lucymonster (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lucymonster) wrote2021-02-25 02:53 pm
lucymonster) wrote2021-02-25 02:53 pm
Entry tags:
Media I've been enjoying
I hope to make a recs post soon, because Chocolate Box happened recently and the output (as much as I've managed to read so far) was absolutely stellar. For now, here's the small handful of non-fannish things I've managed to consume over the last week or so.
Knives Out
I'm probably the last TLJ fan on the internet to see the "new" Rian Johnson movie, but I am who I am. Anyway, I thought it was brilliant, and VERY like TLJ. It had a strikingly similar storytelling ethos and overall vision, just without the Star Wars trappings or megafranchise corporate oversight. Johnson's brand is a kind of loving deconstruction: he takes one of his favourite genres or fictional worlds, tears it to pieces, flips things over and turns them around and generally subverts as many expectations as he can, but then by the end he puts all the pieces right back together and ends up delivering a final product that feels both fresh and true to the original. The social commentary was biting. The setting and score were beautiful. I really, really enjoyed it.
Schitt's Creek
I'm partway through season 5 and I finally - FINALLY - like the characters. Even Moira. A friend told me Moira is a fan favourite, but I've spent most of the show gritting my teeth through her every appearance. Her brand of narcissism is not one I find entertaining. Thankfully for my dental health, she's started to show some early sprouts of character growth. And Johnny won me over when he gave what-for to those asshole rich former friends of theirs.
This has to be a record for the longest chance I've ever given something to grow on me. But grow it did!
Music
I'm back on my black metal bullshit. Been listening to Rzeczom by Odraza (of which I understand zero words, but in black metal that's usually true even when the lyrics are in English) and The Funeral Pyre by Kvaen (of which I have caught some words, and they're all really powerful fire imagery). Uinos Syomein Sota by Havukruunu was an accidental but very happy autoplay find, and led me to this Quietus article on pagan black metal which I'm still working my way through with a lot of enjoyment.
I've also been listening to Illuminati by God Dethroned, which ... look, honestly, I WISH I couldn't understand the lyrics. This is a genre where the line between sincere iconoclasm and gratuitous edgelordism gets easily blurred, but these guys are so far down the hrr grr Satan path that it doesn't really matter if they mean it or not - it's too deeply, deeply silly to listen to with a straight face either way. But the riffs, though! And the chorals! And the light sprinkling of clean vocals! It's insanely catchy.
Someone on shreddit plugged what they're calling cavernous death metal, which is such an apt descriptor that I'm keeping my all my sighs about microclassification to myself this time. Grave Ekstasis by Irkallian Oracle was my favourite of their recs - it would sound incredible turned up loud on proper speakers, but I don't think my rats like cavernous death metal and I haven't wanted to bother them with it. It's good enough just on headphones.
Finally, as a new-to-me throwback, Crimson by Edge of Sanity has been making me think I might maybe, maaaaybe someday be able to teach myself to like prog metal. This album is mostly nice familiar melodeath but it has some prog elements I've been finding really compelling.
Knives Out
I'm probably the last TLJ fan on the internet to see the "new" Rian Johnson movie, but I am who I am. Anyway, I thought it was brilliant, and VERY like TLJ. It had a strikingly similar storytelling ethos and overall vision, just without the Star Wars trappings or megafranchise corporate oversight. Johnson's brand is a kind of loving deconstruction: he takes one of his favourite genres or fictional worlds, tears it to pieces, flips things over and turns them around and generally subverts as many expectations as he can, but then by the end he puts all the pieces right back together and ends up delivering a final product that feels both fresh and true to the original. The social commentary was biting. The setting and score were beautiful. I really, really enjoyed it.
Schitt's Creek
I'm partway through season 5 and I finally - FINALLY - like the characters. Even Moira. A friend told me Moira is a fan favourite, but I've spent most of the show gritting my teeth through her every appearance. Her brand of narcissism is not one I find entertaining. Thankfully for my dental health, she's started to show some early sprouts of character growth. And Johnny won me over when he gave what-for to those asshole rich former friends of theirs.
This has to be a record for the longest chance I've ever given something to grow on me. But grow it did!
Music
I'm back on my black metal bullshit. Been listening to Rzeczom by Odraza (of which I understand zero words, but in black metal that's usually true even when the lyrics are in English) and The Funeral Pyre by Kvaen (of which I have caught some words, and they're all really powerful fire imagery). Uinos Syomein Sota by Havukruunu was an accidental but very happy autoplay find, and led me to this Quietus article on pagan black metal which I'm still working my way through with a lot of enjoyment.
I've also been listening to Illuminati by God Dethroned, which ... look, honestly, I WISH I couldn't understand the lyrics. This is a genre where the line between sincere iconoclasm and gratuitous edgelordism gets easily blurred, but these guys are so far down the hrr grr Satan path that it doesn't really matter if they mean it or not - it's too deeply, deeply silly to listen to with a straight face either way. But the riffs, though! And the chorals! And the light sprinkling of clean vocals! It's insanely catchy.
Someone on shreddit plugged what they're calling cavernous death metal, which is such an apt descriptor that I'm keeping my all my sighs about microclassification to myself this time. Grave Ekstasis by Irkallian Oracle was my favourite of their recs - it would sound incredible turned up loud on proper speakers, but I don't think my rats like cavernous death metal and I haven't wanted to bother them with it. It's good enough just on headphones.
Finally, as a new-to-me throwback, Crimson by Edge of Sanity has been making me think I might maybe, maaaaybe someday be able to teach myself to like prog metal. This album is mostly nice familiar melodeath but it has some prog elements I've been finding really compelling.
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