The Aculeus Review

It has been a long time coming, but you are now reading The Aculeus's 100th post. Today I'm celebrating the festivities by reviewing some of the most classic articles as published here on this very site. I give you, The Aculeus Review.

The Dark Knight Rises Review - 7/30/12

There are all sorts of things going just utterly wrong here. It almost looks as if it's composed in a list format and it makes me wonder if the person who wrote it had ever read another film review in their life. Why the hell does it keep breaking up the text into short thought paragraphs? Also, who the fuck chose these shitty images? Is that a creepy joke implying that Anne Hathaway is hot?

While touching on some important points, this article seems to miss the big picture. It's difficult to get a coherent idea of what the film is actually like due to the way it's constantly interrupting itself. It's just too brief in it's thoughts and it would be improved if the writer had let each point be elaborated rather then just laying the bare minimum.

2/10 - Not bad points, but lacks direction

Moving right along.

Let's Talk About Manga... - 7/29/12

To this day, I'm not sure what the purpose of this article is. The author simply goes about tearing apart this poor DeviantArtist's work as if it were being compared to the Mona Lisa. People make shitty art every day, it's not a crime. I also love the way the author tries to cover it up at the end by giving a bullshit moral like, "If you aren't good, you shouldn't submit!" Who the hell is this guy anyway? What gives him the authority to tell people not to post? Some poor ten year old probably drew this and I'll bet this article broke his heart.

3/10 - Funny but seemingly useless and overtly mean spirited

Up next...

Gas Powered Toaster Ovens - 10/21/12

Very well stated, touched on a strongly controversial topic, got to the "gut" of the issue and prodded "the real questions".

8.25/10 - Very intriguing

Keep it up.

Prometheus Review - 7/30/12

July 30th was a dark day for online journalism. This review is simply far too short to base any sort of opinion towards the aforementioned film. I like how the author felt the need to say that bullshit at the top in order to excuse the review's pained existence. As if people are going to give a damn, they have to go and make a weird excuse like that.

Oh, and thanks for telling us what other reviewals said about this movie. I mean, it's not like I couldn't already look them up, right? This article doesn't seem to have it's opinion made up about the film at all and the author just sort of circumvents the topic. What an asshole.

4/10 - Waste of time

Last but least...

I Hate This - 7/30/12

What the fuck even is this article? Can this actually be considered journalism? It's just one run-on sentence that states things that everyone already knows. Does that say ">mfw"? Are we trying to greentext on other websites now? I can't deduce much from this work because, well, there's simply not enough substance to talk about. Utter trash. "I Hate This"? Try "I Hate This Article".

0/10 - Takes ten seconds to read, but you could be spending them wiser

All in all, this site sucks, and I'm amazed that anyone still reads it. You're out there somewhere, fans. Thanks for the readers and thanks to the regulars for sticking with me through it. Here's to the next 100.

V/H/S

V/H/S is a horror film that does not follow the conventional plot progression of most films. It's one of those rare anthology horror movies wherein it is comprised of multiple smaller, "short" flicks put into one. It's much in tune with the drive-in sort of feel and reminds me strongly of a modernized Creepshow.

The story goes that a group of deviant, rapscallion twenty-year-olds carry out all sorts of high-profile law-breaking on camera for money. These sort of acts include breaking into a warehouse and destroying everything in sight, or attacking a random woman on the street and pulling her top off. So in short, they're real charmers.

One of the stunts they're tasked with, at the request of an anonymous source, is to break into a specific house to steal a video tape. Upon entry, they find that the only resident is a dead man sitting in front of a TV turned to static, who seems to have had a collection of hundreds of unmarked video tapes. So they start grabbing them all up in order to ensure that they get the right one. While this is happening, one of the criminals stays back to play whatever tape was in the VCR. The rest of the film is just the contents of this tape and a few other subsequent tapes that are inserted afterword.

It's unfortunate to note that the contents of these tapes, that is the selling point, are none too interesting. I found that they were all very much the same, i.e. "something is stalking me/us in the end it kills me".

