Book Review - Singularity Sky by Charles Stross + something bout me :)

When I fill up my profile I take extra care to mention literature as my hooby and include the line " I can read everything " for sure ..hmm, so much for modesty u might say. Well I say chauvinism may not be dead but the days of modesty being counted as a virtue are surely over .. if u dont blow ur trumpet , either you dont know anything or you are a bloody high-end literature who feeds off Shakespeare, Milton and has views on Rembrandt or some other Renaissance shit. The latter belief however is instantly and thouroughly dashed by my appearance.. I can be mistaken for a nerd or a doper but certainly not a book lover.
However , my insecurites apart , hehehe ... I have taken special precaution to stay away from sci-fi novels after my school-age dose of Issac Asimov.
However , after a little persuasion I started with Singularity Sky and i wasnt let down , no sire ...
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
‘The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones from the skies above Novy Petrograd’.

From the moment that Charles Stross’s debut novel begins, there is a very strong sense that this isn’t run of the mill SF writing. The action centres on Rochard’s World, an outlying planet belonging to the New Republic, a post-Diaspora imperialist society reminiscent of Tsarist Russia. The repressive government of the planet is suddenly threatened by the arrival of The Festival, a massively powerful, anarchic, post-human fleet, which in the space of hours totally subverts the world order. The New Republic’s government concludes that the only way of defeating the festival is by sending a fleet which will arrive before The Festival, by travelling through time, and thereby violating causality. This however risks offending The Eschaton, a god-like post-human entity that watches over mankind to prevent causality violations. As the warships gather engineer Martin Springfield, a citizen of the People’s Republic of West Yorkshire, and Rachel Mansour, a UN intelligence officer, are thrown into the mix – but it soon becomes clear that both of them have their own agenda, and things are far from straightforward.

Singularity Sky is a dazzlingly original and enjoyable book. Although Stross has much in common with Iain M. Banks and Ken Macleod, he has his own distinct voice – always authoritative, always entertaining, and often wryly funny. It is a splendid piece of SF writing, which deserves the widest possible readership .... GO FOR IT dudes and the ladies .. well,you switch on HBO and go for Sex and the City ..
btw what are u doing reading my page anyways ?? heheehe.. chauvinism aint dead, far from it. :))

Iced Earth's Dark Saga

Band: Iced Earth
Release Date: 23 July, 1996

Very rarely we get to hear theme albums like this masterpeice based on the popular comic strip called Spawn, though I had never read the so called popular comic strip or even heard about it. But after a few sessions with the maestros I have a feeling that I should go buy n read.

Coming back to the band ( my favourites today and the only one who compete with metallica on my playlist ) Jon Schaffer (a monster of a rhythm player) uses more guitar harmonies (a la Iron Maiden) than ever, which weave a melodic finesse through the album. "Hunter" and "Slave to the Dark" are heavy songs, but the harmonized guitar lines lend them a very melodic inflection. Matt Barlow's incredible vocals are more passionate than ever before. Listening to "I Died For You" and "A Question of Heaven," it's impossible not to think he's a soulful performer. "Violate" is one of the few tracks where The Dark Saga enters pure thrash. The pulverizing guitars fit well with the gruesome lyric. "Vengeance Is Mine" is a vicious, thrash-powered piece that is absolutely bloodthirsty.

The two favourite tracks from the album which i just can't stop listening to over n over again are
"Dark Saga" and "I died for you"

"Dark Saga" - Our hero has died. Not being a good guy in life, he winds up in Hell. However, sinners are not necessarily incapable of love -- our hero had a wife who he loved dearly. So the devil makes a deal with him: if the hero sells his soul to the devil and serves his dark machinations, he can return to Earth and see his wife. Like a fool, he jumps at the offer without considering the cost.

