree, but is nothing near filler and rages and rages and rages….
Two Servings (10 oz.) in:
“Live Without Regrets” continues the Viking-themed melody with death metal vocals motif… but does little new with it, Amon Amarth’s riffing in B standard, a fifth below standard tuning… somehow making up for the lack of nuance….
“The Last Stand of Frej” is suitable epic (and yet tragic) in its sonic recounting of the tale of the Norse goddess of majick, war and death… fades out to “For Victory or Death,” which, clichéd title or no, which starts like a combination of Mercyful Fate and Bay Area Thrash….
Forget “Wrath of the Norsemen” overall, though at 2:10 it drops briefly into a nice little dirge/breakdown… “A Beast Am I” brings the fury back at 230 bpm, leaves behind the melody and just fucking rages….
”Doom Over Dead Man,” though I’m not sure what the title means, is perhaps the most emotional (read: bittersweet) track on here– primitive instrument melodies about: conches, horns, shouts, abound… the rallying cry of a race (sadly?) long dead….
Long may they live…!!
And: though you know always what you’re getting….
Bottom Line (15 ozs. in):
It’s their stride.
This is feasting hall music.
This is music you scream with your barbarian friends after you’ve bested Grendel’s Mother.
This is war music that manages to avoid the cheese of Manowar (said with love).
Now hoist your Goddamned tankards…!
To Amon Amarth!!! To Mount Doom!!!
May their kingdom resist weather, time and treachery…!
–Horn
Buy here: Surtur Rising
Buy here Deluxe Box: Surtur Rising
Buy here mp3: Surtur Rising
Buy here vinyl: Surtur Rising
The Goldberg Sisters had to postpone their in-store unfortunately. Stay tuned for a new date and time. In the meantime check-out whats new in our bins…
New Adds
All Saints Day – It’ll Come Around
Atmosphere – The Family Sign
Dadfag – Nighttime 7”
Doersovit / The Taints – Split 7”
Descendents – Everything Sucks
Dunes – Old Souls 7”
Gilbert Deflez – Je Suis Vivant, Mais J’ai Peur
Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs – No Help Coming
Mala Morska Vila – The Little Mermaid
MDC – Millions of Dead Cops
Refused – Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent
Suedehead – I Motion EP 7”
Teenage Fanclub – Bandwagonesque (Reissue)
The Plot – INRI 12”
V/A – Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, and Psych of the 60’s and 70’s
V/A – Solid EP 7” (Citizen Fish/MDC/Embrace The Kill/Mouth Sewn Shut)
V/A – Solla Solla Volume 1
V/A – Solla Solla Volume 2
V/A – The Human EP 7” (MDC/Phobia/The Restarts/Embrace The Kill)
Restocks
Billy Green – Stone OST
Dinosaur Jr – Green Mind
Dirty Beaches – Badlands (White Vinyl)
Gang of Four – Entertainment
Lykke Li – Youth Novels
Panda Bear – Tomboy
V/A – Absolute Belter
V/A – The BYG Deal
Woven Bones – The Minus Touch EP
