not bad meaning good

Ok, so we have a situation. And I don't mean whatshisfuck from Jersey Beach. Laguna Shore. Whatever.

I mean Alison fucking Goldfrapp.

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WarTusk

The first These New Puritans album somehow managed to reach me, with all of its agro-prog numerology-dabbling dark fantasy glory. This was a group that didn't fit into the blog-dance climate, choosing to stake out space on the dance floor to play a D&D campaign to the death while their peers raved blindly around them. Now they've returned with a new record, Hidden, that, in keeping with its title, sticks to the shadows and this time chooses to rally actual demons rather than just fuck around with the thought.

 

  These New Puritans: We Want War

Take, for instance, "We Want War", Hidden's first single (and the album's first actual song). Lavishing in pipe organ and whispers, unsheathed swords and military percussion, the closest modern comparison (as in, something that wasn't played to usher men to their death during the War Between The States) I can come up with is "Tusk" the song-which is fitting, because Tusk the album is a perfect comparison to Hidden's lengthy, bloated but rewardingly punishing, fierce sound (we're not, of course, including any of the Christine McVie shit in this).  This is a matter of life or death, These New Puritans wants us to know-and it is. And it's impossible not to believe them, regardless of if the war is professional or personal, political or love-based. "Don't say that you want me," the song goes, "just tell me that you need me." "We Want War" commands the same.

Don't call me GaGa

Video from GaGa on Oprahrahrahroma

No, I don't really know what's going on-I don't think GaGa does, either, she has some sea anemone in her hair and a fog machine and, um...yeah. And "Monster"+"Bad Romance"+"Speechless". But she does actually say "free bitCH" in "Bad Romance". When the hell will an unedited version of Fame Monster be released so that we can hear that on the studio version, and the awesome line "we might've fucked/not really sure/can't quite recall" that gets bleeped on "Monster"?

Blurrrred: Salem at Glasslands 1/05/10

So Chicago-based death-crunk-goth-tech-slowcore trio Salem hit Glasslands in Brooklyn over a week ago now, and we've still yet to say anything about it. It's possible that's because, um, The New York Times was there and missed the point, and we're not much on cleaning up messes. It may be because Michael Stipe, also, was there, and he and I never get along when we encounter each other (it didn't happen this time). 

More accurately and more in the realm of possibility, though, it's because the friends I went to Glasslands with and I have been throwing around words, ideas, concepts, trying to get a handle on what exactly we lived through that night.

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you're a dreamer...come in

Our beloved Melissa Auf Der Maur has finally (right on time?) unleashed the full title video for her intense, insane, art-prog-metal concept Out Of Our Minds.

And yes, I am in love. She dies and is reborn to take you to her fire.
Check it out here.