Until The Light Takes Us

Immortal - Blashyrkh

Ensiferum - live in Dublin 2006 for Mysterious Wound Festival

Ensiferum - meaning sword bearing. One of the best metal act in Europe. They represent the story tellers from other side and interesting part is they are the viking of modern tale.
I never heard about this band before but they existed since 1995 until now they are on different league as Kreator and Destruction. And they are from Finland.

The festival called Mysterious Wounds festival was held at Button Factory, Temple Bar, Dublin. They are many acts such as; Mass Extinction; Ensiferum and many more. The main act was Sodom.

To be honest; I know too little about Ensiferum. But After seen many of their albums at Sentinel Record small kiosk inside the venue, I know Ensiferum is not small timer yuppies from nowhere play heavy metal songs

Petri Lindroos on right; Sami Hinkka on left side

Markus Toivonen (the founder of Ensiferum) on far right-above

Fuck! the crowd is getting insane pushing each other aside. I couldn't believe the crowd was as many as Sodom fans and some of them only come to watch Ensiferum. I started to questions about this band..who the hell is Ensiferum??

The band took almost 40 minutes to tune the vocal, the guitars and the ambient sound from synthetisers by Meiju Enho. It's really pain in the arse to wait for them to actually see them to finish the tune. Finally, the hall becomes very dark and fucking smoke choked me to death.

It was Janne Parviainen who step out onto set and starts to bash the drum set. Finally the whole gang finally starts to appear and perform the songs which i don't actually know at that time. The song is fucking brilliant! Its truely melodic mixing with Irish and Celtic influence. But the whole Scottish, Irish (Southern and Northen Ireland), Norwagian, Sweddish and Finnish were conquered by Viking during B.C.

The crowd became obsess with the song started to sing along with them and try to join on stage. Unfortunately, myself and other friends have to give away to some fans , move backwards apart from stage. Just to see them live is a blessing and to be able to discover them is a lifetime achievement.

After the concert while waiting for Sodom; I've got myslef a long sleeve t-shirt and a 10 years Ensiferum DVD. By the way check out their incoming new album soon next month..so fucking excited about them. Buy vinyl don't fucking free download their album!

Gigantic Tour 2009 in Dublin

Judas Priest

Megadeth

Testament

It was early last year; Judas Priest has released the new album called Notradamus and have decided to make a big come back for the fans. They have invited Megadeth as a special guest for that night. Fortunately, the American old school thrash metallers were also join the wagon as they released their new materials called The Formation of Damnation late last year.

The come back of Testament have given an inspiration for the fans who are over 30's and late to make a revival and back active into thrash metal scene. On that occasion, many of the fans are still wearing tie shirt and leather laptop back (straight into the concert just to get nice a spot), yet still bang their head until crush. Testament played couple of songs from their latest album and rest back to basic high speed rif of thrash metal. Chuck Billy delivered the songs like he used in mid 80's eventhough the body now is triple the size then before. Alex Skolnick was more like Steve Vai on guitar then thrash metallers, skill set of play mush improved now, become like guitar god. Overall, I never disappointed with the Testament show but I hope next time Testament would play on small venue as they used before.

Megadeth

What can you say about them...deliver and nail it where at one point you would think that they would overtake Judas Priest on that night. Sleepwalker, Tout Le Monde, Peace sell, Rust in Peace, Countdown to extinction and Holy war. However, due to health reasons, most the lead guitar taken by Chris Broderick and there are few Dave have made mistakes as the fingers were not fast enough to cope with the songs. The fans have gone insane...few mosh pits turn ugly as the guards trying to break its up.

Too little time for Megadeth to perform ideally; disappointed me actually but this about Judas priest and i knew it will be 1st and last best concert on earth. Dave would never give any credits as does by Testament to Judas as for kind invitation.

Anyway;

This is the moment of lifetime waiting; with shout of " Priest is Back!!" , "Judas Priest!". After Megadeth show. We have to wait like 30-45 minutes before the smoke and the opening music finally broke...intensive preparation, wall climbers were averywhere to check the lights and laser boxes. This what I've expected; great show, great gimmick, great performance of heavy metal god, Rob Halford and a Harley Davidson on stage.

Smoke came out...the lasers are broading and beaming else where in the dark. You know what; the open with Hell Patrol from Painkiller album. Holy shite! this is the moment of life that I would never forget. They played Notradamus, off course! You've got another thing coming, Sinner. The moment of speed paddle by Scott Travis; I took the camera out and record the killer song "Painkiller" sang along like fucking retarded man. After that, Halford shout "breaking the what?...!!", " Breaking the what?!!...". .."Breaking the Law!!". I can't the 50's couple push us away just to be in front row to sing that song with halford. I think nostalgia from the rebel priest ealy 70's have created generation of rebel adults and even now they were there just to show their grateful to Judas Priest for given a door to heavy metal.