The first is about some guys who are trying to record an amateur porn with a spy camera that's placed on the glasses of one of the perverts. As it happens one of the chicks turns out to be something other than human and she viciously murders two of them; and I mean fucking viciously, it actually shows her tearing off a dude's dick and balls. Why that's needed at all, I have no idea, it's obviously just in there for shock-value. Anyway, the third guy, who couldn't be worse at running away, makes it all the way outside before the demon-girl-thing sprouts bat-like wings and takes him away... so basically, what the fuck.

Demon-chick before demon-mode.

It's unfortunate that this film seems to stray away from being genuinely creepy; it almost gets there several times. Rather, it's more partial to gross-out gore, which is fine in small doses. Say, for instance, if only one of the tapes contained anything graphic, that'd be effective. Cramming violence into all of them is boring, cliche and not scary at all.

The following tape is worse, not in it's gore-factor, but in it's necessity. It's just about newly married couple on a honeymoon doing normal things. However when they spend the night in a motel, someone wearing a hood breaks in and removes $100 from the guy's wallet, pulls out a switchblade and doesn't do anything with it and scariest of all, throws a toothbrush into the toilet. The next day, the couple does more normal shit and then the following night the hooded person breaks into their motel again, this time stabbing the dude in the throat with the switchblade. Then we see the hooded guy is actually some chick and she starts making out with the woman who's husband just died and then it ends.

So not only is this installment not even remotely scary, it serves no point. Why should I care about the going ons of some couple I know nothing about and am not invested in. Not to mention, it's the only tape without anything supernatural going on, which only furthers the notion that it's simply adding runtime which thusly stands just shy of two fucking hours which is just way too long.

It's almost as if they tried to make them as cliche and predictable as possible and in that they succeeded.

The next clip is nothing short of a Friday the 13th knockoff and is about four teenagers who head out to a remote lake in the woods because one of them goes there every year. Ten seconds into this episode and you'd have to be an idiot to think that any of them are going to survive. But that's not enough foreshadowing already because we then get to hear the girl tell a chilling story about how a bunch of people were killed at this very lake! I mean, it isn't like we've all heard this a million times before, right? Well, as it turns out, there's a killer afoot who is only partially visible and appears to be obscured by glitchy tracking-errors and the girl lured all of her friends here in order to try and kill this guy. She fails, he kills all four of them with ease and eviscerates the girl. Fucking exciting.

There's almost no point in continuing to summarize these, they're not very interesting or very different. It bugs me that they all ended up using the same tired gimmicks over and over again. The found footage genre is clearly on it's last legs and by the end of this film, I was sick of it.

Creepshow remains the time-tested best example of an anthology horror movie. In that film, you get five totally different flicks that play on cliches but just enough so that it's not predictable and it's mixed with inventiveness that you don't see anywhere else. What we have in V/H/S is unvaried sameness that is only made worse by the found footage aspect which, while convincing and well done, serves to make all of the films that much more identical.

I think V/H/S had a lot of potential. If the content of the tapes had been genuinely creepy and mysterious rather than just gory and predictable, it would've made for a much more chilling experience. Don't show us three guys getting killed by a monster, there are literally hundreds of movies where that exact thing happens. Show us something we can't explain, something that leaves us to fill in the blanks; at least, that's how I would make it.

V/H/S was an interesting idea that had terrible execution. It ended up as some awkward cross between The Blair Witch Project and Goosebumps and put the final nail in the coffin of the found-footage revival that's been going ever since the first Paranormal Activity. V/H/S had it's moments, but they were few and far between and not worth it enough to sit through. It's a fine example of how shock-value and jump-out horror only goes so far.

4.5/10 - Could've been much better

Top 10 Albums of 2013

First of all, welcome to 2014!
It seems like just the other day when I was posting Top 10 Albums of 2012. Alas, another year has passed by and it's been a pretty good one for music so let's get started, shall we?

(Note: The albums here can be clicked on to be viewed in higher resolution.)

10. Shpongle - Museum of Consciousness

When it comes to anomalous trippiness, there are few artists who do it better than Shpongle. I would still consider the debut album, Are You Shpongled?, to be his undisputed best work, but Museum of Consciousness may just be the greatest since. This album is markedly brighter and smoother than most of Shpongle's previous works and it has more of a flow to it. This sound is created in part by the heavy implementation of flutes and other woodwind instruments and it makes this whole album very soothing in nature. While the usual gibberish vocals are commonplace here, there is plenty of clearly worded english as well, which is a bit unusual for Shpongle, but it works, just like everything else.

