It was a good year of music for me, marked by some great new metal albums from some of my Scandinavian favorites, and also a return to some of the prog- and jam-rock sounds from my younger years. The order is hardest to softest, musically.

Lamb of God - Wrath

I’ll start with one of the heaviest records on my list and one that certainly got a pretty heavy rotation on my Zune and while at work. Out of Richmond VA, LoG runs that interesting line between death metal and thrash, but with a seriously good groove hiding in all the noise and growling.

Wrath is Lamb of God’s sixth album.

Mastodon - Crack the Skye

Mastodon are often classified as progressive metal or sometimes stoner metal. I’ve been listening to them on and off for years, probably starting back in the late 90s when I was really into Kyuss (predecessor to QotSA). There 2009 album Crack the Skye dragged me back to their fold. Heavy and melodic at the same time, it has more of a consistent feel to it from start to finish that much of their previous work.

Crack the Skye is Mastodon’s fourth studio album and will certainly stay in my rotation throughout 2010.

Scar Symmetry - Dark Matter Dimensions

Holographic Universe, the third album from Sweden’s Scar Symmetry, was easily one of the best metal albums of 2008, and when I heard that they’d replaced their singer from that album with two people I was afraid it wouldn’t work out. But the new singers, Robert Karlsson and Lars Palmqvist hit the sound right on the nail. Often classified as melodic death metal, Scar Symmetry has fast guitars and a nice mix of clean signing and deep growls. Their late 2009 release titled Dark Matter Dimensions is still in my playlist.

Dark Matter Dimensions is Scar Symmetry’s fourth studio album.

Amorphis - Skyforger

Finland’s Amorphis started out the late 80s as a death metal act but as they’ve evolved it has become more progressive or folk metal. It still has some of the growls of death metal but with a much more melodic and structured sound as well. Amorphis pulls a lot of their lyrical content from the Kalevala, a book and epic poem of Finnish folklore, and this album stays true to that with a set of songs all told from the perspective of the character Ilmarinen

Skyforger is Amorphis’s ninth studio album.

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Founded in Boston, but now hailing from Los Angeles, Isis is often called sludge metal of post-metal. Long, acoustically dense songs characterize their sound it sometimes makes you think of bands like Pink Floyd while at other times you think you’re listening to a European death metal band. All-in-all it is great stuff, even if it does take a bit of getting used to.

Wavering Radiant is Isis’s fifth studio album.

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

Katatonia is another Swedish metal favorite. Characterized by doom and gloom lyrics, and a sound that varies from death metal to a more progressive sound. Occasionally reminiscent of Opeth’s sound, their 2009 release continues the mellowing of their music while still keeping the same great sound.

Night is the New Day is Katatonia’s eighth studio album.

Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures

Next we drop into the non-metal section of my list with something I certainly didn’t expect: a musical collaboration between bassist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighers, Probot and more), and guitarist/vocalist Josh Homme (mastermind behind Kyuss, QotSA and the Desert Sessions).

Both Grohl and Homme are masters of the hook rock song and this album doesn’t let you down. It may not be the best album of 2009 but it is a great listen and something everyone should give a turn on the player.

Steven Wilson – Insurgentes

Plain and simple, Steven Wilson is a genius. Founder of the amazing prog-rock band Porcupine Tree and producer of the monumental Blackwater Park by Opeth, Steven has his hands on released his first full length Insurgentes in 2009. A must have for prog-rock fans.

Phish – Joy

Phish is a band I’ve been into since college and my love for their sound didn’t die when they went on indefinite hiatus in 2004. For me their albums were always good, but the love I had for them will always be rooted in their live performances. Joy followed up Phish’s 2009 return to the stage with an excellent album produced by Steve Lillywhite, who also produced the band’s 1996 album Billy Breathes. The album has a pure Phish sound that is a delight to listen to (even my wife likes it). The only downside for me was that I didn’t get to see them on tour this year when they returned to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. But at least I have the bootlegs of the show!

Joy is Phish’s fourteenth studio album.

