Happy New Year?
That metaphor rather got away from me there. Still, never mind eh? It's time to trawl the archives and try and work out what things from my past year didn't actually suck. As always actual release dates are less important than when I actually first experienced the item in question. So with the rambling and provisos out of the way, let's get on with it shall we?
MUSIC
It's funny. Last year I mentioned how I was buying less music in general but a lot more audio dramas as Big Finish kept having sales all the damn time. And this trend has continued. But that's not to say that I haven't found anything noteworthy.
The beginning of the year undoubtedly belonged to Old Corpse Road. I'd really gotten into the split CD they did with The Meads Of Asphodel, and so decided to check out the full album "Tis Witching Hour... As Spectres We Haunt This Kingdom". Then after one listen of that I immediately ordered the preceding demo and spent a couple of months listening to all 3 releases in a loop whilst playing Skyrim. A brilliant slab of pagan-y type Black Metal with I guess some folk-y type influences, drawing on old British myths and folklore for inspiration. It's very good stuff.
Then we have Dirty by Aborym. Do I like me a bit of Industrial Black Metal? You're damn right I do. And this is certainly a good slice. The band continues to progress, each album different from what came before yet clearly part of the same lineage. I almost want to say it plays up the Industrial elements slightly more to give something a bit more danceable than most Black Metal stuff, but not I'm not entirely sure I know what I'm talking about. It's a good album that I've found myself coming back to a lot. And the covers on the bonus disc are all pretty interesting as well.
Ewigkeit made a long overdue return this year with the superlative Back To Beyond. I mean, it's not like you can exactly say they ever went away, since it's only one guy and he's been doing a lot of other stuff. But whilst I find myself less interested by the overt politicisms of The Bomb Of Enduring Freedom, this blast of Spacy, Doomy Black Metal is right up my alley. And the dub version of Det Som Engang Var is a good an answer as any to the problem of Burzum being really good, but Varg Vikernes being a raving cockbag. Top stuff.
There were quite a few other notable releases throughout the year. Honorable mentions need to go to Gary Numan for Splinter, Herrschaft for Les 12 Vertiges and The Sound Bee HD with Ghost Worst Forest. But if I had to pick one album that beats out the rest (however barely) then there can only really be one answer:
The Pacific Rim soundtrack. One of the first things I did after seeing the film for the first time was to immediately order this. The other thing I did was probably have a pee first. It's really that good. Striking an almost perfect mix of traditional dramatic soundtrack and actual heaviness courtesy of guitar and brilliant percussion. I'm not sure what else to say, other than it's really, really good.
FILM & TV
If you're thinking there might be a subtle hint in the music section as to what the visual media of the year was, then you may just be onto something.
OF COURSE it's Pacific Rim. You shouldn't need me to spend any more time telling you how good this movie was. The only disappointing thing is that in all honesty it's the only piece of visual media I can wholeheartedly recommend without any qualifying statements. This is pretty bad when you consider that this was the 50th anniversary celebration for Doctor Who as well.
The TV series definitely had some great episodes (Cold War, Hide), but it also had some pretty bad ones (Rings Of Akhaten, Journey To The Center Of The TARDIS). And rest were kinda mediocre. The anniversary special itself was a bit odd in it's determination to fuck around with continuity above all other considerations. And the big end of an era christmas regeneration episode just made no damn sense whatsoever. All in all I have to say that the undoubted highlight of the anniversary season was without a doubt (but at least a nod of respect to An Adventure In Time And Space) The Five (ish) Doctors Reboot.
Smart, funny and full of both heart AND fan service. I'm looking forward to getting this on DVD more than any of the Whatnot Of The Doctor episodes. Still, as Iris Wildthyme herself once said "Never mind chuck, better luck next time".
READING
I think it must be a running gag that every year I get to this section and immediately find myself launching into some sort of "must try harder" type spiel. And really I should. But somehow I never do. It's not that I don't read ANYTHING. Or even that I mainly find myself reading Manga. More that I just can't help but feel I should be reading more in general. Still, even with my apparently limited abilities there are a few recommendations to be made.
I've picked up a few new series this year. But I think there are at least two major reasons to go with Blood Lad over A Certain Scientific Railgun or Sankarea for choice of top Manga. Firstly the story of an overpowered Vampire Otaku is both refreshingly original and utterly hilarious. Secondly is the fact the published volumes are CHUNKY. Being the size of 2 or 3 regular sized editions means you get a really good chunk of story to digest in one go. I'd like to see some other series adopting this format.
In terms of novels I'm going with Monster Magnitude 9. This is a story I'd been after for a while, so I'm almost surprised it took me this long to actually get around to buying it. Telling the stories of the branch of the Japanese Meteorological Agency tasked with dealing with giant monster attacks, this is undoubtedly one of the most unique and interesting takes on the whole Daikaiju genre. The only downside is now I'm utterly enraged that I haven't been able to track down a copy of the TV series adaptation. Still, we can but keep trying.
The final entry in terms of books has got to be Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History. Because thanks to this book I'm now REALLY into Dinosaurs. The reason I got this was, in all honesty, something of mid-life crisis moment. Basically I came to the realization that I knew more about Doctor Who than basically ANY OTHER SUBJECT. I could name more Doctor Who monsters than Dinosaurs! I'm sure this is fairly common amongst those who become particularly devoted to certain properties. It's incredibly easy to inadvertently devote large portions of your brain power to your favourite show, particularly when it has as much history as dr Who does. But the unique problem faced by a Doctor Who fan is that we're devoted to a character who is incredibly interested in just about EVERYTHING. So by being Doctor Who fans to the exclusion of all else we are in fact acting in a highly un-Doctorish fashion. Having come to this conclusion I resolved to do something about it and get some books on Space, Science, Dinosaurs and the like. And whilst Carl Sagans Cosmos is all very interesting, Dinosaurs are just that little bit cooler. That's the thing about Paleontology. It's complicated and interesting like other scientific discipline, but with the added advantage of giant monsters. There's no arguing with that.
GAMING
It's not actually been all that great a year in terms of video games to be honest, with the main focus being on waiting for the new consoles to come out even though they won't have any decent games for at least a year. There's been quite a few games that I've bought, but very few that actually stand out. Saints Row The Third and Shadowrun Returns were both pretty good fun whilst they lasted, but neither are something that I've found myself coming back to much after the first play-through. Pokemon Y was kinda cool, if only for being a good introduction to what all this bloody Pokemon business was about. But I can't help but wish there was more to it than just having a massively higher level Pokemon than the computer does. So really I guess Path Of Exile is going to have to win video games by default.
To be fair, it does also win by being bloody good. I suppose Star Wars Pinball might have made a runner up, but one of the tables is Boba Fett themed. I simply cannot bring myself to recommend anything involving Boba Fett. Well, outside of that bit in Return Of The Jedi where he DIES.
In terms of tabletop gaming the big winner is probably Quarriors. In particular the Quartifacts expansion.
I do like a game of Quarriors, but since we've started using the Quest mechanics introduced with this set I've actually started to WIN. It's almost scary. Of course, now Quarriors has gone from releasing expansions quicker than we could actually get around to playing them to a stunning lack of any new developments whatsoever, but I'm not sure that's entirely bad. I wouldn't mind another expansion to add a bit more variety to the quests or improve the forgotten Corruption mechanics. But really there's plenty to be going on with the game as it currently stands. Honorable mention should also be made of Smash Up. It seems pretty good, and has the advantage of including Dinosaurs with lasers. But we've only managed to play a couple of games so far.
So, there we have it. All in all not the most edifying year on record, but not without the odd highlight. Here's hoping that the upcoming year is a general improvement though.
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