Three Blind Singers (THIS IS NOT AN OFFENSIVE POST! I PROMISE!!!)

Trust me here when I say that I have absolutely nothing against blind people at all, and I'm not at all going to laugh at the fact that their hearing is extremely acute as well as their sense of touch. In fact, my best friend is... okay, scratch that. I just want to say that I'm not going to use stereotypes, and am not going to make fun of the fact that the people on the following cover are blind and very likely to play piano much better than anyone with a good eyesighhh... FUCK! Okay, it won't happen again.

I promise.

DAMMIT! Okay. Sorry. That slipped. Won't happen again. No stereotypes from now on.

I SAID NO STEREOTYPES!

Uhh... I'll just move on to showing you the cover and get this over with.

AAAARRGHHH!!!!!!

HERE'S THE COVER!

Pheww!...

Now, aside from it being a cover so dull that it becomes unintentionally hilarious, we have a title that doesn't really make much sense in the context of the name of the group. So, you're The Braillettes, and your album is called Our Hearts Keep Singing... Riight... You see, that album title would have made sense if you were called The Sign Languagettes, because that title would lead people to believe that you are also, in fact, mute. You sing in English: a language that doesn't require a person to see in order to be spoken.

Although you might be referring to the fact that none of the lyrics were printed in braille, rendering it impossible for any of you to read them, thus mentioning a technical difficulty you had during the recording sessions. On the other hand, you're the Braillettes. That band name would not make any sense if Braille wasn't actually involved somewhere.

My verdict is simple. What could have sounded inspirational ended up sounding retar... NO!... Stupid! WERE you The Sign Languagettes, though, you could have marketed your 11 tracks of total silence as an art experiment, and collectors would then want to buy the copies for ridiculously high prices for the artistic value of your inspirational statement: You don't need to sing... You just need to BELIEVE.

Disclaimer:
To all the blind people currently reading this blog entry, first of all, this post was not at all written as a means to offend any type of person, merely criticizing a lack of logic supporting the name of the above album, and secondly, if you're blind, how the hell are you reading this in the first place?

Sex & Drugs & Gore & Fetuses

There is a part of the underground metal scene dedicated pretty much entirely to making humorous and gory sexual innuendos/jerking off. This part of metal mainly ranges from Slam Death Metal to Goregrind and Porngrind, and some of its covers are truly disgusting.

Oh god! The logo is fluorescent green!

Although there are, of course, covers which are truly funny. This is the case with Cerebral Engorgement's Shot Bong Suicide. We have a whole storyline with this one!

We have a protagonist, who goes to the toilet in the middle of the night to take a dump. He also brings along his trusty shotgun (What? Don't tell me you don't do the same thing.) After realizing that getting high, drunk and sedated is not helping with his explosive diarrhea, he does the sensible thing and gives his shotgun a blowjob.

I'm telling you, dude. You do not want that to ejaculate.

...Uhh... And then they lived happily ever after?

So, there you have it: gore, sexual innuendos and humor (a definite "maybe" there...). I could end this post here, but you know that I won't do that. If you have a life, you can stop reading here, because now I'm going to inquire about how the guy was able to pull the trigger, considering that his right shoulder is more than broken, and stuff like that. Yep. I'm gonna talk about the flaws in the story.

First, if the guy, let's call him Crappy, was getting high while taking a shit, he had to hide the weed somewhere from the cops. If you're following my train of thought, you will have realized by now that Crappy was smoking weed coated with food that had gone through his digestive system.

I'm not going to talk about the way that it is impossible for that eye to have flown in that path, because it's much more worrying that Crappy had not one, but two baby fetuses inside his cranium. Seriously. If he hadn't killed himself, it would have been just a matter of time before he had a reenactment of that scene from Alien in front of his very eyes. Literally.

In conclusion, I have to say that this gory story is full of shit. Again, literally.

Time Machines And Flesh

According to Wikipedia, Jane Doe is "[...] A placeholder name in a legal action [...] for a [...] party, whose identity is unknown or withheld for legal reasons.". In other words, 4Chan has Anonymous and the court has Jane Doe.