"I Died for You" - Our hero returns to Earth five years later. He finds that his wife has remarried his best friend, and both are very happy with a new daughter. He has sold his soul for nothing.
And the third track which stands out in this perfect concept album is A Question of Heaven

"A Question of Heaven" - The hero tries to enter Heaven. But the angels sing back to him, telling him cannot enter because of the path he has chosen. God rejects him. We can empathize with our hero because in the story's closed system, he is the good guy. The Dark Saga ends with a nightmare where our hero is condemned to suffer because he gave up everything for love.

I never took any interest in the Spawn comic, but I like the way Iced Earth presents it. Lyrically, it's pretty good, but as with all Iced Earth and other metal albums, I'm more interested in the musicianship and vocal delivery, and as always, Iced Earth does not disappoint. Once again,Jon Schaffer proves to the world that he is truly a musical genius, and the guitars on here (Schaffer's and Randall Shawver's) are brilliant. Matt Barlow puts in one of his best vocal performances to date, even though he doesn't sound possessed like he did on Burnt Offerings. The addition of female vocals on "A Question of Heaven" (the standout track) was a nice touch as well. Every song is good, and there are a few that will go down as the band's classics. The only minor rant I have is the artwork.

The CD is cast in a vomit-inducing purple, and the colors in the pictures look like they came out of a kiddie cartoon. Eh, who looks at stuff like that anyway? This is great music that I'd recommend to any true METAL fan.

Cradle of Filth - Gods of goth metal

first things first ..here's their discography
The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh [1994]
Vempire [1996]
Dusk And Her Embrace [1996]
Cruelty And The Beast [1998]From The Cradle To Enslave [1999]
Midian [2000]
Bitter Suites To Succubi [2001] ..according to me , their best album till then(now my fav is nymphetamaine)
Live Bait For The Dead [2002]
Damnation And A Day [2003]
Nymphetamine [2004]

-= Current Lineup =-

Vocals : Dani
Guitar : Paul
Bass : Dave
Keyboards : Martin
Drums : Adrian

MORE ON fILTH TO FOLLOW IN THE LATER POSTS ... now a listing of their top songs in my list
>Sleepless
>Hallowed be thy name
>No time to cry
>All hopes in eclipse
>Death comes ripping
>Malice through the looking glass
>Dusk and her embrace
>For those who died
>The fire still burns

What's In A Name?
Hard rock. AOR. Heavy metal. Sleaze glam. Hair metal. Cheese metal. Commercial metal. Melodic rock. Melodic metal. Power metal. Prog rock. Prog metal. Glam metal. Cock rock. Arena rock... musical adjectives used to describe bands and albums. After a while they all start to blur together.
A Few Rough Definitions
AOR - Album-Oriented Rock (or Album-Oriented Radio). This term has its origins in the 1970s, when radio stations had the flexibility to play (and often did) any cut from an album, not just the released singles. When someone uses the term "AOR", think bands like Styx, Boston, Journey, Foreigner, and Toto. The term Arena rock has also been used to describe many of these bands.
Glam - "Leather and lipstick bad boyz". Examples include: Hanoi Rocks, Roxx Gang, and Pretty Boy Floyd. See further down the page for more on this term.

Hair metal, Cheese metal, Commercial metal - terms for the MTV-friendly hard rock bands of the 1980s, characterized (visually) by long hair, leather jackets, torn jeans, and obligatory scantily-clad hot babes in the videos. Think Bon Jovi, Winger, and Warrant.
Melodic metal - See above, but with a slightly heavier edge. Examples: Keel, Accept, Krokus, Steeler, and Fifth Angel.
Prog rock - "Progressive rock." These bands have a tendency to get away from routine song structure, and often their songs do not have a definable chorus. Their albums are also often characterized by many instrumental tracks and/or instrumental portions of songs. Songs can be very lengthy. Examples include: Yes, Starcastle, Shadow Gallery, Artension, and early Genesis. NOT radio-friendly. You will find only a limited amount here at Heavy Harmonies.
Where Does One End And Another Begin?
It's no secret that nomenclature and classification are the bane of any archivist. In music this is even more the case, as the differences between bands and/or albums can be subtle as well as subjective. Add to this the fact that many genres overlap, and trying to pigeonhole bands into a single category is nigh unto impossible.
Rock music is much like light, in that it runs continuous spectra, one with respect to heaviness, the other with respect to tempo. The heaviness gammut runs from pop, through AOR and hard rock, into melodic metal then power metal, proceeding through speed and thrash metal, and ending up in death and black metal. The tempo (at least with respect to metal) range runs from doom metal on the slow end, to the frenetic paces of speed metal, black metal, and grindcore. Then there are the offshoots from these continua (like light that is bent away via a mirror): sleaze glam (a mix of hard rock and punk elements) and prog rock/metal (hard rock and metal that leaves the traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus structure behind and is more free-flowing).



