Music That I Happened To Listen To In 2014

Destrage - Are You Kidding Me? No.

March 4 

Still one of my favorite bands that I've listened to in the last year. Here's to a hundred more albums!

Intervals - A Voice Within

March 4 

The singer introduced on this album has since left the band. Back to the instrumental-djent drawing board! Unless Tesseract's Ashe O'Hara is interested in the job opening.

Animals As Leaders - The Joy Of Motion

March 24

Ronnie James Dio: This Is Your Life

March 31

The Metallica, Adrenaline Mob, and Anthrax covers are pretty good as well. That's about it, though.

Prong - Ruining Lives

April 23

Played through this album once and completely forgot about it afterwards. It's a shame, really. I genuinely enjoyed their last output, Carved Into Stone.

Cloudkicker - EPs, Live with Intronaut, and Little Histories

April 24, November 24, December 1

Here's one I got to see live, at one of their first performances as this lineup!

Mushroomhead - The Righteous & The Butterfly

May 13

Not sure which is more disappointing: the album itself, which wasn't helped that much with the return of original vocalist Jason Popson, or the fact that half the band, some of whom had been involved since the band's earlist incarnations, were kicked out earlier for dubious reasons.

Pink Guy - Pink Guy

May 22

Warning: Extremely NSFW, and extremely funny.

Die Antwoord - Donker Mag

June 3

I only discovered this group recently, relenting that "Mindless Self Indulgence on meth" is exactly what I've been searching for my entire musical life. One of the few bands where I can honestly say that the music videos are just as captivating, if not more so, than the music itself. Here's to their appearance in "Chappie" next year!

Dog Fashion Disco - Sweet Nothings

July 22

Yet another disappointment for me, but possibly the one that I was eagerly anticipating the most this year. I discovered this band late in their game, years after they had already called it quits and worked on similarly bizarre-yet-catchy side projects. Right when I had nearly listened to every song in their catalogue, they announce a reunion and new album, and it ends up falling flat with subsequently little fanfare. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though I wasn't exactly clamoring for such a comeback, especially after all this time. Hopefully, the new Faith No More release won't suffer the same fate as their proteges. 

Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun

June 24

Decided to give this band yet another second chance, and I like what I hear so far. Obviously, I'm a sucker for their more straightforward offerings of their sludge-fueled seminal albums, but I was surprised to find how little I was opposed to their dabblings into progressive rock. Plus, they don't seem to take their time when it comes to releasing a regular amount of material. In the end, Mastodon maintains their title as the heavyweight champions of both the prog and sludge metal scenes. And I vastly appreciate the audacity of their "controversial" new music video, lovingly made in celebration of the culture of their hometown Atlanta, especially in a time when it seems as if the modern morality police are rearing their ugly heads into heavy metal discourse.

Monuments - The Amanuensis

July 8

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1

July 29

Opeth - Pale Communion

August 25

Mike Doughty - Stellar Motel

September 16

YEAH! FUCK IT!

Devin Townsend Project - Z2

October 27

Haken - Restoration

October 27

Skyharbor - Guiding Lights

November 10

Halo 2 Anniversary (Original Soundtrack)

November 11

The remastered version of this game is AMAZING. Go play it. I can't honestly say the same for the first and third Halos, both of which let me down both in game-play dynamics, cutscene quality, and graphical performance. But I did learn that I don't hate Halo 4 nearly as much as I used to, or as much as the gaming community as a whole does. Oh, and the upgraded soundtrack includes Steve Vai and Misha Monsoor, placed at key moments in the game's select action scenes.

Pastors Of Muppets

November 24

Brass band covers of metal and rock classics. 'Nuff said.

See you all next year when I expand my musical taste to include even more nerdy djent and prog metal, and hopefully more weird rap-rave from exotic continents.

My Most Anticipated Movies Of 2015

SELMA

January 9

Other than the fact that it's about time there was a large-budget, biographical film about Dr. King, I'm genuinely interested in the personal interaction he had with such figures as President Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover.

CHAPPIE

March 6

I was never a big fan of the film "District 9," or its director, Neill Blomkamp, and the whole "robot gains sentience and makes friends with humans" genre has been pretty much run dry after all these years. But as soon as I saw Die Antwoord in the trailer, my wallet had already bounced off the projection screen. 

Oh, and Wolverine, Ripley, Martinez from Walking Dead, and Zuko from the film-that-shall-not-be-named are in it as well.

FURIOUS 7

April 3

Still not ready for the inevitable Paul Walker tribute. 

Also, it's about time they filmed in genuinely interesting locations such as the Middle East.

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

May 1

JURASSIC WORLD

June 12

I could write a book about my myriad of musings and reflections on the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole, and the looong-time-coming Jurassic World, but I digress. This movie has clearly (and rightfully) thrown authenticity and most common sense for the sake of pure, unadulterated action, spectacle, and thrills. It's science fiction with a helping portion of fantasy. They didn't rush to assemble this sequel, as is what plainly happened to the previous installment, and instead waited for the proper screenplay amidst a legion of fan-fiction rejects, as well as a release time that would secure a new generation of innocuous kids who haven't had their own Jurassic Park to drive them dino-crazy. As with Star Wars, it's finally time for us aging Crichton geeks to revisit our childhoods, and share that sense of awe and wonder with the new generation.

It's affectionate tribute and daring reboot all in one, and it gives a chance for new-guy director Colin Trevorrow to either become a new box-office champion, as Spielberg was in his rookie years, or to completely blow it. But if the latter ends up the case, could we really fault him for at least attempting to work with such a perilous source material? At this point, does it even need to succeed, either in the financial or fan-pandering sense?  

And there was nothing quite like watching this trailer in the theater for the first time. I didn't get chills, I got shakes.

ANT-MAN

July 17

In the wake of unexpected success stories such as Guardians of the Galaxy, I for one welcome this new wave of second-tier superhero movies. 

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

August 14

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

December 18

I never cared much for Star Wars as a kid. When I was born, the 80s were over, and while the kids of the last decade were coming of age I was getting bored of reruns of their cartoons and turning my attention towards such riveting productions as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The original trilogy would air on television on occasion, but I had at that point already been spoiled by modern special effects technology in film, not to mention the up-and-coming computer-generated animation seen in Pixar's debut works.

Star Wars was an entity that existed outside my sphere of cultural influence. That is, until I was ten years old, and saw The Phantom Menace, which I've learned in recent years is one that wannabe-Eberts love to delicately dissect for hours on end. As for me and most of my generation, however, Lucas' deed was done, and I was from that moment forward a full-fledged Star Wars geek. I held my reservations towards the rest of the trilogy, as well as spin-off series that unfairly replaced their superior counterparts, but it gave me cause to return to the originals that I had shunned all too often as a youth and appreciate them for what they truly represented.

Time will again repeat itself, and my peers will moan and groan alongside the veterans of yester-year, but I'll be the one returning to the time when I saw pod-racing and duels with dual-sided lighsabers for the first time. And, as with the aforementioned Jurassic World, a new legion of kids will be claim it as their favorite movie of all time, and there will hopefully be new trilogies for years to come, now that it is safely out of George's hands.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

December 25

Quite possibly one of the few, if not only director whose work I will keenly anticipate while knowing next to nothing about it.