Album Review - Year of No Light: "Ausserwelt"

Good evening my special little snowflakes!

I've finished my masters dissertation! Here's an incredibly irritating gif to celebrate!

With that party atmosphere created I'd like to totally ruin it by reviewing a slow-paced, introspective post-metal album, in an introspective and slow-paced way.

Year of No Light are a French band from Bordeaux, originally with a sludgy vocal-driven sound. However, they parted ways with their vocalist, added a guitarist and a second drummer and decided to move in a more post-metal direction.


The result of this lineup change is the mysterious and utterly enthralling Ausserwelt. A sprawling, atmospheric   4-track instrumental album spanning over 45 minutes, this is not an album for people who lose patience with long songs, or indeed slow songs. The tracks here take a while to pick up pace, but for good reason. Once Year of No Light get the juggernaut rolling, the result is a thundering wall-of-sound which envelops the listener like an icy fog, and the behemoth-style impact is all the more forceful for the slow build ups. Keeping the track listing to a minimal 4 allows the band to make the album a whole experience for the listener; it all works extremely well together. The album artwork, monochrome and moody, is a perfect fit for the music, and with the band giving what I hope are tongue-in-cheek jobs for themselves in the credits (for example, "funeral hermeneutics" or "electrical geometry") the scene is set for a deep, dark album.

      "Nope, we don't know what 'heavy cosmogony' is either.

But it sounds cool, doesn't it?"

The first tracks are two parts of the same piece (suite? concerto? it's hard to tell with these things) named after the Greek goddess of the underworld Persephone. Beginning with faint strains of organ and feed-backing guitars, a shimmer of cymbals sets off the highly textured guitars, laying down powerfully melancholy riffs; tremolo picking abounds here, but not in an indistinct black-metal way. The heavy bass sections play off wonderfully with eerie guitar lines. Cymbals crash and almost sound like they're about to shatter throughout the heavier sections giving the track a shimmering quality, like mirages over a storm at sea. When the track suddenly drops pace, it makes way for a titanic doom-laden breakdown, all the while the guitars shimmering and gliding overhead, which is just joy to behold. Part one of Persephone, called in parentheses Enna, is a mournful track, almost with a sense of grief, but with a thunderous quality, like it is mirroring some natural cataclysm.


Part 2, Coré merges in perfectly as the feedback and organ-like drone at the end of Enna and fades into a pounding of what sound like war-drums, which punctuate with all the more force due to the double-percussion setup used. The guitars provide a textural fuzz and crackle over the top, as a melodic line more ominous than in Enna and an unashamedly doom-metal influenced chord progression cut through. If the last track was a cataclysm tearing through the land, this is the armies of the dead reclaiming it. Yet the feel here isn't the corny old doom we might expect, the shimmering, enveloping sound still pervades everything, making the melancholy atmosphere seem less "evil" and more inevitable, natural, awe-inspiring. This kind of post-metal tries to evoke the sublime; the awesome beauty of disaster. A spidery guitar line intersects the doomy riff, unsettling in slow-paced discord, yet utterly transfixing. When listening to Coré at its most intense you can almost hear rocks crashing and crumbling into a turbulent sea around you.


Coré melts away with a glimmer, but the peace only lasts for a second until the threatening fuzzy riffage of Hiérophante thrusts the listener straight into the underworld itself. Ausserwelt is German for "otherworld" and this album does feel oddly alien, like you have been transported to a place where destruction and calamity happen on a scale never before seen. The multi-layered riffing makes way for a faster, more treble-laden section, which always makes me think of river rapids, ending in a waterfall of terrifying proportions, as the thick guitars stomp back onto the scene like titans. The ever present and relentless drumming adds urgency and tension to the track and it eventually builds up to an almighty maelstrom of sound. All instruments speed up electrifyingly until it all ends abruptly to bow out in diffuse drones.

Basically it's like this, but with less gospel music.