9. October Falls - The Plague of a Coming Age

The Opeth inspired ambient/folk/dark metal band, October Falls released their fourth studio album this year and it doesn't disappoint. Labeling this album as one specific genre would be difficult as it's mood is all over the place. It goes from folk to doom to progressive to black all in 51 beautifully ambient minutes. The usage of clean vocals are reminiscent of mid-period Katatonia while acoustic interludes bring to mind influential bands like Agalloch. The greater number of tracks in this release compared to their other works allow the band more experimentation with dynamics and tempo and it's just another thing that makes The Plague of a Coming Age unique and varied.

8. 8 - Uneven Structure

No, I'm not giving this album the number eight spot just so I can say eight is 8 (the eighth song is titled 8 and it's eight minutes so I can already say eight on 8 is 8 for eight minutes). Uneven Structure has such a strong progressive feel to it and 8, despite being a 25 minute EP, is an amazing work of djent that's deserved of much more recognition than it's currently getting. The Meshuggah inspired group is full of distorted screams and blends polyrhythmic-passages and low bass tunings with heavy layerings and ambience and the result is something you just have to sit back and listen to. 8 is a work that flows from beginning to end and if heard all at once, it can be difficult to guess where each song ends and the next begins. Well worth 25 minutes of your time.

7. In Vain - Ænigma

Norwegian, progressive death/black metal, sextuplet, In Vain released their third full-length album titled Ænigma this year. Equal parts melodic, abrasion and atmosphere; incredibly and surprisingly catchy hooks, brutal riffing and impressively tight tremolos are all amazing features of this work but they are not what make it a standout gem. Rather, the varied vocal working which transitions from core-inspired guttural growls, screams and shrieks that borrow from black metal, hauntingly beautiful clean vocal segments and musically complex more energetic singing and shouts make for an experience that can't help but captivate. The lyrical themes of war, inner-struggles for meaning, loss and questioning the future of humanity only make for an even darker ambience that gives me chills every time I hit replay.

6. Ulver - Messe I.X - VI.X

Experimental is a broad genre that the tenth studio album by Ulver, Messe, could be found under. I'm not sure there are too many albums that quite capture dark and mournful ethereality as Ulver does with this masterpiece. While Ulver is well known for their start in the black metal genre with legendary albums such as Bergtatt still holding a formidable title within the metal community, they have long since strayed from traditional music forms and Messe I.X-VI.X is an elaborately eerie work. With almost no vocals to speak of, all of them clean, Ulver has pulled a serious 180 since their days as black metal in the early and mid 90's. Messe is an atmospheric landscape that simply takes you somewhere else when you're listening to it. As one EM reviewer put it,

"This album is a great example (even for today's cynical and over-experienced standards) of contemporary academic music mixed with the very edges of the Ulver brand, post-industrial ambient."

It's a haunting work that I've found myself playing over and over again. It is stripped of rock and metal elements and remains only the bare and chilling soul. A modern classical masterwork.

5. Aborym - Dirty

Yet another album that I repeatedly find myself replaying over and over again, Dirty by industrial-black metalists, Aborym is just as the title says, quite dirty indeed. It's music that has been referred to as "jaundiced" but in a positive way. It's a sticky and thick sounding work that is plagued with rampant distortions and moments that almost sound like glitches. It's far from anything beautiful, rather it has a filthy luster to it that is sprawling and enticing to the ear. It may not be as unrelenting as some other harder black metal influences, but it's still a great album to play at full blast and it's catchiness makes up for that completely.

