Feeling Kinda Jorn-y

On the heels of my not-so-positive Katatonia review, I'll post this nicer one. In the same buying spree mentioned before, I also snagged Masterplan's Time To Be King.

On paper, Masterplan should be the height of cheese. German power metal band. Ex-members of 80s powerhouse Helloween. Giant crown on album cover with fist-pumping slogan/title underneath.

Bastard child of cro-magnon metallers Manowar and frilly unicorn riders Rhapsody of Fire from the looks of things. I can handle doses of over-pomp (Royal Hunt) and a switching things up, like Kamelot recruiting Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir to do some black metal rasps within their usually Renn Faire stylings, can go a long way to establishing some coolness.

Masterplan gets its props past the swords and fairies for two reasons; they can be deadly 'hard' at times with serious chunk to the guitars and whopping double base, yeah... but the BIG reason is the vocalist, motherfuckin' Jorn Lande.

Khan in Kamelot can sing. He's a great singer. Hell, most power metal bands have vocalists with decent pipes... if tending a little too much in the upper registers. But Jorn is the fucking man. He does not get way up high in the shriek-y ranges, though given the power and range he does display it wouldn't suprise me if he could. He has feeling, real emotive power. Masterplan's song subjects range all over the place, but are usually personal or individual. Stuff about love, loss, isolation, etc. They cover the occasional power metal staples about fighting, glory, or evil, but mostly it is Jorn singing about the kind of thing you'd find in other forms of rock music only its done to punchy, galloping metal. This album cover and title is actually kind of an odd choice. Earlier album Aeronautics looks much more sophisticated (read less stereotypical) and seems MUCH more accurate in terms of what you're getting with this band.

Jorn reminds me of Russell Allen of Symphony X somewhat. In more recent years Russell has varied his vocals quite a bit to suit the subject matter of SymX's songs and consequently he's had to reach down for really low or gruff deliveries at times. His recent stuff on album Paradise Lost is much more varied and emotional than the earlier releases like Damnation Game. Some genius saw this same parallel because Russell and Jorne have released some collaborative albums. I like Russell just fine, but Jorn is even better.

He is just so 'soulful' I think. That's a weird term to use for a power metal vocalist, but Jorn does a lot of singing that probably wouldn't fall in that genre... Masterplan ain't his only gig. Actually he left the band after Aeronautics and I figured that was probably the end of my Masterplan purchases. But he came back and really helped knock Time To Be King out of the park. Take your favorite rock vocalist (that doesn't sound drunk or like a girl) and cross them with Evergrey's Tom Englund (or mainstream-ly maybe Bob Seger or Joe Cocker) and you'll get some idea of all the places Jorn can reach.

Metal music by its nature is dramatic. As often as not, over-the-top. Whether it's dark, or pompous, or partying, or gory, metal doesn't really deal in half-measures. Masterplan is not going to make anyone really dig the power metal style if there's absolutely no taste for it, but Jorn will certainly get the listener to forget about that cover. Or that power metal HAS to have kings and dragons in it. Even when he's singing about kings and dragons.

Days And Nights Blurring Together

In a recent spate of music purchase catch-up I picked up Katatonia's most recent album (from 2009) Night Is The New Day.

Katatonia is an extremely accomplished Swedish band whose output is usually labeled doom metal, though they sound pretty distinct from My Dying Bride, Swallow The Sun, or any other staple of that genre. And this is a really good record. REALLY good. Very melancholic, but with some great tempo changes, very heavy in places, and great vibrant production. The critics love it. 'Best ever' many say.

Here's my problem with it, though. It is Katatonia.

What I mean is that Katatonia is so recognisable, and so exacting at what they do, that I'm not finding this album to be any different from what I've heard from them many times before. This newest release might be the highest 'quality' album they've ever done, but I'm just not wowed by anything on here because it all sounds like variations on previous songs. This can, of course, be a problem with any band that has a signature sound. Sometimes I get in the mood to listen to a certain band 'for a while'. Rather than just play a new disc over and over, I'll re-explore their back catalog. Bands like Katatonia suffer in this regard. A new album from them every couple of years is great. You haven't listened to them in a while, and it is like an old friend visiting when you finally pop in the new release. But if you subject yourself to a lot of their stuff, the welcome wears out before you get very far. My problem may be that I listened to two Katatonia albums not too long before buying this. THIS one is better. But not SO much better that particular songs are just sticking with me right now.

Years ago, Katatonia came out with Last Fair Deal Gone Down. That release got a lot of criticism for being too soft, too much of a departure from what fans expected. Think Opeth's mostly acoustic album Damnation and you get the idea... though Opeth escaped fan wrath, probably because they warned everyone before the release date arrived. I, however, think Last Fair Deal is a stellar album, and it is probably the most memorable Katatonia record for me. It breaks from all the other stuff, while still sounding like it is music from the same set of musicians. If Night Is The New Day were the only Katatonia album I had, it'd be a revelation... but it isn't. And ironically if it were the only album I owned it'd spur me on to buy their back catalog, which would of course then show me that their releases all sound largely the same.