The final song was "living after midnight". Such as the perfect for closing...this tradition song hasn't change much when I was seeing their concert video at age 10.

Hail the King of Metal .....Judas Priest! You are real metallers!

the 1st photo shown of the huge merchandise booth of the event; it does't have to be buy concert t-shirts and many more for that night.

The Decline of Social Democracy

taken from World Socialist Web Site - www.wsws.org

The decline of social democracy

The most notable result of the European elections held last weekend is the dramatic decline of social democracy.

On average across Europe, social democratic parties received only 22 percent of the vote, six percent less than in the previous European election in 2004. With a turnout of just 43 percent, this means that less than one in ten of the electorate voted for these parties.

Average European figures distort the real extent of the decline. In the major industrial countries of Western Europe, where social democratic parties have led governments for decades or functioned as the main opposition party, their losses were huge—irrespective of whether the parties are currently in government or opposition.

In Great Britain, where the Labour Party has been in power for the past twelve years, Labour’s support plummeted to a record low of 16 percent—lower than the vote received by the extreme right-wing UK Independence Party. In Spain, the ruling Socialist Party lost five percentage points and trailed the right-wing Peoples Party. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has been in government for eleven years, recorded an historic low of 21 percent. In Portugal, support for the ruling Socialist Party fell from 45 to 27 percent.

In France, where the Socialist Party has been in opposition for the past seven years, the party received just 17 percent—a decline of 12 percentage points compared to five years ago. In Italy, support for the Democratic Party, which is a successor organisation to the Italian Communist Party and other “left” parties, plunged from 31 percent to 26 percent. In Denmark, the opposition Social Democrats lost 12 percentage points and finished with a total of 21 percent. The vote for the Dutch Labour Party was halved to 12 percent, and in Austria it sank from 33 percent to 24 percent.

This decline is all the more remarkable when one bears in mind that the election took place in the midst of the most severe world economic crisis since the 1930s. Although unemployment is rising rapidly and the living conditions of broad layers of the population have worsened considerably, voters are deserting the social democrats in droves.

The cause for this shift is to be found in the politics and character of the social democratic parties, which have for many years functioned like any other bourgeois party. In the past two decades, they have used their influence, in close alliance with the trade unions, to carry out the sort of social attacks that had provoked massive resistance when attempted by conservative governments.

In Britain, the Labour Party led by Tony Blair adopted the program of the Conservative Party’s “iron lady,” Margaret Thatcher, while the German SPD led by Gerhard Schröder passed the anti-welfare Hartz laws and carried out more attacks on social rights than all previous conservative governments put together.

The British Financial Times in an editorial on Tuesday pointed to the seeming anomaly of massive electoral losses for parties historically associated with socialism under conditions of growing popular disillusionment with capitalism. It correctly noted that, in fact, there are no serious differences in economic and social policy between the social democratic and conservative parties. The newspaper wrote: “At a time when ‘the end of capitalism’ is raised as a serious prospect, the parties whose historical mission was to replace capitalism with socialism offer no governing philosophy. Their anti-crisis policies are barely distinguishable from those of their rivals.”

Today there are barely any workers to be found in the leadership of the social democratic parties, and a rapidly dwindling number of workers in the party ranks. Many who join these parties do so not to realise political ideals, but to further their own careers. Opportunism, a complete lack of principle and arrogance toward the working class are the most important prerequisites for advancement within these organisations.

In Germany, a career in the SPD is regarded as a springboard to a good-paying job in public service or the private economy. Former SPD Chairman Rudolf Scharping is today a business consultant, whose clients include the hedge fund Cerberus and the billionaire Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler. Former Chancellor Schröder, who led the SPD for a long period of time, has a string of boardroom positions—most notably with the world’s biggest energy concern, the Russian-based Gazprom.

When millions of workers turn their back on social democracy in the middle of an economic crisis, it shows one thing: they no longer expect any solution to their problems from these parties.

The election result also expressed a broad rejection of the European parliament. The job of the parliament is to provide a pseudo-democratic cover for the institutions of the European Union and the army of 40,000 well-paid bureaucrats in Brussels who, in turn, serve at the beck and call of a comparable army of business lobbyists.

Vast numbers of voters, especially from the working class, refrained from casting ballots. The biggest party in the election was the party of non-voters. At 43 percent, voter participation was 2.5 percentage points lower than the previous record low turnout, in 2004. In Holland, Great Britain and most Eastern European countries, turnout was less than 40 percent.