4. Deafheaven - Sunbather

Before you accuse me of jumping on the Deafheaven bandwagon, hear me out. Sunbather is probably one of, if not, the first and only black metal album to receive resounding acclaim and to almost be regarded as something close to popular. It has made it's way into to all sorts of praising including NPR's top 50 albums of 2013 (a remarkably unbiased list that's worth checking out, by the way) and rightfully so. Deafheaven have gone beyond the confines of stigma and genre to create a sound that is wholly theirs. It combines traditional and post-black metal elements with contemporary rock sounds and bright, romantic acoustics, interludes and choral progressions. The vocals are screeched and sound authentic and pure and what has generally been regarded as an aberrant and contrast works amazingly well in Sunbather. Deafheaven may very well have created an entirely new genre with this release, time will tell if it can garner a following.

3. Apocynthion - Sidereus Nuncius

For the atmospheric connoisseurs, Sidereus Nuncius is about as airy and ethereal as it gets. Drawing inspiration from other masters of the genre and even naming the group after a track by artist, Nhor, of the same name, Apocynthion is a dramatic post-black metal and post-rock fusion that while maintaining a strongly atmospheric tone manages to sound wholly raw when the metal actually kicks in. I've played this album probably more than a dozen times and I still feel as though there are pieces and meanings buried beneath it that I have yet to uncover. With a low production value, it's amazing that this album sounds as good as it does and if Apocynthion are ever picked up (and I do hope that they are) they could be putting out some seriously game-changing works that appeals to more than just the metal crowd but also branches out to the rock groupies as well. A great album that sounds like the music of nebulae in deep space and has a strongly off-earth feel to it.

2. Thrawsunblat - Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings

In stark contrast to the spacey, anything-but-here vibe that comes from Sidereus Nuncius, Thrawsunblat has a predominantly folk/black metal sound and is about as earthy as it gets. This as-of-yet unsigned Canadian trio has folk down pat but also manages to remain effectively melodic in nature. With songs such as Once Fireveined fleshing out the band's variability and utilizing both screams and clean vocals reminiscent of bands like Windir; others such as Maritime Shores that showcase the band's affluence with true, unbridled folk music, serving as a great break from the heavier material and also managing to be distinguished and not simply filler; and finally to heavier tracks like Borea that are unrelenting and almost thrashy; Thrawsunblat sounds very authentic and undistorted which perfectly accentuates the natural focus of the album. A captivating work and one of my favorite folk metal pieces.

1. Nhor - Within the Darkness Between the Starlight

In all of my purest honesty, my words cannot effectively describe this masterpiece of an album. It is dark and emotional, eerie and atmospheric, earthy and ethereal. This one man project, who is referred to only as Nhor, is as beautifully vibrant as it is devastatingly mournful. It seamlessly flows from soft, sorrowful scintillating piano pieces into anguished and echoed black metal passages. It's a patient work but requires your full attention the entire time. It's a very unpredictable album that's shrouded in a somber haze and the music feels distant as if it were a memory.
Tracks like the title song, along with it's intro piece, are intensely melancholy; their slow pace allowing for introspection and imagery to work their ways into the mind. After having listened to the intro track, A Forest Draped In Moonlight, hearing next song kick in with Nhor's reverberating screams is among the most chilling experiences I've ever had with metal. The following tracks are just as essential and the album keeps pace with itself, never losing that darkened tone or rushing itself. Piano interludes abound, the longest being on The Temple of Growth And Glimmer Ascends. Never do these seem boring or like filler; they set up the melody and give contrasting accent to the harsher parts making them all the more effective. It is in this way that Nhor has the incredible ability to utilize the silence as if it were an instrument of it's own and it's a beautifully somber work because of it.
That's what this work does so masterfully; it paints such vivid images into my mind. When I close my eyes, I can see the pinpricks of light in the velvet black of night, taste the faint bite of winter and feel the longing nostalgic breezes. It's comparable to stepping out of reality and into a dream. I cannot understate this album. From beginning to end, it utterly captivates me and I find myself so deeply enveloped in it's spell that any outside rousing seems jarring to me. There is no point that is any weaker than the last. It's poetry in a non-verbal form.

Honorable Mention

Imperium Dekadenz - Meadows of Nostalgia

October Tide - Tunnel of No Light

Impending Doom - Death Will Reign

Means End - The Didact

Entities - Aether

I would also like to point out that had I made the 2012 list now, it would look a bit different. Most notably Ashen Eidolon by Gallowbraid would be in the top slot as the best album of that year. It's amazing and you should check it out.