The final track, Abbesse is the culmination of everything that came before. Strangely chilled out, yet eerie tremolo guitars open the track, before being drowned out in an epic giant-paced riff, which speeds up to include the tremolo of before, before it all arrives at a piercing and almost regal sounding melody, as if the royal court of the underworld were in procession. This, however, is cut short with threatening minor chords (what else?) which build up to a an almost animalistic release, as if some gigantic mythical creature were in the throes of death. The shrill cries of the guitars sound melancholy and fearful. The drums pound to new levels of intensity, the double-kit setup allowing for almost chaotic sounding percussion over the increasingly hellish guitars. The energy has to give out sometime and with a crash it ends; a gentle feedback-based melody fades the album out.


In short then, Ausserwelt is melancholy, epic, mysterious, intense, awe-inspiring, enveloping and extremely cohesive. It's genuinely one of the best post-metal albums out there and I think it's a game-changer. The obvious influences from doom and black metal improve and are improved by the pacing and structure of the songs and the whole atmosphere is ominous, even a little scary, but sublime. Many listeners may be put off by the slow-paces, the oppressive atmosphere, the frequent use of feedback to end tracks and the lack of vocals, but for me it's an amazing musical experience and should be considered as important to post-metal as Isis's Oceanic or Cult of Luna's Salvation. Buy this album, stick on your headphones and enter another world.


I leave you with a live recording of Persephone. Watch for the duel drums, they're mesmerising to watch. Year of No Light are due to record another album next year and I cannot wait.

The Myth of Manflu

This article was originally written for the Dundee students' magazine The Magdalen and appeared somewhere in the middle of 2011. I thought it would dust it off as it's one I'm quite happy with, and (I think) is still very relevant. More up-to-date posts will follow soon. Promise. 

It’s become a mainstay of commentary on men in the media. Manflu, the woman in the advert says, rolling her eyes in a “you know what I’m talking about, girls” kind of way. As I have approached what society deems adulthood, I have been introduced to this term in what I can only describe as a very uncomfortable way. It was like turning 18 and suddenly realising that the adults always invited at least one alien to their dinner parties and being asked to shake its tentacle – I wasn’t sure this was entirely right, but I went along with it anyway. When I was younger, it was all fairly straightforward, if I was ill there were procedures to go through to try and get better, and people only challenged me on it if I was supposed to be doing a test that day. But when thrust into the adult world, I found myself starting to be told to “man-up” and found some people rolling their eyes at my illness in a sort of pathetic aping of the advert-people. I was all of a sudden being told from some quarters that I had manflu, and to begin with I honestly didn’t know what on earth they were on about. I was just… ill! What the hell did being a man have to do with it?

So what is manflu anyway? Wikipedia defines it as “the pejorative term that refers to the idea that when many men have a cold, they exaggerate and claim they have the flu.” That clears that up then I suppose, move on. Well, no, let’s not move on. As much as anything, this wouldn’t be very interesting to read if I just copied everything from Wikipedia, but also let’s take a closer look at what’s really going on here. The idea of “manflu” is an odd one, because it’s a male stereotype which seems to make men out to be in a position of weakness, a little pathetic. Woohoo! We all say. It’s a victory against gender roles! Men are equally as capable of whining as women, in fact, more so! Well, hang on; let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. Manflu is defined as a deception on the part of the man, a way to trick the people around him into feeling more sympathetic for his plight. Wait a minute! He’s not being pathetic and whiny at all, he’s being sneaky! He’s a Machiavellian genius attempting to wring more than his fair share of sympathy out of his friends and family!

You see, far from subverting gender rôles, the myth of manflu tries to reinforce them. It’s all about trying to define what a “man” actually is. If there is the idea of there being this big generalised concept of manflu which can be attributed to a large section of the male population, there has to be an idea of fixed male attributes to begin with. If you’re going to try and make sweeping generalisations about a group, you need to have an idea of what that group is. You know, things like the Jews are all secretly loaded because they’re greedy and scrimping, gay men are always dressed well because they always pay attention to fashion and journalists always make stuff up because they’re lazy. If men have “manflu” it’s because all men have certain traits that make them likely to become such lying bastards.