E-603 - Torn Up

Now this one is probably going to surprise people who don’t realize that when I say I like everything I really mean it. E-603 is the stage name of Ethan Ward, a mash-up artist from New Hampshire. His sound is much like that popularized by Girl Talk (aka Greg Gillis) in that it is almost entire composed of samples from other artists work. But unlike more traditional two- or three-song mashups like those produces by Wax Audio (e.g. Whole Lotta Sabbath), E-603 and Girl Talk make whole new songs out of dozens of pieces. It is a lot of fun to listen to and will keep you constantly guessing as you hear something and say, “Wait a minute… I know that sample!”

Torn Up is E-603’s second album and is available for free download from his site.

I never thought I'd see the day, but my good friend AaronX has finally started blogging. He and used to have a blog-like site that was just cool links that we found, little or no commentary and this this his new take on that idea.

http://denversurfreport.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Haha... I love the Internet sometimes. I was sitting here in my office listening to the Tool song Jambi, tapping my foot along, counting the beats on a background thread as I am wont to do...

"Hmm... this is in 9/4 time signature. COOL!"

You see, I've always loved finding songs that have unusual time signatures. One quick search later and I found this little page over on Answers.com:

List of musical works in unusual time signatures

Cool. I'm gonna have to dig through my music for some of those.

Only one thing to say…

The new Tool record 10,000 Days absolutely fucking rocks! On a scale from one to five, it is a nineteen.

As you might expect, you can hear the influence that A Perfect Circle has had on Maynard’s lyrical and vocal style. It is more pronounced on some songs that others. But then you get a song like Rosetta Stones that is so obviously a Tool song that it almost knocks you down.

It was long wait. Thanks guys for not letting the fans down.

Wow.

Seriously.

Wow.

I was reading blogs, playing online poker, waiting for my DNS stuff to work itself out when I found this post by Keith Brown:

If you've not checked out Pandora, you should. I was just thinking the other day that I'd like to expand my music collection, and this is an excellent way to find other music that you like. But even better, once you've taught it your preferences, you can just minimize it and have a commercial-free radio feed with sounds that you enjoy, and it's not all the same stuff you've been listening to for the last 10 years. The Music Genome Project behind is such a natural thing that it's brilliant. Kudos to the folks behind it!

Oh, and you can listen to stations that your friends create, if you know their email address.

Sounds pretty interesting, eh? Not sure what to expect, I surfed on over to Pandora to see what was going on.

It begins by asking me to enter an artist or a song name to get started. I said Tool. (I love all of Maynard’s work.)

And it started pumping out music. I “educated” it a bit, telling it that I also like Porcupine Tree, AC/DC, Soundgarden, Pelican, Kyuss and a few others. As it threw amazing tunes at me, I could give them thumbs up or thumbs down, just like with TiVo.

And in less than an hour, this thing had me dialed. Here is a sampling of some of the music it picked for me that I had never heard of before:

• “Resurface” by Tides
• “Last Nanosecond” by Zeni Geneva
• “Best Case Scenario” by Mortal Treason
• “Wall of Shame” by Course of Nature
• “Song for Turner” by The Major Stars
• “Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla” by Collapsar
• “Aquachimp” by Suzukiton
• “Phantom #1” by The Major Stars

You can also do really cool things like click on a song and make a whole new station that is inspired by just that one song. At one point I selected the “Why did you play this song?” menu item. It said something like this:

Based on what you’ve told us so far, were playing this track because it features hard-rock roots, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and minor key tonality.

Another time, during a nice instrumental hard-rock/metal tune, I asked again and it said:

Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features hard rock roots, the use of experimental sounds, mild rhythmic syncopation, repetitive melodic phrasing and extensive vamping.

As I said at the beginning. Wow. I don’t know if I need anything else anymore. This combined with my new Etymotic ER-6i earbuds and I’m golden.

I just did a bit of catch up on my recommended book list (in the left side bar of the blog for those of you who only read me via RSS). Here's what I added:

• Working Effectively With Legacy Code by Michael Feathers - When talking about TDD and unit testing around MS, this is almost always one of the first books I recommend. To Michael, legacy code is code that doesn't have effective unit tests.
• Customizing the Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime by Steve Pratschner - This is one of those books that is an interesting read, because you don't really need the information provided but it is really cool to know how to do it. Then months or years later, when you really do need to know how to host the CLR in your own process (for example), you at least know how to get started.
• Extreme Programming Pocket Guide by Chromatic - If anyone ever asks you to recommend one and only one book to explain XP, consider this one. I remember when I first saw it on Ward Cunningham's desk. I asked if it was okay and he said, "He got it all... in one little book. That's why I wrote the forward."
• Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion by Mike Mason - Another book in the Pragmatic series, this time about my favorite open-source version control system: Subversion.