Until Anonymous became a group against Scientology, though, Anonymous did not by default contain a capital "A", and meant that you were trying not to reveal any personal info and preferred keeping escape as a viable option, if things ever got messy. The point is that, in theory, if you're anonymous, nobody will know who you are, where you are from, what causes you support. On the other hand, if you're Anonymous, you automatically hate the Church of Scientology, are a user of 4Chan and wear a cool Guy Fawkes mask. A really great way to stay completely incognito, huh?

"You know absolutely nothing about me!"

Similarly, the Metalcore band Converge had really stayed in the spirit of Jane Doe's incognitoness when they released an album entitled Jane Doe, along with a Jane Doe T-shirt, a Jane Doe cap and a Jane Doe jeans patch.








Come on! The only way that you could have possibly been more besides the meaning behind Jane Doe was if you made a Jane Doe bag, or something.


You didn't! Sure, it's a very memorable face (much like the face of Anonymous). But isn't it maybe a little too memorable if you're trying to keep a low profile?

In fact, it's so memorable that I've already spent an hour writing this and haven't really reached the actual main idea of the post, which is the following:

I've known this cover for a long time now, and there has always been something about it that creeps me the fuck out. Something in the face of Jane Doe. Something in the vacant expression and the half closed eyes looking down upon you. It came to me when I was seeing Shaun Of The Dead yesterday. Let's look at the cover again.


Observe how, even before having had her body desintegrated in a time machine malfuntion, it was already not all there. We can clearly see two huge bite marks. One on her neck and one on her cheek. Who would have made those bites? If you haven't seen it yet, allow me to give a hint:


Now, here's the question: What could a zombie be possibly doing in a time machine?

A Totally Fuckin' Biased Post

What would you get if Dream Theater got signed to Nuclear Blas(t), tried to at the same time appeal to fatass dudes who mosh with a boner and to Justin Bieber fans, and locked Jordan Rudess in a cage somewhere?

"Ok, John. You can get out now."

If your answer to that question was "Uhh... What?", then you're probably right. On the other hand, in the off chance that you said "Scar Symmetry", congratulations! Your mind is as fucked up as mine.

I'm warning you beforehand that I'm breaking the rule of being impartial in my posts big time today, because the reason why I'm writing it is that I fucking detest Scar Symmetry. They have become huge pretty much overnight and they must be stopped. They sound like a dumbed down Train Of Thought-era Dream Theater if they had an extra vocalist for growls and if James LaBrie was trying to sound like Philip Anselmo from Pantera in a boy-band.

Two of the above people are vocalists.

They're not even terrible in a good way, like Mindless Self Indulgence! SS make cringe-worthy music. MSI make cringe-worthy music in style.

"When I say "we", you say "suck"."

I mean, these guys from Gothenburg don't even have comic relief to save them! They are one of the most unfunny and serious bands in the world. They could only possibly be more humorless if they wore suits to shows and called themselves Kraftwerk.

"The crowd is ecstatic as the employees relentlessly work on next month's conference presentation"

How can you make a joke about a band whose albums have completely ambiguous and generic artwork? HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO RIDICULE CIRCLES?!!

Oops! Wrong band.

By now, you're probably wondering why I've grown to hate SS (that's an acronym for Scar Symmetry, not the other thing. Ahh... fuck it! It's both). Well, let me tell you that their song "The Missing Coordinates" is great, and I decided to buy Holographic Universe (it's the one with the cover depicting a blue coffee stain) based on said song's strength.

I hope their faces are contorted because the diarrhea-coloured Pepsi is digusting, 'cause they paid it with money I FUCKIN' EARNED THEM!

That was in January, and, so far, I've listened to that album from start to finish once. I am not going to endure that again, and don't want anyone else to have to either. What I've learned about them is that they are from Nuclear Blas(t) (a clear warning for things to come) that the booklet has absolutely NOTHING wrong with it, and that I'm not the only person who manages to make something that is at the same time nausea-inducingly terrible and boring. Hell! Even I don't know why I hate their music so much. They're basically a catchier Dream Theater, and I LIKE Dream Theater!