It’s very telling that the term “manflu” is so often coupled with the equally odious term “man up”. The assumption being that if a male is complaining about being ill he is whining and needs to act more like a real man. A “real man”, you see, isn’t supposed to complain when he is ill. So wait, men pretend to have flu because they want attention, but a “real man” doesn’t act up when he’s poorly? There’s some difference between some men (who whine when they are ill) and “real men” who never whine? What’s a “real man” then? We’ve already seen he doesn’t complain about being ill, so what are his other traits?

Well, if you believe that annoying advert for male perfume on FX, real men wear pink. If you watch the ad, however, real men are also a number of other things, unattainably muscular for a start, hairless and constantly gallivanting naked around expensive-looking penthouse apartments with scantily-clad women. Now I don’t know about the men reading this, but personally, I’m not particularly fit, waxing me would take, well, weeks and frankly, I have more important things to do than show lingerie models around flats I could never afford, it’s just impractical. The website AskMen.com (which is always good for some good old fashioned gender rôle reinforcing) defines a “real man” as someone who “doesn’t moan, doesn’t complain, doesn’t get sick…” Seriously? A real man has Wolverine-like healing abilities?! When was this instituted? There’s not being a hypochondriac, and then there’s the moronic idea that nothing can ever injure you. AskMen goes on (and on, and on) claiming that “a real man is macho; a real man is tough; a real man doesn't show emotions. A real man is the backbone of his family and doesn't have time to be weak. If spiders scare you, you'll never be a real man.” Well, at least I’m not scared of spiders, wouldn’t want to be totally one of those, y’know, fake men. Terrifyingly, the article suggests to us that if life is being a “b*tch” (oh they’re so coy) one is advised to “slap it and move on.” I’ll be backing away slowly now.

Sadly the insane matchopocalypse of AskMen.com is not an isolated case. These ideas about the kind of person a man “should be” are still very prevalent in our culture, it would have to be, otherwise being able to say things like all a man’s “personal hygiene needs must be taken care of by a woman” (no really, they say that too, you can look it up) would not be acceptable, certainly not on a fairly mainstream site like AskMen. The fact is that this kind of batshit lunacy still exists and is still absorbed by so many men. The call of “manflu” is just another way for people to reinforce the idea that men shouldn’t be complaining about being ill, and if they are, they must obviously be exaggerating. This takes on a darker meaning than just purely in the realm of social power-relations when we realise that these kinds of ideas are detrimental to men’s health. Men are statistically far less likely than women to go to the doctor if they feel ill and routinely die years earlier than women. This social pressure for men to just “man up” and “deal with it” seriously effects people’s lives meaning men are less likely to pick up on something serious and, obviously, suffer for it. Let’s face it guys, we all get ill, and its not fun – obviously it gets annoying if someone’s complaining about it all the time, but we shouldn’t be telling people that just because they’ve got external genitals that they’re not allowed to feel ill. Basically my message for the men reading this is next time someone tells you to “man up” or that you’ve just got “manflu” – sneeze on them. Like really evacuate your nose all over them. Then call them a sexist. I’m all about the justice.

A Reaction to Muse's "Survival"

Alternate title: I'm Sorry Muse, but We're Just Looking for Different Things...

Evening all.

I shall start this post by explaining what Muse mean to me.

They were one of my first loves. After The Who, they were one of the first bands I got properly obsessive over. I listened to their albums all the way through more times than I can remember, I would peruse MuseWiki for hours, looking up obscure facts about the production of their albums (did you know, for example, that the percussion on Screenager involves llama bones and toenails?). I was one of the new influx of fans who came during the Black Holes and Revelations era, but wasted no time getting to grips with their older material, and waited in breathless anticipation for their next release, The Resistance (which is a whole other post in itself). One of the first things I did to test my compatibility with my current partner was to play her Absolution in its entirety (I'm just an old romantic I guess...). I watched their live DVD HAARP like other people watch their favourite movie. I have a list of my favourite Muse b-sides.