Not That Simple...
'twere it that easy. One person's hard rock is another's heavy metal. Also, definitions evolve over time. What was identified and indeed villified as "heavy metal" in the early 1980s (Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, etc.) are now considered "hard rock". The emergence of death and black metal in the early 1990s raised the bar as to what is now considered "heavy".
Also, some terms mean different things to different people. For example, the term glam is sometimes used to refer to all varieties of '80s "hair metal", whereas it is also used to denote "leather-and-lipstick" hard rock. It all depends on one's historical frame of reference as to which definition is meant. For the record, Heavy Harmonies now uses the latter definition, whereas when the site first opened as "The Halls of Glam" I used the former (hence the reason for changing the name of the site).
Lastly, classifying a band as one type of hard rock/metal or another only *really* works as long as all the releases by a band fall into the same genre. Over the course of time, many bands can switch genres, and even switch back again (for example: many of the '80s bands who jumped onto the alternative/grunge bandwagon in 1992-93 only to lose their fan base, and in 1998-99 have gone back to the style that made them big to begin with).

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Chinese New year!!.. dun b scared, no chinki music here ..this is just a greeting..n xplaination for not blogging for the past two days!! holidaying is never a bad idea.

Today's big number is called Sleepless by none other than the Cradle OF Filth's album From The Cradle To Enslave. The song is an experience in itself..rendered in a style which makes it difficult to decipher the lyrics on the very first go..but really meaningful. I m absolute bankers over Dana Filth .. Was bout to quit listening to thsi band when he wasn't in the line up.. n now thats he's back chk out their new album - nymphetamine.. kick ass , start headbanging...period
The lyrics are here...and for those who are here for the song find it here.

Sleepless

And I often sigh
I often wonder why
I'm still here and I still cry

And I often cry
I often spill a tear
Over those not here
But still they are so near

Please ease my burden
And I still remember
A memory and I weep
In my broken sleep
The scars they cut so deep

Please ease my burden
Please ease my pain

Surely without war there would be no loss
Hence no mourning, no grief, no pain, no misery
No sleepless nights missing the dead... Oh, no more
No more war

FREE BIRD

well if somebody is reading this now n he is a rock buff..he has stepped on to a link which wud allow him to listen to a really kewl song called free bird by a band called lynard skynard.
Its a great guitaring experience ...n if u can't appreciate it then am really sorry u ain't njoying all in life

For the full experience am pasting the lyrics here



If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me
For I must be traveling on now
There's too many places I've got to see

If I stay here with you girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change

Oh, and the bird you cannot change
And this bird you cannot change
Lord knows I can't change

Bye-bye babe, it's been sweet, love
'Though this feeling I can't change
But please don't take this so badly
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame

But if I stay here with you girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change

Oh, and the bird you cannot change
And this bird you cannot change
Lord knows I can't change
Lord help me I can't change

Oh No, I can't change

and the song if u wanna listen to is HERE

Wonderful experinece...and for those who don't know this band started as a rock band and is considered to be ledgendry....rock band..though it moved to country later.

myMood: Fuelled to the top gear
myTune: The above song :D what else
jusOneLine: who needs holidays..when u love ur work..its been 28 days since i last took a break..this is gr8..am having a ball

n dun forget to come back tomorrow for another breathtaking song!!
HAIL METAL!!