Well, now I have a headache, and haven't developped into the topic in hand at all. What's worst is that I'm going to finish the post exactly now.

The 20 Funniest AxCx Song Titles

Greetings. Now that I've reached the 25th post with a glorious bang of nothing, you know what will happen next: The blog will fall into a steady decline in terms of funniness (it probably already has, but you'll be able to see that I will stop even trying to be funny), the number of frequent readers will fall from zero to minus forty-eight and a half, it'll be forever forgotten and I'll end up dying in a trashcan somewhere with an overdose of antidepressants.

Unless I write something mildly shocking. Not so shocking as to get people to make Facebook groups called "Endrey Is A Fucking Idiot Who Should Have Been Killed By Sex Offenders For That Super Controversial Thing He Said Once", but shocking enough to get the old ladies who happen to stumble upon my blog to fall off their chairs and spill Lapsang Souchong all over the carpet. Something like writing a post about AxCx, also known as Anal Cunt.

"Good to see you again. I see you haven't bothered to wipe the mud off your face from that last post."

Most senile citizens reading this have by now become shocked and are making a rant about how, back in their day, such disgraceful words as the "a" and the "c" word weren't even written in diaries, on account that someone might want to take a peek. If the band name hasn't set them off, then the next sentence will:

Citing Anal Cunt, "You're Old (Fuck You)"

...Which brings us nicely to the topic of today's entry. After all, the above track title is not the only one with a ridiculous name in the Anal Cunt catalog, which goes beyond 6000 songs (although only a few hundred actually have names). Please note that this post is not written with the intention of making fun of Anal Cunt...

They've covered that duty pretty well.

...But to celebrate their accomplishment in a career of intentional self-parody and hurtful comments towards everyone. I have rounded up the 20 titles I consider the funniest. Why have I done this instead of finding an album cover to make fun of? I'm feeling lazy, and this way I don't really have to invent any jokes, since they're all there.

#20- Music Sucks

This bold statement pretty much sets the mood for all the song titles to come, or should I say... BALD statement?

#19- Bald To The Bone

This is, by far, the most baldass name to come from the baldfest that is Howard Is Bald. Arise, Jordan Rudess! Arise David Draiman! Arise, Jens Kidman! Arise, Britney Spears, and rejoice in the name of baldness! Welcome to Baldbylon!

As you can see, A.C. brings bald people together in pretty much the same way that music brings together... uhh... music fans. This band is apparently out there to stop such bullshit once and for all (the music fans, bald people are too awesome to stop). The first thing they do is reduce their fanbase to only homosexual people.

#18- All Our Fans Are Gay

After that, they eliminate all the hipsters within the fanbase by every means possible.

#17- Everyone In Anal Cunt Is Dumb

#16- Being Ignorant Is Awesome

#15- When I Think Of Punk Bands, I Think Of Nirvana And The Melvins

...And here's the finisher for that bunch:

#14- MTV Is My Source For New Music

"Critical hit! It's super-effective!"

Now that that's taken care of (mostly), they look at other possibilities and invite new, more naive people to the clutches of Anal Cunt, such as prog fans and kvlt people.

#13- Song Titles Are Fucking Stupid

Many a prog fan will agree with that statement.

#12- Abomination Of Unnecessarily Augmented Composition Monikers

But said progheads were left drooling with the above song title, just like kvlt crowd was with the below one.

#11- Brutally Morbid Axe Of Satan

Now that they have an audience to piss off, time to take it out group by group. First go the people in bands,...

#10- No, We Don't Want To Do A Split 7 Inch With Your Stupid Fucking Band

...Then the trve kvlt black-metalheads (THERE'S A HYPHEN THERE),...

#9- "I'm Not Allowed To Like A.C. Anymore Since They Signed To Earache"

#8- Living Colour Is My Favourite Black Metal Band

... and, finally, everyone that's left. After all, the only remaining people who actually care are a bunch of nerds who live in their mom's basement.