In other words I am an out-and-out Muse fan.

But something troubling has been happening in my relationship with the band. I feel like we're drifting apart. Like a couple where the fire has gone out, Muse and I just don't click in the way we used to.

It started with The Resistance. Now I am not a detractor from that album. It's good, there are many good tracks there, not least the fine examples of MK Ultra and United States of Eurasia. But that's it, it's just good. Not amazing, not mind-blowing, just decent. None of my top five favourite Muse tracks are from that album. I liked it, and I happily bought it, but I felt like it was an album from a band who were beginning to lose their touch. I mean come on, Undisclosed Desires? Really guys? With an unfocused track like I Belong to You and the slightly underwhelming Guiding Light and title track, it felt like the start of a downhill climb.

But I am nothing if not a loyal fan, and my optimism held out. I was prepared to accept it as a minor blip, with a view to a refreshed Muse for their next release. Even the slightly wobbly Neutron Star Collision couldn't quite diminish my hope.

But now...

Now I feel like it may be time for Muse and I to see other bands.

Listen to this track, Muse's official release for the Olympics:




It's just...

Just... weird.

Don't get me wrong, I can do weird. I love Micro Cuts - and damn that's a weird track - but there's weird and there's weird. 

The song just doesn't work for me. It's just a mess. Each section of the track is pretty decent in itself and would make a great backbone to a Muse song; the bombast, the epic scope and paranoia are all in place. But all mixed in together, the result is unimpressive. Clearly a lot of work has gone into the composition, but it's incoherent as a song. The string section at the beginning is nice, but instead of being developed, it just disappears to make way for that strange chanting bit, which again is ok, but never goes anywhere, being quickly replaced by a guitar solo coming out of nowhere, which again is good, but doesn't mesh. The solo, over seemingly random bursts of choir singing, finally makes way for, admittedly, a pretty awesome riff, but it still seems out of place, like someone changed track mid-song.

The main problem with this track is that I want to hear more of each section, preferably in separate songs. It's like someone's inexpertly mixed together a bunch of Muse tracks from across their career, without putting any thought into how they'd sound next to each other.

And then there's Matt Bellamy's vocals. As with the rest of the song, they are good. He sings well, he always does. But they just don't sound right. For some reason he's decided to go for a deeper tone in his voice, which wouldn't be a bad thing, if the rest of the song wasn't so bombastic. What a track with that huge a sound needs is Bellamy's signature falsetto shriek, not this relatively restrained low tenor.

The most galling thing of all for me is that this song represents my worst fears about where Muse have been going over the last couple of years. It seems there will really never be another Absolution or Black Holes. The golden age is over and like so many aging bands before them, Muse are descending into releasing increasingly average songs. The raw energy of Origin of Symmetry doesn't seem to be there any more, and we're left just with the ridiculousness, which is fun, but it's not brilliant.

If there's any positive to be gleaned from this release it is that making a song for such a mainstream event as the London Olympics will get more people interested in the music of Muse, and the many more amazing tracks they have to offer. Though when a band like them have been featured on the cover of NME more times than I've had hot dinners it's hard to imagine how much more mainstream success they could have.

I still sincerely hope that Muse will have a return to form at some stage, but unlike before, it's more a vain wish than an earnest expectation.


Happy guitar noodling and when the apocalypse comes, let us hope that it is something biblical.


Gabe

EP Review: Jen and the Gents

Good afternoon omnivores!

You find me posting something with a level of embarrassment. You see, I had told myself I was going to review this EP about a year ago, having been given it by a friend of mine. Regardless, I have finally got around to it by virtue of having a dissertation to avoid doing.

