Skindred - Union Black

For those of you who don't know them -and I suspect that that's most of you- Skindred are one of the UK's premier rock bands. But they're a rock band with a difference, seamlessly melding metal, hardcore, dubstep and, most importantly, reggae, into a unique sound which they've dubbed "Ragga Metal"
The album opens with the surreal title track that features a slow build up to a Drum n' Bass version of the British National Anthem (yes, really). Hmmm......this can best be described as "interesting". Not the greatest of starts, but fear not, the boys are back on track soon after with a belting track called "Warning" which is so good not even an unwelcome guest appearance by the singer from Papa Roach can fuck it up. From here, things go pretty much as expected and as a package this is far superior to their previous effort, "Shark Bites and Dog Fights". But this is not an album that everyone is going to fully appreciate first time and that some might not appreciate ever, especially fans of the more straightforward rock songs they have done, particularly on "Shark Bites....." but as you get used to the many twists that the album throws at you it becomes better and better. Union Black manages to be both a painfully relevant state of the nation address and a hugely enjoyable party record, which in my mind at least is no small feat.

 Skindred, Yesterday. Nice.

Wedding? You should have publicised it more.

Apparently, there's some sort of Royal wedding malarkey -don't you just love that word?- taking place quite soon. Strangely, it's hardly been mentioned on the news, in the papers on the web, anywhere at all really. Because of the remarkably low profile being taken by the UK -and I'm sure every other country in the entire world- I thought that you might have been missing out on some of the frankly wonderful collectibles and assorted shit,  sorry, memorabilia that is available to the discerning simpleton consumer.

How about a nice commemorative mug? With the wrong Prince on it.

A tasteful crockery set, with what appears to be a mini FA Cup in it?

Anyone feeling hungry? Have a Royal Wedding Pizza

 Or perhaps best of all, and possibly the most fitting piece of tat I've found -I give you Royal Wedding Tea Bags. Brilliant.

But despite all this........erm........stuff, most peoples attitudes to the wedding and indeed the Royal family in general are best summed up by this plate. Oh well, no knighthood for me.

Deftones - Covers

What's this, a new Deftones album -how did this sneak through without me noticing? Well , strictly speaking it is a new Deftones album - but in reality it's nothing of the sort.
Released last saturday to promote something called "Record Store Day" -no, I don't know what it's about either- this is a combination of tracks from the "B-sides and Rarities" CD/DVD thing from about 5 years ago and the digital deluxe version of Diamond Eyes.

So, is it worth getting then? Well, yes and no. If you're a hardcore Deftones fan like myself, you're probably going to already own everything here, so probably not. However, if you've missed out on the brilliance of Chino singing "Simple Man" or Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur" then absolutely get it. I realise I'm biased, but no other band has done as many great cover versions as the Deftones.

Chino, yesterday. Nices shades.

Killzone 3

So, as I mentioned in my last post I got myself a shiny new PS3 and some games to go with it. Gran Turismo, Tekken, Fifa, COD -all the usual ones. I quite enjoyed COD so decided to get another game in the same genre, the titular Killzone 3.
I get home, fire up the playstation and slide the game into the machine -so far, so good. I have a bit of a run around on the practise mode -hilariously entitled "Botzone"- after 10 minutes or so I'm starting to feel a bit funny. Not good funny, bad funny. As in "If I keep going I'm going to spew" bad.
Now I'm assuming this effect -a kind of motion sickness- is down to the fact that I'm old and a bit crap, but if that's the case, why didn't COD affect me the same way?
Does anyone else suffer from this, and if they do, is there anyway around it?

equals

Yeah, I know.

I've been neglecting you, my loyal readers -and I apologise for that- but at least I have a good reason for not poting so far this month.
I have acquired a Playstation 3 and some games and have been playing with it and them rather than doing this. Ok, so maybe it's not a good reason for ignoring you, but it is the reason.
What am I going to do to make it up to you -apart from dragging my arse away from Gran Turismo more often- well, read on.

Imagine you're a 15 year old German farm girl and the thing you want most in the world is a horse -reasonable enough, right?- what would you do if your parents said "no" to the acquisition of said equine? That's right, you'd train one of the dairy herd to be a showjumper.

Triple H(ope).

We had her here at the weekend, so I'm going to make you look at photos of her.

Shoes

I have a complaint. Actually, I have several -some of which are quite nasty, but you don't want to know about that- this complaint is about shoes.
This post was brought about by complete and total envy of the amount of different styles and types available to women compared to men. We have two styles, trainers or shoes -in brown, black or white. Wow, you guys have a million different styles in every shade imaginable, and I want to know why there's such great disparity in the ranges. Do the manufacturers think men don't care? Maybe most of us don't, but I do -I want better shoes, now!

My daughter bought these recently, you wouldn't believe how jealous I am.