I guess this reads a lot more critical than I really intend. Katatonia are good at what they do. And I like what they do. It seems weird to make them out to be a one-trick pony like most death metal or grindcore bands are because they aren't locked into particular instruments, tempos, structures or any of that stuff. The singer Jonas Renske's vocal style is not harsh. He can sing. But everything they do is SO specific to THEM.

I can easily recommend this album to anyone who likes stuff like Anathema or the clean-singing parts of Opeth. But once you buy it, sadly, you've pretty much heard everything they seem to have to say. I think I need to listen to this some more and let it prove out its uniqueness if it can.

The Road's Beginning

Watching the recent film The Road on DVD has me now wanting to seek out Cormac McCarthy's novels. This is the second bleak, but amazing film I've seen based on his work (No Country For Old Men is the other) and it just amazes me now that I've missed out on reading anything by him. Many critics make him out to be a present day Faulkner. Both in eschewing straight narratie convention and in picking out hidden corners of American civilisation (or lack thereof) as a setting.

I'm going to start with Child of God, I think. Short, and if I dig it I'll move on to Blood Meridian.

Japan Catastrophe

At the time of this writing, it is one week after the nation of Japan has been hit by a 9.0 earthquake, a 30ft high tsunami, and all hell breaking loose at a major nuclear reactor complex.

I try to keep this blog about light subjects. I try not to let heavy personal stuff, politics (except where it impacts my hobbies or interests), or real downers get in here.

But the crises in Japan are rather close to the heart for myself and a lot of the topics I blather on about. If you have any interest in video games, anime, kaiju eiga, martial arts, or Asian cinema, then you're connected. And if you aren't interested in any of those things you probably have no business being here!

Watching a film like The Submersion of Japan for the first time, my mind was held in suspense waiting to see what was going to happen. Now my heart is breaking to see such similar catastrophe occurring there now for real.

I've thrown a link up to the top of the right hand column that can show you how you can help. But a lot of vendors and organisations are also throwing donations into the effort to help Japan so patronising these places is doing something as well. Japan is the world's third largest economy, a high-tech nation, and anything but a third world country. And yet, the overwhelming nature of this mult-part disaster has swamped the government there and put large numbers of people at risk for basics like food, water, medicine, and heat.

Do what you can. This is something vital. I know the economy is tough, and there is more going on in our country and the world than just this disaster, but doing with just a little less for yourself could mean an awful lot to a people and a culture that has given the world so much.

I apologise for bummin' on ya.

Check Your Kairo

Count another movie where the American remake is an epic fail. I watched the Japanese film Pulse, also known as Kairo (lit. 'Circuit), a very creepy if sometimes confusing technological ghost story. The confusion is deliberate since not understanding exactly what is happening is crucial to the film doing what it does and making the points that it makes.

Despite the murky nature of the narrative ideas, Kairo is quite well-considered amongst critics and viewers. Not so much the case with the American version. I don't think I'm even going to watch it. Frequently I do watch for comparison's sake... I watched Quarantine several months ago, and then recently, the original Spanish film REC. Quarantine and REC are almost the same film... shot for shot. And they both do their job pretty effectively. I preferred the lead in Quarantine, but I thought the lower-tech climactic horror in REC was actually creepier.

The American Pulse is so badly reviewed and for such fundamental reasons, I can't be bothered to spend the two hours watching it. I'll be pissed I can't get that time back.

Ironically, it was a pretty interesting trailer for the American Pulse that made me seek out the Japanese one.

Porkin' That Sweet Pink

Yeah, I know, right?

Using words from a game title like that is truly sophomoric, but I’m sure half the game’s purchasers have already made a similar joke themselves. Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets, is the name of the recent double-pack of manic shooters from Cave for the Xbox 360. Hell, Cave had to know what fodder for dirty phrasing they had when they decided to put the games together!

Okay, I’m only making it worse by putting the artwork for the protagonists in Pink Sweets, the Rose Sisters, up at the top there. I’ll put an in-game shot in here somewhere too… to prove it ain’t THAT kind of game.

Originally MMP and PS were NOT together. The disc is based on arcade games put out back in 2007 and 2006 respectively. Home versions of the arcade originals are 1.00 in the package, and they are accompanied by tweaked versions 1.01 that reduce the brutality somewhat, along with Cave’s usual assortment of so-called arrange modes. Also there’s a really neat ‘matsuri version’ (as DLC) that drops the Pink Sweets bosses into a version of the MMP game.

No HD-friendly upgrading has been done to the visuals. There are a variety of options for resizing the play area to fit your screen, and there is the typical smoothing filter that can be toggled. Players can also change between arcade and arrange soundtracks for each stage of both games. Some of the alternate tracks didn’t sound like different musical arrangements at all, but wholly different compositions. In general I prefer the originals, they seem to fit the themes of the games better.

