It's no coincidence that Nightgaunt is leaving now. Over the years his activity and interest in this site has been steadily declining. He's gone.

I'll leave it be.

Beginning of the end, I tell you.

Korn added, Nightgaunt leaves. Slipknot added, Napero leaves. Disturbed added, rexxz leaves. And so on...

What anyone believes is irrelevant. All that matters is that the world keeps turning, tomorrow comes, and everything will be back to normal. With the exception of Nightgaunt situation, which I obviously don't have any information on, this will all be over tomorrow.

Who Dursted him and removed all his points?

So, what have the metal gods shat out upon us on this most glorious of days? It looks like...a crappy sympho-Power Metal album with little merit at all that relies mostly on the tired, worn-out gimmick of tits and ass to cover up the fact that the band just has no talent whatsoever. Yes, this is Dark Moor's much lauded third album, <i>The Gates of Oblivion</i>, and if you are like the other reviewers here that think this is any good, I advise you to re-evaluate your priorities, as this ship is sinking fast, and I'm honored to be the first one to come clean and admit that this just isn't good.

Dark Moor start off with a fairly simple premise: "Let's write symphonic metal like Rhapsody except with less bombast and excess, and more catchiness and pop-oriented hooks." Now, I know what you're thinking: that isn't bad. Pop hooks can be done well. There are plenty of bands who can do this kind of thing with style and class. Just look at up-and-coming newbies Ride the Sky, sadly now departed from us by a twist of fate. They knew how to do it, but as the rules of fate would dictate, we could never have too much of a good thing at a time, and so we're mostly just left with remnants of particularly turgid sewage from the early '00s like this piece of shit. Seriously, don't these guys know how to write a real song? Every song goes in one ear and out the other, mostly focused on the poor vocals of Elisa Martin (which I will get to eventually), and while they do admittedly have complex melodies and solos, they are all pretty much stolen from 80s Helloween and Rhapsody, both of whom were far superior to this band and have infinitely more replay value.

Just listen to the contrived and dry "hooks" on a bore-fest like opener "A Heart of Stone," or the fruitless attempt at winning over the classic metal crowd with "By the Strange Path of Destiny." There is no thought, talent or effort put into any of it. Just infinitely stale, over-used cliches that have been done way better by bands like Skylark as of late. Now <i>there's</i> a band to check out! And how about the ridiculously boring and pointless interludes like the title track, huh? I can never figure out what would possess a band to do things like this. I mean, why can't they just stick to playing songs? It would be fine if they were, you know, passionate, easy on the ears and adding to the overall effect of the album, but the problem here is, they don't.

Now, I mentioned before about the vocals, and...oh, fuck, do I <i>really</i> have to go through with this? Do I really have to subject myself to this sort of torture? I suppose I might as well, seeing as I've already done the metal world the important service of talking about the rest of the dreck on here. Elisa Martin is just down-right unbearable in every meaning of the word. She has a very tinny, boring voice that mostly just recalls past greats like Tarja Turunen, who is far superior in every meaning of the word, and should rightfully be worshiped by all of us unworthy men. Elisa Martin, though? She was <i>obviously</i> just selected to front the band due to the fact that she possessed a set of breasts and a vagina, just to win over the crowd of pre-pubescent boys who will no doubt make up the majority of the band's fan-base - as is evident on this very website. And those choirs? Please, they have about as much life to them as a bowl of stale porridge. Why the fuck would I want to hear even more of Elisa Martin's awful caterwauling when I can't even stand one of them?!

One last bit of note is the final song, the immensely shitty "Dies Irae." Proving that they have no originality or songwriting talent of their own, the band decided to ape the shit out of the classic Mozart composition and just roll with it; they didn't even have the balls to name it anything different. Come on! If the man were alive today, he'd be crying in shame! In fact, I can hear him rolling over in his grave right now. Combined with the fact that this song is eleven minutes long...and, well, you have yourself a recipe for disaster right there.

It's really a shame, because these guys had so much potential to create something stirring and memorable with this release, especially after the promising (but flawed) last two albums, but they really sort of fell flat on their asses here. The songwriting is convoluted and overly generic, the vocals are boring and gimmicky, and the band as a whole was desperately clawing for ideas here. Now, you may be thinking, hey, what about what they did after this album? Well, quite frankly, I didn't even know Elisa Martin had departed from the band, judging by the unmistakably feminine timbre of their current vocalist! I think that's all that needs to be said about that.

So yeah, this pretty much blows. If you like this, you probably have never had a girlfriend in your life, and are merely grasping for some vague sense of approval by listening to whatever female-fronted bands are thrown your way. In that case, I would suggest you turn to Nightwish, Lacuna Coil or especially the impeccable Arch Enemy instead. While you're doing that, I think I'll be sitting here waiting for the new Symphorce album. Happy trails!