On to the band themselves then. Jen and the Gents have been a fixture of Edinburgh busking for a while now, notable for being one of the rare full band set-ups to play on the street and their brand of folksy pop-rock has garnered them a modest but surprisingly international following, having gained fans amongst Edinburgh's seasonal tourist population. This first recorded offering from the band comes across, first of all, as a very approachable collection of songs. The tunes seem uncomplicated, based on the very good theory that if you have a good, catchy melody it's best to let it speak for itself without too many embellishments.

Having said that, on repeated listens, Jen and the Gents are clearly very capable musicians. One of the most nicest surprises about this album is the voice of the eponymous Jen Ewan. Once you hear her vocal tone, you  will recognise it anywhere - a warm melodic mezzo soprano range drifts across the listener, with a a nice 1920s style warble to lend a little colour. On the face of it, Ewan's voice may appear a little cutesy, but this EP has enough lyrical intelligence to express more than just a romantic ditty. The first track, "Can't Look Back" tells a tale of someone confused with their life and surrounded by people who don't care, eventually leaving it all behind; the mournful refrain "felt it in my heart" is a good example of how this EP manages to provide both brilliant singalong choruses and some real emotional depth.

The next track is an unashamedly optimistic folk-pop tune provides a response to the previous track, telling the tale of life getting slowly better and the joy of having something to plan for and something to look forward to. This oscillation between confusion at life and optimism for the future is the common feature of this EP; the message seems to be that the problems of poverty and lack of direction are real and difficult, but there is always hope for the future, and the EP leaves the listener feeling like their problems are universal and their hopes are valuable.

Whilst this EP is very good, I'd like to hear more of the rockier elements higher in the mix next time around. The musical styles here are however, quite varied and go from the Hawaiian guitar licks and mandolin strumming of "A Little Bit Longer" to the flamenco rhythms of "Can't Look Back" and the melodic REM-style rock of the stand-out track "Flyaway". One of the few weaknesses here is that the pacing doesn't vary a great deal here, and the guitars are a little under-emphasised for my liking. These aside, it's almost impossible to dislike Jen and the Gents' music, it's infectious, and I'd be shocked if their fanbase didn't grow massively on the strength of this EP.

The musicality of the band members is to be applauded - the drumming provided by Stuart "Pockets" Crout is spare and understated, but effective and skilful, the guitar playing from Jen Ewan herself provides a good melodic line and some neat little licks from time to time (for example on "A Little Bit Longer"), the violins and mandolins by Ben Errington provide a very nice fullness that the songs might not otherwise have. However it is Marin Beer's bass playing which deserves the lion's share of the adulation here as he manages to provide good unobtrusive backing bass lines, at the same time as filling out a counter-melodic role and some added rhythm. His bass playing is incredibly fluid and underpins the melody of all the songs on this EP; like a folk-pop John Entwhistle he ties the various elements together and makes the bass sing.

With a new album on the way this summer, a new guitarist and a number of gigs under their belts, including a set at Eden Fest, I seriously look forward to hearing more from Jen and the Gents.

On Music and Emotion

Hey there hominids!

Recently I've been thinking about emotions and music. I haven't yet read Musicophilia but I'm interested in the themes it brings up. Like many people I didn't really get into music in a major way until my teens, when I suddenly discovered that melodies and sounds could make me feel emotions completely detached from the situation I was in at the time. I first felt this when I was still going to church - at the time I thought that, perhaps, something spiritual was happening to me. During the time when I was beginning to seriously question the religion I had been raised in, one of the last things that made me believe in some kind of supernatural realm was the effect music started to have on me. Even when I knew I no longer believed in god, music still had the effect of making me feel like I did.

Of course later on I discovered that the same effect could be gained from secular music as well. The songs didn't have to be about god to make me feel this way. However, still, to this day, the only feeling I would ever (and only hesitantly) describe as "spiritual" is the one I get from listening to music. Obviously not just any music, many songs, normally the kind of dross you see in the charts, have no effect on me whatsoever, but there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern in terms of genre for what does make me feel this way. My tastes in music seem to vary wildly from folk-pop to obscure black metal, to electronica, to prog rock to whatever genre Radiohead is. I have yet to really discover what it is about certain songs which has such a profound effect on me.