I just saw this movie meme on Brad Wilson’s blog.

Here’s the rules: Italicize the ones you've seen and Bold the ones you actually liked.

1. Titanic (1997) - $600,779,824
2. Star Wars (1977) - $460,935,665
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - $434,949,459
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) - $431,065,444
5. Spider-Man (2002) - $403,706,375
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003) - $377,019,252
7. Passion of the Christ, The (2004) - $370,025,697
8. Jurassic Park (1993) - $356,784,000
9. Shrek 2 (2004) - $356,211,000
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002) - $340,478,898
11. Finding Nemo (2003) - $339,714,367
12. Forrest Gump (1994) - $329,691,196
13. Lion King, The (1994) - $328,423,001
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) - $317,557,891
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001) - $313,837,577
16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) - $310,675,583
17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) - $309,125,409
18. Independence Day (1996) - $306,124,059
19. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) - $305,411,224
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) - $293,501,675
21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - $290,158,751
22. Home Alone (1990) - $285,761,243
23. Matrix Reloaded, The (2003) - $281,492,479
24. Shrek (2001) - $267,652,016
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) - $261,970,615
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) - $260,031,035
27. Jaws (1975) - $260,000,000
28. Monsters, Inc. (2001) - $255,870,172
29. Batman (1989) - $251,188,924
30. Men in Black (1997) - $250,147,615
31. Toy Story 2 (1999) - $245,823,397
32. Bruce Almighty (2003) - $242,589,580
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - $242,374,454
34. Twister (1996) - $241,700,000
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) - $241,437,427
36. Ghost Busters (1984) - $238,600,000
37. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) - $234,760,500
38. Cast Away (2000) - $233,630,478
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The (1997) - $229,074,524
40. Signs (2002) - $227,965,690
41. Rush Hour 2 (2001) - $226,138,454
42. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) - $219,200,000
43. Ghost (1990) - $217,631,306
44. Aladdin (1992) - $217,350,219
45. Saving Private Ryan (1998) - $216,119,491
46. Mission: Impossible II (2000) - $215,397,30
47. X2 (2003) - $214,948,780
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) - $213,079,163
49. Back to the Future (1985) - $210,609,762
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) - $205,399,422
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - $204,843,350
52. Exorcist, The (1973) - $204,565,000
53. Mummy Returns, The (2001) - $202,007,640
54. Armageddon (1998) - $201,573,391
55. Gone with the Wind (1939) - $198,655,278
56. Pearl Harbor (2001) - $198,539,855
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) - $197,171,806
58. Toy Story (1995) - $191,800,000
59. Men in Black II (2002) - $190,418,803
60. Gladiator (2000) - $187,670,866
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - $184,925,485
62. Dances with Wolves (1990) - $184,208,848
63. Batman Forever (1995) - $184,031,112
64. Fugitive, The (1993) - $183,875,760
65. Ocean's Eleven (2001) - $183,405,771
66. What Women Want (2000) - $182,805,123
67. Perfect Storm, The (2000) - $182,618,434
68. Liar Liar (1997) - $181,395,380
69. Grease (1978) - $181,360,000
70. Jurassic Park III (2001) - $181,166,115
71. Mission: Impossible (1996) - $180,965,237
72. Planet of the Apes (2001) - $180,011,740
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - $179,870,271
74. Pretty Woman (1990) - $178,406,268
75. Tootsie (1982) - $177,200,000
76. Top Gun (1986) - $176,781,728
77. There's Something About Mary (1998) - $176,483,808
78. Ice Age (2002) - $176,387,405
79. Crocodile Dundee (1986) - $174,635,000
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) - $173,585,516
81. Elf (2003) - $173,381,405
82. Air Force One (1997) - $172,888,056
83. Rain Man (1988) - $172,825,435
84. Apollo 13 (1995) - $172,071,312
85. Matrix, The (1999) - $171,383,253
86. Beauty and the Beast (1991) - $171,301,428
87. Tarzan (1999) - $171,085,177
88. Beautiful Mind, A (2001) - $170,708,996
89. Chicago (2002) - $170,684,505
90. Three Men and a Baby (1987) - $167,780,960
91. Meet the Parents (2000) - $166,225,040
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - $165,500,000
93. Hannibal (2001) - $165,091,464
94. Catch Me If You Can (2002) - $164,435,221
95. Big Daddy (1999) - $163,479,795
96. Sound of Music, The (1965) - $163,214,286
97. Batman Returns (1992) - $162,831,698
98. Bug's Life, A (1998) - $162,792,677
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) - $161,963,000
100. Waterboy, The (1998) - $161,487,252