I can't tell what's better, if this ends up being a joke or not. If it's real it actually ends up being a hundred times more hilarious than a mere joke ever could be.

You know, I didn't really find the KoRn thing all that funny at first, kind of lame, and the reaction initially wasn't particularly funny, but the last 3 pages of the Korn thread made my heart smile watching them somehow convince some people that this is true. If anything, it's only starting to get enjoyable now.

Either way, it is attracting users. Any bets on whether this could break the record of June 2007's most users online ?

Doesn't matter all that much now, but I'd rather this not go to waste: My April Fools review of Dark Moor's The Gates of Oblivion, before I really knew what the prank was:

So here it is, KoЯn's debut album, and while its good, compared to Linkin Park's debut, Hybrid Theory, it doesn't quite measure up. Take a look at Hybrid Theory and its not hard to see why either.

The album starts off with "Paper Cut" and it kicks things off perfectly. The guitar is so heavy and mesmerizing, and then comes Mike with his slick rhymes. The turntable fits perfectly; it really shows how to evolve and get better as a metal band.

Then comes "One Step Closer"! They'res a reason this was all over the radio, because it slays. Chester tops everything off with a great chorus, really showing off his powerful range here, and, of course, the guitars kick back in with a heavy riff.

A little bit of experimentation with a doom riff on "With You". If this song were a movie, everything would be color washed in blue. Not one of those faggoty light blues either, the dark sad blues that fucking rock. Its just so good

"Points of Authority" has a nice 'tick-tock' rhythm but is otherwise a bit of a weak point.

Oh man, have you fucking heard "Crawling"? Everything about this song is epic. Everything builds up to the chorus, where Chester wails as usual, but you can really hear the physical and emotional pain in his voice as he sings about his drug addiction.

"Runaway" captures the hopelessness of teenage life, with great lyrics like:

Now I find myself in question
They point the finger at me again
Guilty by association
You point the finger at me again

The bass work here is complex and really stands out too.

Mike Shinoda really gets a chance to show off his dark side in "By Myself". The near spoken word part is just so entrancing, its almost like Mike turned into a completely different person here. Really impressive performance.

And then comes "In the End" which is just absolutely mind blowing.

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

And he's right, ya know? Because, in the end, we're all just going to die. All effort is wasted, because we're really just doomed to fail.

While most of the album up until now has really been more a NWOBHM/thrash hybrid, "A Place for My Head" puts the evolution of metal in the limelight. Metallica's S&M doesn't even rock this hard, and as far as thrash goes, their the measuring stick!

From the top to the bottom! Bottom to top I stop! At the core I've forgotten! In the middle of my thoughts! Taken far from my safety! The picture is there! The memory won't escape me! But why should I care?!

"Forgotten" is another showcase in heavy guitar work and evolving sound, and then comes "Cure for the Itch", blowing the doors off the old metal style. Where metal has stagnated for years, this makes up for it in every way. Turn tables are the future, accept it, or get the fuck out.

The album closes with "Pushing Me Away" which is about the divorce of Chester's parents, I think. It doesn't exactly matter what its about though, because Chester's voice just reeks of hurt. It's almost unbearable, but the song is too good to turn off.

In summary, KoЯn's debut is strong, but they just didn't go as far as Linkin Park did. Jonathan Frakes even colloborated with Linkin Park for the Reanimation remix album. I guess he realized his stuff with KoЯn just wasn't as good and decided to work with some real talent!

Hey mods, you can accept reviews that aren't for Korn you know!

Cube Zero is a really good movie.

Damn you Obama! Change is bad!

(I also posted this elsewhere) but is nightgaunt really leaving??? if he is then he takes the internet far too seriously.

I'm having a great time laughing at all these "defenders of the faith" type metal fans getting into a pissy over Korn, I mean so what if they are included it is not like the rest of the web is going to come here and laugh at you for your inferior lack of "metal knowledge" (though that would be equally hilerious to see). The only way your going to know if this was a joke or not is to come back on here tomorrow and see if they are here.
(I also posted this elsewhere) but is nightgaunt really leaving??? if he is then he takes the internet far too seriously.

Honestly my least favourite of the three. I like the very end for reasons which will be obvious to anyone who's seen it, but I will refrain from spoilering. A few interesting ideas here and there, I mean it's still good enough, but it doesn't measure up in my eyes. The first one, now, is a really great film. Wonderful atmosphere, fantastic sense of skew and wrongness throughout.

It's gotten less interesting, but the first forty five minutes were really scary actually, culminating in the revelation of what happens after one finds their way out of the Cube. Then they introduced this one-eyed faggot clown official guy and it all went downhill.

Did anyone else notice Korn was added to the Archives?