I should probably try describe this feeling. When I am listening to a piece of music which I love, like the solo from Comfortably Numb, it makes me want to move in odd ways, not really dancing, just as some kind of cathartic release of this kind of electric tingling I get all over my body - the hair goes up on the back of my neck and I get shivers up my spine, after particularly intense songs, I sometimes feel exhausted. From what I've been told it's pretty close to the feeling that people get on Ecstasy. I have no idea why this happens, but I'd be interested to hear if any of you have any similar reactions to especially intense music. How does it make you feel? How do you feel afterwards?

A friend of mine linked me to the website of an app which is currently under development called Emotional Music, which will allow users to arrange their music collections into emotional playlists, depending on the emotional effect they want to feel. I really like this idea, as for me, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to arrange my music alphabetically or chronologically. Usually I'm looking for music to put me in a certain mood, or more often to act cathartically to release feelings or tensions I myself am only dimly aware of, it makes sense to me because to emotional impact, that cathartic release is what music is all about, and so why organise it any other way?

Not the most clear-headed post, but a fairly murky subject to begin with. Please do comment if you have anything to share about this. I'm going to try and move my posts more towards cultural subjects, and less about the politics, so expect more stuff like this, only better.

Peace and ear-gasms.

Gabe

Top Five Webcomics

Greetings fellow brain-bearers.

A couple of days ago I was able to go to a guest lecture at my univerity on the subject of self-publishing. It was an interesting talk, though directed mostly at the publishing students, but it got me thinking.

You see, publishing, like journalism and the music industry, is an industry in crisis - no one really knows what's going to happen to it and self-publishing (essentially getting round the middle-people) is becoming increasingly popular amongst the creatives who usually fuel such industries. The lecture's focus was mostly the self-publishing of books, (which wasn't something I'd thought of before, but now seems more reasonable and do-able than before) but I felt they'd almost missed a trick.

If any medium has been historically worse treated than publishing than the comic book sector, I don't know about it. From what I've heard, the artists in particular were paid a pittance compared with the royalties which the publishing houses made. So it seems to me that the recent explosion of webcomics is a logical one. The sector with the least to lose from turning their backs on traditional publishing methods was the first to really exploit the internet as a viable medium.

Webcomics are a bit of an interest of mine, mostly because they were the first comics I got into and the only ones I really read (apart from the glorious trio of Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and Garfield). It seems some webcomics have been able to gather audiences large enough to actually make money.

Obviously it is still very difficult to make any real money out of the internet as an independent artist, but the fact that anyone can do it at all means that in the great ocean of shouting that is the internet, some kind of meritocracy can sometimes exist.

I can't go through all the successful webcomics here, nor would I want to, but I thought I would link to my top five webcomics in no particular order and tell you why I think (read: know) they are awesome.



1. Firstly, Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques which has been going since 2003 and is updated daily every Monday-Friday. QC is a webcomic about a group of dysfunctional 20-somethings living in New England, it focuses mostly on Martyn, a romantically frustrated young man with musical ambitions. It's a plot-based comic, and works something like a 2D sitcom. As you can tell from the main character, this webcomic has obvious appeal amongst the hipsterish late-teens to late-twenties group, but more than just that, QC is clever.

Its characters are easily recognisable, but nuanced and ideosyncratic, the plots are funny, but occasionally touching, there's a nice balance between the romantic realism and the fact that there are robots running around everywhere. What Jacques manages to do is pitch a balance between socially-problematic youngsters, and jokes about boners.

One of the things I really admire about QC is Jacques' willingness to experiment with new styles of artwork, interesting character development and a wry sense of humour. If you're wanting to start reading it, I would go back to the beginning, as there are stories, artwork styles and character traits which are really worth seeing develop over the years.