Of course missing from this list is one of the best movies of all time: The Godfather Part I and Part II. And yes, as you can see, I boycotted Star Wars Ep 2 and 3 after seeing Ep 1.

And if you want to see something funny, go see Scott Densmore’s list. Apparently he likes anything.

I love my iPod Shuffle. I’ve always got it with me. I use it in the car (I’ve been told this is illegal, but I’m not sure about WA), at work, doing yardwork, doing housework, etc. I love it.

But I’m not so in love with the iPod Earbuds that ship with it. Most people apparently aren’t all that impressed with them. So I started doing some research on replacements. I love my Bose Quiet Comfort noise cancellation ‘phones, but they are a little less portable than earbud and in-ear headsets.

Over at HeadRoom I found a nice little tool called Build-A-Graph that shows side-by-side comparisons of different models. But before building graphs, I did some digging on a couple of online forums and spent a few minutes looking at the HeadRoom In-Ear Canal Product Listings page. From that research, I picked four models that I wanted to compare: Etymotic ER-6 (MSRP $149), Etymotic ER-4P ($330), Shure E2C (MSRP $119), and Sure E3C (MSRP $179).

Frequency Response

In order to have a baseline to compare to, let’s start by looking at the Frequency Response Graph for the Apple iPod Earbuds:

 

OK. Now I can see why the Apple iPod Earbuds sound so bad. There is no bass! And that curve is far from the kind of flat curve I’d like to see.

By comparison, here is the Frequency Response Graph of the four I’m considering:

Up through the midrange, these four models are all pretty darn good. The Shure E2Cs are a bit high on the low end, but as a bass lover, I may like that. They all get some interesting peaks and valleys up in the high end, but that wasn’t all that unexpected. To my (untrained) eye, the Etymotic ER-6 looks the best, but for the price the Shure E2C ain’t all that bad.

Isolation

The other thing that is important to me (as you can tell by the fact that I own the Bose Quiet Comfort) is how well the isolate me from the noises around me. I don’t travel as much as I used to, but there are always noises and such that get in the way. Turning up the volume is only an option to a point, as either your hearing will suffer or the amplifier in your device will start to show its lack of power. (Yes, I know all about headphone amps, but that is yet another thing to carry in my pocket—no thanks.)

Here is the Isolation Graph for the same four models:

The Shure E2C isn’t shining all that well in this category, but it is certainly better than the graph for the Apple iPod Earbuds. Again, to my neophyte eye the Etymotics look better than the Shure, with the ER4–P slightly outshining the ER-6.

All in all, I’m leaning toward Etymotics. The Shure E2C looks pretty good for the price, but the ER-6 only list a few bucks more and it looks like they sound so much better. So it looks like it will come down to this question: Do I want to spend $300 for the ER-4P or do I want to spend $100 for the ER-6?

(If anyone has any experience reports or recommendations, I’d love to hear them. Please post in comments so everyone else can share too. Thanks.)

UPDATE: I just found this article on ecoustics.com that explains Frequency Response Graphs, specifically what matters and what doesn’t on the graphs.

Ever listen to a song a hundred times and not really catch the lyrics? Well it happens to me all the time.

I caught these tonight while listening to my iPod Shuffle and loading the dishwasher. Cool words.

Without using Google, I wonder if anyone (other than Brad Wilson) knows what the band/album/song is?

The music of the future
Will not entertain
It's only meant to repress
And neutralise your brain

Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want

Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills

The music of rebellion
Makes you wanna rage
But it's made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age

Good luck!

The founder of “Gonzo Journalism” is dead after suffering a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I still remember first running across Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a teenager and being completely overwhelmed by it. It was like no other book I had ever seen. Later, as my reading list expanded, I recognized influences like Kerouac, Bukowski and Mencken in what Thomson had done.

Like it or hate it, his writing was like no other.