The track list is as follows:

1. Welcome To Nova Praetoria
2. Just Another Day In Utopia
3. Run Resistance, Run
4. Chasing The Dream
5. Beyond The Horizon
6. Shadow Of Doubt
7. Building A Better Tomorrow
8. Very Dark Places
9. The Dark Side Of A Perfect World
10. The Tempest
11. Stepping Into The Void
12. Ghost In The Machine
13. The Hamidon Wars

As you can see the titles have some reflection of the new content and how it is going to feel, Well sound (music-wise), to us players.

If you are fan or just interested I’d head over to Amazon and sample the previews. And don’t worry the second song isn’t a Phil Collins cover.

2010 the year that I mostly feel a mixture of happiness and exhaustion, I’m still adjusting to mangining my time in a new manner. Gone are those 6 hours gaming stints, I appear to just grab smaller chunks of time here and there as my gameplay charts shows and it’s easy to see what my major time sink has been recently.

I recently spotted that there is a Dawn of War II expansion (addon) called Chaos Rising due out at the beinging of March, which is rather cool as I’ve started replaying the game while reading the novel. The book is very enjoyable if you are a fan of the 40k universe and details alot of the backstory that isn’t in the game.

Well that is enough ramblings for now.

Now Playing  : VNV Nation – Standing

Later that day on my bus journey home was listening to extended version of Anthrax’s Sound of white noise album which has a rather cool cover of Thin Lizzys Cowboy Song, two occurances

So during a late night game of Ryzom (that had just downloaded, more soon) I finally gave in and stuck on Dedication : The very best of Thin Lizzy, which suited the game rather well.

Sunday night Mr. Dok came around and with Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits and GH: Metallica both of which totally rocked. We rocked out to a awesome selection of different tunes, damn hard at times tho. Of course we finished the evening with a The boys are back in town again.

Continuing this list of linked occurrences I put the radio on while having a bath and happened upon Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds on radio 2. It wasn’t the original but a recently recorded version, but when I turned it on just happened to be at the section “Parson Nathaniel”, which in the original recording was performed by Phil Lynott.

I thought at the time, I should really get a re-mastered version of the musical. So I was well please when I tuned in to the Through the Aftermath podcast and heard a rather fantastic version of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast as performed by Jonathan.

I have to admit I wasn’t planning on purchasing this until the new year but I was very excited by all the new shiny components. So on Friday evening we started on the career mode for our band JAM BADGER.

I got stuck into the drums while Rach stepped up and took on the task of singer. It was tricky to start with but we soon got the hang of it and tore our way through a good few gigs.

On Saturday Dok visited and we made some serious progress into the track listings. It is quite silly that you earn more cash from single player than group play, which meant that some solo parts had to be played before we could unlock the Tool gig.

I think one of the hardest tracks but also the most satisfying was System of a Down – B.Y.O.B.

Dok highlighted the fact there are potentially issues with the drum kits, he’s experienced this on his Xbox GH drum-kit where the green drum isn’t working at all now. He also highlighted the fact that Activision have admitted issue with the drum-kit and will be supplying drum tuning kits. The only issue with my drum-kit is that it can activate star power by accident, so not all bad just quite annoying.

But all in all I really enjoyed playing it, top stuff Rachy.

EDIT: it appears that Dok has resolved his issues with the drum-kit.

All that said it's a damn fine offering including a few new tracks from the Punk Cabaret duo. Also on the album is a cover of Psychedelic Furs – Pretty in pink which is very different and also very good.

This album isn't really one to pick for anyone that wants to start listening to the band but for fans it's well worth getting.

Track listing:
1 Dear Jenny
2 Night Reconnaissance
3 The Mouse and the Model
4 Ultima Esperanza
5 The Gardener
6 Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner
7 Sorry Bunch
8 Pretty in Pink
9 The Kill
10 The Sheep Song
11 Boston

Cavalera Conspiracy : Inflikted
I hadn't heard that this album was out so it was quite a suprise when dok starting playing in his car asking me to guess the band. So he grabbed me a copy as my birthday present.

This debut album by the Cavalera brothers Max and Igor and was interestingly produced by Logan Mader. It was indicated as being similar to Sepultura's earlier work but with heavier undertones.

I've just spent the last couple of hours with it playing in the background and I have to admit it's bloody good. The whole album feels very new and raw but at the same time very familiar. This albums captures all that good about the brothers earlier work and takes up a lot of notches.

If you liked early Sepultura then seek out this album.

Track listing:
1 Inflikted
2 Sanctuary
3 Terrorize
4 Black Ark
5 Ultra-Violent
6 Hex
7 The Doom Of All Fires
8 Bloodbrawl
9 Nevertrust
10 Hearts Of Darkness
11 Must Kill

Annoyingly I just spotted that the band is going to be at Download and doing one show in London ont he 17th of this month. Too short notice sadly as I've like to have caught them live.