2. Of course no list of top webcomics would be complete without the inclusion of xkcd by Randall Munroe, probably one of the most successful webcomics in the world. Where people used to put up Dilbert comics on their office walls, now they put up xkcd's. Self-described as a comic about "romance sarcasm math and language" xkcd really set the bar for clever, nerdy commentary.

Online since 2005 and updating Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, xkcd tackles subjects as diverse as linguistics, theoretical physics, sociology and computing, all with a keen eye for human interactions and a slightly off-kilter approach to life; xkcd is a surprisingly deep comic for what is essentially stick-figure art. That isn't to say that there isn't artistry in Munroe's drawing; the minimal style allows the ideas to have the space they need.

With obvious influences from greats such as Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts, xkcd takes a philosophical approach to it's subjects, drawing humour from some of the more absurd things even very clever people do. The only flaw being that the humour is occasionally difficult to get, especially when he references scientific things that a poor humanities graduate like myself doesn't understand. But hey, when that happens, I go and look it up and I learn something new. The truly great thing about xkcd is that it is not afraid to branch out into every subject it can, as the comic talent behind it can always find the human element to make you laugh, and occasionally give you a sense of poignance about life.


3. If you want a webcomic which takes a format and really runs with it, you have to look at Dinosaur Comics. Like QC it started in 2003, and has used the exact same artwork for each comic (with the occasional addition) ever since. Based around six panels and three central dinosaur characters - T-Rex, Dromeciomimus and Utahraptor - Dinosaur Comics is a masterclass in doing a lot with a constrained medium. Creator Ryan North has, in addition to the dinosaur characters who appear in the panels, managed to add in several others, purely by using text (and occasionally a small picture of Batman's head) - including God, Satan, and T-Rex's mammalian neighbours.

It's subject matter tends to revolve around T-Rex's attempts at creative endeavour or the way to find happiness with many references to linguistics, computer games (the only subject Satan talks about) and relationships. T-Rex's attempts at writing novels and not finding disappointment in the world are often met by caring, but sarcastic responses from those around him, and suprisingly enough for a comic that is, in terms of artwork, exactly the same every time, there is a great deal of depth to be found in the characters. With consistently funny easter eggs to be found in the alt text, and an extraordinarily keen eye for funny phrasing, Dinosaur Comics is already a classic, as it ought to be.


4. The early 00s was a rich time for the development of now famous webcomics. Starting in 2002, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has become one of the leading comics on the net. With a breadth of subjects covering the nerdy touchstones of science, maths, history, philosophy and relationship anxiety, SMBC has the ability to turn many different subjects on their head and shake out some brilliant comic material all the while. Written and drawn by Zach Weiner, SMBC's colourful style and variable comic length, combined with the ever-changing characters, subjects and angles mean that the casual webcomic reader is never bored and there is always something new to explore.

The world of SMBC is not all that far away from xkcd, but though they share interests and (obviously) fanbases, SMBC has it's own character, often the punchline is a crushingly cynical look at modern human nature, or the occasionally anti-social characteristics of the scientific mindset and often just surreal tangents. The one-liner single-panels are just as good as the long, slow-burners, but it fascinating to go back through the timeline for SMBC to see just how many things it's gotten comic potential out of. Fans of Gary Larson's Far Side comics would feel very much at home here. With a very sharp wit and a very impressively dark perspective on human interactions in everything from economics to academia, SMBC is the black humour capital of the internet.


5. Hark, a Vagrant! A rather quaint phrase? Maybe. One of the most well-drawn webcomics around. Certainly. Created by Kate Beaton and written since 2006, this comic focuses mostly on speculating about the ideosyncrasies of historical or literary figures. Beaton's sketchy style of drawing belies a very keen eye for expression which is the key to a lot of the humour in this comic. I have genuinely never seen a comic artist draw awkward silences so well as Kate Beaton. Many of the punchlines are merely characters glaring, being weirded out, giving blank looks or being disappointed by what's going on around them, and the faces here are a joy to look at, cpaturing the feel of the stories perfectly.