#7- Your Best Friend Is You

Anyone who persists is crazy and weird. With the next salvo of hatred towards everyone, there will be nobody left, and that means NOBODY. First, a direct insult at you that you yourself can do! :D It's like Mad Libs, only instead of filling it out with (NOUN), (VERB) and (PERSON IN ROOM), you fill it with (INSULT).

#6- You (Fill In The Blank)

#5- I Sold Your Dog To A Chinese Restaurant

#4- I Lit Your Baby On Fire

#3- I Sent A Thank You Card To The Guy Who Raped You

Oh! And remember that there were still the non-hipster homosexuals left over from earlier? Well, not anymore!

#2- I Sent Concentration Camp Footage To "America's Funniest Home Videos"

What comes to anyone still not convinced into hating AxCx, maybe the "eww" factor will work.

#1- Our Band Is Wicked Sick (We Have The Flu)

Well, there you have it. The elderly citizens reading this are now probably having their pacemaker replaced while also having a major operation on all those clogged arteries that burst from so much furious ranting. Meanwhile, I want to say thanks to André Ribeiro (AKA Andy Kancer) for not being ashamed of admitting that he supports my blog. It makes me feel very honored to know that somebody appreciates the fine art of causing near to physical pain through the utter boredom and dullness of failed attempts at comedy.

Score: 25

Well, it took time, but here it is: the 25th post on Back To The ROFL.

"Captain Obvious strikes again"

It took more than half a year at an average of around 700 words per post to reach this goal, which is why I haven't waited 'till the 100 mark to celebrate. Also, judging by the constant delays and whatnot, HAD I waited 'till the 100 mark to celebrate, it would have been when I will have rediscovered "that blog I used to do as a teen... Back To The ROFL I think it was called" at the age of 71.

Anyway, before anything else, I would like to thank all the people who ever read this blog for their support because, believe it or not, it really does matter, and I'd be really grateful if you gave me your opinion on my blog (hate mail is always welcome). The feedback will really help me. Also, whatever album covers you'd like me to flame about, just tell me about it between the death threats.

Now, there are loads upon loads of candidates for appearing on Back To The ROFL, most of them encompassed within genres that include the root word "grind" somewhere. After all, a band whose music boasts song titles such as "Song Titles Are Fucking Stupid", "Shut Up Paul" or "I Lit Your Baby On Fire" is just begging to have itself made fun of...

"Come on! You know you want to."

Which is precisely why this entry will talk about Dream Theater's Score: X(middle thing)X 20th Anniversary World Tour Live with The Octavarium Orchestra, also known as Score.


Had I not owned this album, I would have simply said something like "Now that's WAAAY

too long for an album title, specially when it can be made so short", mentioned something about DT being pretentious and called it a day, but I can't because there is more to come on the inside of the album.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, this album is a three disk digipak. After fiddling with the pak so as not to have the CDs fall out of their slots while I try to place it on the scanner (and failing miserably) for a few hours, I have managed to scan the insides, and this is what they look like:

You have the mandatory thanks to alls and list of crew members,...

"Also, since we have an orchestra this time around, the background is, obviously, made to appeal to 65 year-olds who want to look posh"

... and you have one panoramic photo of all the musicians on stage spread amongst two pages.




This means that it is rather strange that Todd Kaplan claims that all photos in the album are of his courtesy. "All", like in "more than one".


But even if, as Todd claims, he has done ALL photos, he really shouldn't be too proud of it. I mean, this is a Dream Theater album, meaning that you should NOT make sure that the photo focuses on everything but the faces of the members of Dream Theater...,






Or, in the case that you can actually make out some facial features, make sure that they do not translate to "I hate myself and want to die"




Actually, you do have to give Kaplan credit for all the effort put into making Guy Who's Identity Will Be Kept Secret and Ms. Vulva so crystal clear in the picture.




On the other hand, that "all" in "All photos" may mean that Todd Kaplan also took the pictures of James LaBrie singing into a ghost microphone...,


... John Petrucci making the "jizzing pants" pose so popular among respected guitarists...,


... Jordan Rudess having a nap (probably while he plays a super complex solo)...,


... John Myung about to fall off the stage after a sprint looking at the camera...


... and Mike Portnoy opening his mouth to eat the drum kit.