The resulting political vacuum was exploited by conservative and right-wing parties. This has led many commentators to speak of a “turn to the right” in Europe. Such a conclusion is unwarranted and superficial. Right-wing parties were able to exploit the collapse in support for social democracy and the low turnout. In most cases, however, they failed to increase their vote and in some cases saw their support decline significantly.

Even extreme right, xenophobic parties that gained significantly—such as Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in Holland (17 percent), the UK Independence Party (17 percent), and the British National Party (6 percent)—have, based on the low voter turnout of 35 percent in the two countries, less support than their results suggest.

What is evident in the European election is a sharp social polarisation. Until now, the ruling classes have been able to rely on the social democratic parties and the trade unions to suppress social struggles. The decline of these organisations means that future class confrontations will take a more open and explosive form.

Workers must prepare for such an eventuality. The initiative cannot be left to the ruling class. The electoral gains of ultra-right groupings is a warning. The European working class needs its own party based on a revolutionary and international socialist program.

Peter Schwarz

Nordvargr

Hendrik Nordvargr Bjorkk

Nordvargr - Interseller

Pyrrhula by Nordvargr, 2008

Nordvargr x Beyond Sensory Experience (BSE) x Kenji Siratori -
Hypergenome666

Hendrik with Naer Mataron

Henrik Nordvargr Björk has to be one of the most well-known and prolific names in the post-industrial music scene. Recording under various guises (Folkstorm, Toroidh, Mz.412, Nordvargr, to name but a few), Henrik has been a long-time friend and ally of Cold Spring. They have released the final Folkstorm recordings and the magnificent Merzbow collaboration 'Partikel' in 2004. Work is in progress for the third part of this trilogy, 'Partikel III'.
Cold Spring released the full-length Nordvargr album 'Pyrrhula' in June 2008.2009 sees the much-requested re-issue of Folkstorm 'Victory Or Death' and 'Sweden'.

Collabolaration

Nordvargr and Beyond Sensory Experience (both of MZ.412 fame, yet acknowledged on their own) make an excursion into the dark, violent, psychedelic world of the Japanese cyberpunk writer Kenji Siratori. Siratori's work was acclaimed by David Bowie and can be described as a surprise meeting of William S. Burroughs and Tetsuo the Iron Man. The collaboration of three unique parties formed a box set called Hypergenome666. This is a magnificent box-set containing 2 CDs with 80-pages booklet and a box set designed by Paul McCarroll (see http://www.unhinged.me.uk/

Naer Mataron
Formed at the end of 1994 by guitarist/vocalist Morpheas, Greece's Naer Mataron is committed to perpetrating the most extreme brand of black metal imaginable while glorifying their Hellenic heritage with their historically minded lyrics. 1997's "The Great God Pan" demo tape landed the group a deal with Black Lotus Records

Nordvargr - Interseller

Inspired by the power of space, infinite distances and emptiness. Nordvargr himself speaks of his release: "To me there is no greater evil than the emptiness of space, totally hostile and unfriendly to all life - an opposite to existence, at the same time the mother of all we know.” The album is marked out by heavy and meaty sounds, strong dark ambient exhaust for creation of whom Nordvargr used only field recordings and sounds made by space objects transmitted by satellites. Very dark, black ambient.This release was limited to 444 pieces.

Decrepitaph - Condemned Cathederal

"The old days will never return", retort Decrepitaph Drummer/ Ringleader Elektrokutioner.

Condemned Cathederal - full length album and it is just heavy, barely does this slab of Asphynx grooves and oppressive horror. Elektrokutioner recalls Decrepitatph's strive to sound no different than their contemporaries - contemporaries that were recorded 20 years ago.

" In early days of death metal, the riffs mattered and now they just get lost in a sea of worthless modern non-sense and cheap computer-generated artwork." Furthermore, "To me, death metalis supposed to sound evil more tha anything else. These new waves of band are too concerned with how they need drum triggers and $3000 half-stacks and Pro tools to be deathe metal, and it's just not true"

"Condemned Cathederal was recorded in a little less than a week - 'less is more', indeed. We could do a lot more in our songs if we wanted to, but there's really no point. I'm not out to impress Berklee graduates or make audiophiles gasp at how crystal-clear our production is because neither of those things has everything to do with the vibe of real death metal."

"Condemned Cathederal came out exactly 2 month ago (as per today), and we already have 11 songs written for the next album" With handfull of 7"s, splits and the looming second full banger on the way, these graven doomster will not soon be leaving this mortal coil for the cemetery of ill-forgotten meatl death

origin : Massachusetts, USA