Marianas Trench: Masterpiece Theatre review.

by | Sep 3, 2010 | Uncategorized

Have you heard of Marianas Trench?

Well I stumbled upon them while I was stumbling upon Kristyn’s blog, Pretty Missile, and I sort of enjoyed the preview I got there.

Long story short, I bought their album, was tremendously impressed — after a long while of stale melodies and riffs — and thought that I could recommend you a listen to the album ‘Masterpiece Theatre’.

Here we go..

Full of Acapella verse and goofy, lyrically majestic and musically refreshing — what’s not to like about Canada-based Marianas Trench, especially when their music videos might fool you into thinking that it was a mentos commercial (and not that their songs wouldn’t complement such commercials though~)?

From the contemporary catchy ‘All To Myself’ to the soothingly smooth ‘Beside You’ to the emotional emphatic explosive endearment of ‘Lover Dearest’, a song that derived from a letter written to a drug addiction.

That the latter song (full lyrics here)is written by Josh Ramsay, lead vocals, while he was in rehab makes it all the more compelling, and as you breathe in his honest confessions of “..my tongues turnin’ black, but I’ll take you back, your still the best more or less..” and “..it hurts me to say that it hurts me to stay
and it might be all right if you go..“, it all builds up into an emphatic crescendo of an ending with “..i think that the bitter in you and the quitter in me is the bitter in you and quitter in me..“.

That ‘Lover Dearest’ is just one of the many listenable, emotionally charged and tight lyrics with teasing riffs, justifies this denouement that is their follow-up album, aptly titled ‘Masterpiece Theatre’, to ‘Fix Me’.

The beautifully arranged and directed music vid, ‘Beside You’.

Worth listening from the album includes ‘Perfect”, a raunchy riffy song for any day and the 3 parts ‘Masterpiece Theatre’, which is experimentally musically yet ably sounding complete, rich and exquisitely executed.

You’ve got to appreciate the candid outlook of the guys mixed with sober experimentation of their sound, and which band do you know of that holds a contest for anyone to grab the chance of doing a duet with them in a performance of their next song?

What a delicately painful-yet-oh-so-passionate duet ‘Good to you’ is indeed (with Kate Voele on the track), that reminds you of the moment where you’re caught in between something you’re-not-but-willing-to-be and the real you.

And if the more upbeat tracks like ‘Sing Sing’ and ‘Celebrity Status’ don’t make you feel like giving your bums a good workout, then perhaps I might’ve erred when I claim them as THE next big band to break out into mainstream this year.

Recommend for tasteful audiophiles everywhere, and even if you’re not one of them, I’d guarantee that you’d still be able to appreciate the album.

Oh, did you know that ‘Mariana Trench’ is actually the world’s deepest ocean trench? Well, now you do.

And Marianas Trench’s music is deep indeed.

DOTA World Cup. Wuhan, China.

by | Sep 2, 2010 | Uncategorized

Plundered from from Wikipedia: Defense of the Ancients (commonly known as DotA) is a custom scenario/map/mod for the real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents’ Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes and AI-controlled fighters called “creeps”. As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.

I love dota.

Yep, here’s a screenshot of some weirdo who happens to have too much resources and decided to spell ‘I Love You’ using in-game units, or specifically, Chickens.

Yes, those are really chickens. They crow.

Here is a game of DoTA in progress (also plundered from Wikipedia).

It’s so good, that there’s already a couple of games that spins off from this mod, namely League of Legends and Heroes of Newearth, and then there’s news that Valves working on their version of the game as well, having trademarked, much to DoTA’s community’s chagrins, the name DoTA.

Still nothing comes as raw, as badly imbalanced, and as pure as DoTA itself, of which I initially refused to even play this stupid game, and of course, I grossly misjudged it.

I love dota.

It’s a tremendously easy game for newcomers to pick-up yet incredibly difficult to master, and adds the elements of luck, teamwork and bad strategy, no two games are ever the same.

Having been introduced to the addiction since early 2007, the game has evolved and continuously gets little bits of updates to the in-game stuffs, and it’s great news that there’s finally a tournament that’s worthy of DoTA’s calibre.

And the much promised, yet to be announced (datewise) tournament in WuHan, China is a big draw for me to maybe get a little professional and balanced (yes, no maphacks!) competition.

Now, gotta prepare myself dutifully, and cross my fingers for…

First prize: 11,000 Euros.

I love dota.

So, who’s interested in going to WuHan, China?