And the games have VERY distinct themes. I used the word brutality earlier in the post, but looking at these games artwork, ‘brutal’ might not be a word that’d come to mind. Both games are cute and comedic, with Pink Sweets going heavy on the cuteness-- bright rainbow colors and toy-like enemies, and Muchi Muchi Pork leaning toward comedy with everything being pig-themed and slapstick. Despite the pixellated nature of the graphics, the art styles really shine through. Muchi Muchi Pork in particular has a ton of variety to the backgrounds and enemies and really cool drawn inserts to further the story, with awesome little frames of animated robots every time you launch a bomb.

Pink Sweets

But yuks and sweetness aside, the games are monsters on the difficulty… bordering on abusive. Danmaku (curtain fire, manic, or bullet hell, take your pick) shooters, as all of Cave’s shooter output is, these games bear the stamp of lead programmer Shinobu Yagawa. If you’ve played Battle Garegga or Battle Bakraid, then you’ll have some idea, mechanically, about what you can expect from these games. Tons of enemies coming at you from all directions, gobs of stuff you have to collect (including bomb fragments in MMP), and rank, rank, rank… the difficulty increase leveraged in-game if a player is doing well. It is typical for expert players of Yagawa-made games to have all sorts of strategies for avoiding powerups, and reducing stocks of extra ships and bombs, all towards inducing the game to keep the rank low. Conversely, experts playing for score might do everything they can do jack the rank up high, at least at certain points, to force out as many enemies or bullets (if there’s a bullet canceling aspect) as possible. As I understand it, by reputation MMP’s rank is manageable and not much of a concern to good players until near the end of the game. But Pink Sweets has a rep for being perhaps the most punishing Cave game of all. With all the attention and notoriety that rank has in these games, this home version set comes with visible ‘rank meters’ (called ‘difficulty gage’) that you can display to show you how your play strategies and skills are affecting the abuse level.

Having played both of them now, I have to say they are both good games, but far beyond my ability to play well at this point. Pink Sweets is understandable. It is hard, ranks up quickly, and has bomb and powerup mechanics that are really different than any other Cave game. Certain enemy bullet types can be destroyed by your own shot and I’m sure learning these is a necessary part of progressing and will come with time. Interestingly, I’ve found the bosses to be much easier than the actual levels, which I’ve only felt with Ketsui before this. Muchi Muchi Pork is a different story entirely.

Muchi Muchi Pork

I’m not sure what is giving me trouble with the Pig Girls. Rank never even gets a chance to enter into it because I can’t last long enough for it to get very high. There are not an unbelievable amount of enemies in the early going. The enemy bullets are highly visible. The amount of firepower the game gives the player is extremely high and most enemies do not last long under it. There would seem to be no reason why I can’t progress just as well with this game as most any other shooter.

But I am just stumbling along at it. I know the sheer number of item drops is causing me to approach this a little differently… and maybe cause some screen confusion. I can’t tell. I just see myself having simple, avoidable deaths over and over again. And my REAL sticking point is the boss of the second stage. Holy shit. Rarely do I get past it without using a continue, and if I do continue and play on, the rest of the game, though difficult, doesn’t cause me nearly as much trouble relatively speaking. I mean the 4th and 5th levels are really tough, but they are about what you’d expect. I don’t expect to get totally hung up on the gosh damn second level boss… but there’s something about the guy, and the game in general, that just makes me panic and act like I’m playing with my feet. I can breeze through the first level boss NOW but it took forever to learn it. I’m just intimidated or something. Pink Sweets is a harder game, but I can get further in it. The 2nd level boss in MMP fires his bullets REALLY close to the player, and he has a lot of different fire types. I just don’t have the order and locations memorized yet… though I damn well should, I’ve played it enough times.

Kind of a drag because I really like the game. It is REALLY different from every other Cave game, just as Pink Sweets is. I’m not going to stop playing it, I just have to sigh and resign myself to fighting and struggling for every scrap of progress I’m going to make (or not make) in it.

My experience shouldn't discourage anyone else from checking this release out. Most bullet hell shooter fans will not have my bizarre hangup! The package is awesome. It was a good idea for Cave to pair up their two oddball cute but funny games (with weird mechanics), and offer them for a package price. AND they’re region-free. So you don’t have to own a JPN Xbox 360 to play ‘em. Don’t be put off by the visuals not being modified for HDTVs (some Cave releases were, ie Daifukkatsu). The graphics are still outstanding.

They’re not going to set most American gamers’ hearts afire, because hey, the whole anime cutesy-humor thing doesn’t play to the masses here, but these are explosive rock-hard shooters under all the boobs and batted eyelashes. And pork. There’s a lot of pork.
(pics stolen from Adriasang)



Lost & Found

I've obviously made my previous post about my Gamercard going away null and void, because there's one sitting over in the sidebar again! I don't think this version is as attractive as the MyGamerCard one, but you take what you can get.