All of which appear on the front cover.


Actually, on the other hand, Todd Kaplan has made an excellent job! To prove it, I just ask you to look at the rest of the artwork. Without the members of the band looking completely ridiculous on this release, the digipak would have been the visual equivalent of a deadly dose of Valium, so I have to thank TeeKay for saving my life.

Thank you.

Vinylheads Are Doomed From The Start

I will start this post the old-school, standard, boring stand-up comedy way (“So I was at the cinema/library/barber's/gallows the other day, when *yawn-inducing monologue for 15 minutes *”), so, here goes:

"Hold tomatoes at ready"

So I was talking to a blogger friend of mine on the IM the other day (he does a blog with another blogger friend of mine. It's very funny. Their posts are not long. This is their blog. (It's in Portuguese, by the way)), when he tells me that he was thinking about buying a stereo with a turntable. Obviously, my reaction was something along the lines of the usual “good for you *smiling face *” answer formula, but, the more I think of it, the more I realize that that is not such an awesome idea.

Vinyl has the advantage of providing sound quality that can't be achieved with digital formats, but, to actually notice any difference, you'd need a top-notch sound system, which is relatively easily attainable through the process of coughing up the dough. Lots of dough. So, it's easy to immediately realize that this option is only viable for true music lovers, in theory...

For the continuation of this post, let's assume that you got that sound system from a music lover's wet dreams. You have a state-of-the-art stereo, with a simply godly turntable and you have placed the full-range, top-quality monitors in the room in such a manner that will provide the most perfect experience possible. Yet, you still haven't actually experienced anything. You need to get some records.

You head to the record store (let's assume that it is a large one) and quickly find the section dedicated to vinyl records. Even more quickly, the thought “That's it?!” races to mind. You glare at the sadistically placed neighboring aisle of Jazz/Folk CDs starting with X, Y or Z, and then you look down at the 13 records in “A – All Genres”, where only 6 records actually are by artists whose name starts with A, and one of said records is AC/DC's Fly On The Wall.

That and the industrial coating of dust on top of the whole section makes you quickly realize that no one ever actually cares about this part of the store, and the staff is pissing on you. Nevertheless, you keep your hopes up. After all, it's called a record store, not a CD store. After some time, you start to actually “think” like the store, “get into its mind”, so to speak. That means that you begin to understand that if you're looking for Rubber Soul by The Beatles, you'll find it in “B – All Genres”, if it is Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys that you want, it'll be somewhere in the vicinity of “F – All Genres”, if you're looking for Feedbacker by Boris, you might as well give up now, and if you're still looking for No Line On The Horizon by U2, you're probably blind, since it's harder to discover a place where you can't find it (“U – All Genres” being one of them).

Eventually, your search is fruitful, and, after having paid the price for records, with all its extra BFYTW (“Because fuck you, that's why”) fees, you leave the store and come back home, having bought two or more of the following albums:

The Velvet Underground & Nico, by The Velvet Underground;
Fragile, by Yes;
The White Album and/or Abbey Road, by The Beatles;
The Dark Side Of The Moon, by Pink Floyd;
Are You Experienced, by The Jimi Hendrix Experience;
In The Court Of The Crimson King, by King Crimson;
OK Computer, by Radiohead.

Well, you've got everything you need now. Right? Right?! Actually, no. For the simple reason that you are a music lover, and, therefore, know all of the above albums by heart, unless you aren't in fact a music lover... You see, records such as those you only actually own for status, so that people respect you as a fan of music, so that people can look at your collection and say “Hey! You have Fragile by Yes... Nice... That's a very... um... very... Hey! Is that Left 4 Dead 2?”. No one really expects you to actually LIKE the albums, or even so much as LISTEN to them. You know perfectly well that you actually wanted Feedbacker by Boris from the very start, but you also know that buying it would have been really expensive. See where I'm getting at here? Pretty much all the non-mainstream bands you listen to make very limited amounts of vinyls, which are very hard to find, and that is considering that you're lucky enough that they make any at all. You have been owned.