Much of the humour is based on transposing modern tropes onto characters in the past, which you might think would get tiresome, but actually remains fresh nontheless as Beaton is brilliant at writing the one-word punchline. Much of the laughs are understated here, you won't be rolling on the floor, but the work in this comic is so quietly excellent that you can't help but smile at the very modern histories being played out. A lot of what Beaton plays on is the awkward moment in history, and I simply love these moments, where the human element of social anxiety breaks through the rose-tinted, romantisised notions of historical events that we are prone to have. A joy to read.


Hope you all liked the list/review format, there's just time for me to give honerable mentions to webcomics by two of my friends, Uncreation by Jamie Wright, a strange fantasy/horror world with lots of very nice eldrich creations and Barracuda Smile by Ollie Langmead and Michael Baker, a strange noir tale, with some rather cool and unexpected characters.

And let's not have any silly notions about webcomics not being a legitimate art form guys.

Laters, fleshbags.

On Guitar Solos and Scottish Independence

Greetings my little readerlings.

I'm posting today about two subjects which have been lingering around my brainspace for a while - no real connection between the two... other than they are both related to humans I suppose. And they are both written in English. So... actually they are connected... yeah...

Anyway.

Firstly, the recent debate over the Scottish independence referendum. For a while there the headlines seemed to be predicting that Westminster would be telling Holyrood when to have the vote. Now it seems that the Tories are backpedalling and saying they were only trying to give the Scots the legal chance to decide when the vote will be.

To be honest, I never seriously thought that the London government would really be stupid enough to try and weigh in on such a close-run issue. It seems they have realised that the more they try and interfere, the more chance there will be of a "yes" vote. But the legal and political implications aside, the timing of the referendum seems to have taken on a degree of importance beyond what is necessary.

Obviously the SNP needs to hold it during this parliamentary term, and with enough time to work out the intricacies of how to separate one of the last remaining empires in the world, but soon enough not to drag it out more than is necessary. As far as that goes, 2014 seems fine to me.

However, the reasoning behind holding it that year has a more cynical leaning. Timing the referendum with the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn would seem to be ideal for the SNP, what with the fervent Scots nationalism that will grip the nation, and off the back of Glasgow's commonwealth games, it's a gift. But there is a risk with putting it on that day that worries me.

You see, I support independence, and I support a reasonable amount of the things the SNP do, however, I want independence to happen for the right reasons. I worry that relying on what is essentially the borrowed jingoism hanging on from a 700 year old battle between aristocratic interests is the best attitude to go for Scots independence. Independence on the basis of cultural, economic and political differences, yes. But independence on the basis of forgetting these very relevant issues with some horrific battle in the middle ages and some kind of "the good Scots beat the evil English" attitude? I find that worrying.

If we are to throw off our paralysing Scots attitude of living in the past, then we must start the next chapter of our country's history with a forward-facing, contemporary attitude. Whenever the referendum is held, those of us in favour of the "yes" vote shouldn't feel the need to bring up the ghosts of some fourteenth century peasants. We should be able to win based on modern needs and arguments.

The second, and perhaps just as contentious thing I have been thinking about recently is the construction of the guitar solo. There are many people out there who will express great admiration for musicians such as Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. I can't say I can disagree with admiring them, they are all extraordinarily good guitarists, technically brilliant.

However, I can't say I have ever heard a song by any of them which I have enjoyed or that I could even remember very well. You see, I strongly feel that what these guitarists have in terms of talent and ability, (and, no doubt, dedication) they lack in a certain sense, a feel for their songs. personally, my favourite guitar solo, and one of my favourite pieces of music is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.

Now, Dave Gilmour is by no means an underrated guitarist, he is famous and successful, but he's rarely praised for ability in the way the other three are. But I ask you, listen to the solo on that song. I'm not sure anything could have captured the feel of it, or indeed the whole album as well as Gilmour's guitar there. It's not massivly technically demanding, there's some fast bits, but really it's what the solo does for the song, the feeling it conveys in terms of its concept which makes it great. Enjoy. :)

Laters.