Koji Kondo — The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Hyrule Symphony

8/10 Symphony is a bit of a misnomer. This is Zelda music played almost exclusively by a string quartet with a few other instrumental flourishes (including what sounds like an actual Ocarina). With that out of the way, this disc is sublime. If you are a Zelda fan in the least, I don’t see any

Koji Kondo (A Tribute)

A few months ago, I broke down the large majority of John Williams’ life’s work. Williams provided the soundtrack to my youth, and possibly the youth of hundreds of millions of others. So did Koji Kondo. While Williams is as household a name as a composer can be, Kondo’s is a bit more obscure. His

Killswitch Engage — Disarm the Descent

8/10 Killswitch Engage’s sixth album, Disarm the Descent, features the band reunited with their original frontman, Jesse Leach. After three albums of work with the band, vocalist, Howard Jones, had to leave because of personal illness. The band turned to Leach to fill Jones’ formidable shoes…after Jones had already filled his. This move pays off,

Killswitch Engage — The End of Heartache

8/10 A decade ago, every other touring band was not a metalcore band (metalcore combines metal with hardcore), and after a decade of every other touring band being a metalcore band, every other touring band is again not a metalcore band. Killswitch Engage released two albums before 2004’s The End of Heartache, but The End

NSB — NEVER STOP BLOGGING

In just three months, the Nicsperiment will be ten years old! That’s older than some of the kids in my engineering courses! We’re also closing in on 1000 posts, but that’s a milestone that will likely only be hit in good old 2015. I love this blog! Ten years! That’s nuts!

See You In a Week

Or maybe Friday. I have three tests this week, and can thus, not tell where I end and school begins. It’s definitely easier in your 20’s. Here is one of my favorite live recordings ever. Five guys in a room in awe of the sounds they are creating.  So good, at the end Thom Yorke

Goodbye, Kent Reviews

I spent the entire summer writing you, as I listened to Kent’s sweet, sweet catalogue over and over again. What’s that, spell-check? Catalogue isn’t a word? HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME!!!Seriously, Kent is a great band. If I encouraged just one person who had never heard them to check them out, this whole “Every Album

GO GET YOUR FREE NEW U2 ALBUM

Never thought I’d say this, but THANKS APPLE.

Kent — Tigerdrottningen

9/10 After all these Kent reviews, I’d hate to end on a sour note. Good thing I don’t have to. Tigerdrottningen (in English, “The Tiger Queen”), Kent’s eleventh full-length album, is a return to the more exciting, sexier, cooler world Kent inhabited at the peak of their career. Frontman, Joakim Berg, has plenty of muses

Kent — Jag är inte rädd för mörkret

7/10 After listening to Kent’s tenth album, Jag är inte rädd för mörkret, a couple of times, I believed the band had lost it. Opening track, “999,” is quite sentimental, and frankly, the kind of song only an older band would record. Nothing else stood out to me, except for track six, “Beredd på allt,”