There are mainly only four genres for which you would ever want to get a turntable sound system, and those are Classical, Post-Rock, Psychedelic and Drone/Doom. In other words, it either can be used as a way for people to show off their superiority in comparison to the rest of the human race (Classical and Post-Rock), because of course you COULD listen to Godspeed You! Black Emperor on CD, but every single Hertz that needle manages to catch that the laser can't is perceived as an extra millimeter on the owner's dick (at least, by said owner). Or it can be used as way to have more awesome trips (Psychedelic and Drone/Doom), because... fuck... it's awesome, need I another reason?

Sadly, music lovers don't like to be associated with the stoner group of vinylheads, and records stores feel uneasy about endorsing the group, which leaves us with the showoffs.

Conclusion: the sound system with a turntable is virtually useless, unless the only way you can prove yourself to be better than your friends is by your sound equipment.

I'm All For Acronyms, But...

...There are words that are better off without them, and "sin" just happens to NOT be one of said words. You can invent a shitload of great acronyms for it, and if you can't, the Internet is there to help you out in your time of need. Seriously! It's one of the words that offers the most flexibility in terms of possible acronyms that make sense (Summoning Involuntary Nosebleeds, for example, or Some Inbred Nationalists)! I just thought up two terrible acronyms on the spot right there! It's impossible that the German band Somewhere Into Nowhere (S.I.N.) couldn't have thought of a better band name than the one they have. After all, they've been together since 2002, and surely they wouldn't have had to come up with a name on the spot...

Does it even make any sense? We have two antonyms: "Somewhere" and "Nowhere", linked by a preposition, and of all prepositions they could have chosen from, they have chosen the one that will make the least amount of sense possible between the aforementioned antonyms. I mean, you could have used "on" and have made S.O.N., or "underneath" and have made SUN. Actually, having somewhere underneath nowhere doesn't make much sense, nor does somewhere on nowhere, but even those two would have made much more sense than having somewhere INTO nowhere... Come on! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Is that like a road that leads from an ambiguous place to an ambiguous... non-place?


But, then again, we have the "Into" in the middle, ruining everything! Unless!... (sic) It's a tunnel that leads from the ambiguous place directly into the core of the ambiguous non-place!

Well, according to the cover of their self-titled debut album, Somewhere Into Nowhere, the statement basically translates to "We were high out of our minds when we came up with the name. And the cover."

Now, you have to realize that within the world of Melodic Metal (encompassing Traditional Heavy Metal, Goth Metal, Progressive Metal, Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Neo-Classical Metal and their Melodic variations), album covers are very vulnerable to cheese, and absolute cheesefests are not rare. The following album cover is actually pretty easy on cheesiness in comparison, but still holds pretty strong on the Cheese-O-Meter: A definite 6.5.

"SONic The Boy In Pyjamas"

The whole thing simply reeks of photoshop, giving it an immediate 1.5 points. There's also the baffled little boy being attacked by luminescent jellyfish tentacles (as far as I know, even Japan looks down upon tentacle foreplay to pedophilia), who doesn't even seem to give a shit about the fact that he's suddenly in space in a fucking Sonic The Hedgehog course, with rings that are too similar to equilateral triangles to actually be called rings. Another 2.5 points. Also, if he's in outer space, why the fuck is there a grid over the entire starshowered horizon? 1 point for not making sense. And, as far as I know, were there a nebula shaped like a face, it would have been too retarded a discovery to have been made in this universe, or it would have been so fucking scary a discovery that everyone would have commited suicide. 1 more point. And, of course, you have the mandatory planet or two, giving a bonus 0.5 points.

Well, I must say that we CAN for a moment assume that the kid is actually supposed to be running toward the face, and the triangle-shaped rings are actually arrows, to show where he shold be going. Which brings us back to the title, Somewhere Into Nowhere:

He is running from somewhere INTO someone's forehead... hmm... Is the band saying that the guy's head is filled with nowhere? Like in: empty?

This means that, with this cover, they are probably in fact implying that their fans are dumbasses. Come on, guys! This is your fucking debut album! Prior to it, you have only released one single demo! Surely it's WAAAY too early to start giving your fans the finger.