After purchasing some band merchandise Dok took leave of his senses and bought us drinks from the bar. Now I understand that venues inflate the prices, but really the percentage of profits raked in at such events even if each person bought only 1 drink .

Anyway back to the gig.
We caught the last 3 songs of the support act named illuminatus, who seemed pretty good. From what I've seen there was a different support band on each gig of the tour.

At 8:30 Ministry took to a fenced off stage with a lowered area in front of Al's goat skull adorned mic stand. The band strolled on with Al looking like a metal version of Fagan, including a hat that appeared to have animal ear attached to it.

Getting right into the swing of things the first song was Let's Go followed up with The Dick Song.
The next 3 songs also from the last sucker album Watch Yourself, Life is Good and finally The Last Sucker.

After unleashing the last sucker tracks the focus changed to the “Houses of the Molé” playing the first 4 tracks in order: No W, Waiting, Worthless and finally Wrong.

Switching to yet another album the tracks came think and fast from Rio Grande Blood, starting with the title song Rio Grande Blood followed by Senor Peligro. LiesLiesLies one of my favourites from the album was next and this section of the gig was completed with the song Khyber Pass.

So after an hour I managed to mosh away to the last 3 albums, I really should have kept my energy as the next section was to be the most furious with a selection of tracks from the earlier albums.

Beginning with So What each following song upped the BPM and got the crowd moving. Then came N.W.O. the one alot of people had been holding back for, it was quickly followed up by Just One Fix. The last song in this section was the wonderful Thieves which was one of the first Ministry tracks I ever heard and one that encouraged my following for the band.
A poor number from the earlier albums but classic choices all the same.

The final part of the show comprised of covers, the first was Just Got Paid by ZZ Top which was fantastic and quite fitting as it was from the 'Rio Grande Mud' album that Ministry parodied with there 2006 album. The next two songs appear on the last Ministry album “Cover Up” starting with Roadhouse Blues originally by The Doors and to be honest this cover is fast, heavy and a great change to the original.

The last song to be played was Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World which starts in very deep mellow tones and builds up into a crescendo, bursting into a fast and frenzied 2nd half of the song.

Now there was a bit of talk both after the gig and about other shows that considering it was a farewell tour there was too much new material and less from the older albums. Admittedly the setlist wasn't the same as they played for the US leg of the tour but I feel that the post Paul Barker albums were more writing and performing with other musicians but all things considered it was still a rather fitting set for their goodbye.

Overall it was a great gig to attend and I'm rather glad I went.

Adios Ministry!

At least 15 seconds after the introduction voice started speaking, the audience was laughing loudly and it's at that point we knew the laughter wasn't really going to stop and we knew it was going to be a damn fine show.

There where too numerous musical references to mention here, plus I don't want to spoil it for others that plan on seeing the show, but the Peter Gabriel/trouser press moment had me absolutely crying with laughter, along with the Katie Melua – Nine Million Bicycles parody.

The encore comprised of more jokes and the 2 classic Bill songs “love song” and “Das Hokey Kokey”, with Kevin Eldon onstage along with Bill for the later song.

I was very please that the show wasn't just all music, there was quite a bit of stand-up and lots of crowd interaction sprinkled among the melodies.

As is the normal at the CIA in Cardiff, We were crammed in like sardines and it got very hot in the arena area, yet this fact couldn't detract from the greatest that is Bill Bailey.

I caught this video over on the Dresden Dolls blog. Oddly I was only listening to the Dead Kennedys last week and this song being one of my favourites, I hope it makes it onto a future album.

Moon Over Marin from Amanda Palmer on Vimeo.

I've had a listen to one of the new songs on my space, with guest vocals from Burton C. Bell, it's in a different vein from the last albums and had a little Dead kennedys vibe to it.

The track listing as as follows:

1. Let's Go 4:52
2. Watch Yourself 5:28
3. Life Is Good 4:15
4. The Dick Song 5:50
5. The Last Sucker 5:59
6. No Glory 3:41
7. Death & Destruction 3:31
8. Roadhouse Blues 4:26
9. Die In A Crash 4:03
10. End Of Days (Part 1) 3:22
11. End Of Days (Part 2) 10:24

This is going to be the last studio album from Ministry according to Al Jourgensen, but is soound like this is going to be a bumper farewell edition. The Digipack CD has 8 fold-out panels and includes a Pop-up book.

I'll review it as soon as i can get my grubby mits on it.

Additionally there is the new K.M.F.D.M album out now too called Tohuvabohu.

I'm quite looking forward to this offering from Sascha and Co. I thought Hau Ruck was a damn fine album and hopefully this will be on par if not better.

Track are as follows:
1. Superpower
2. Looking For Strange
3. Tohuvabohu
4. I Am What I Am
5. Saft Und Kraft
6. Headcase
7. Los Ninos Del Parque
8. Not In My Name
9. Spit Or Swallow
10. Fait Accompli
11. Bumaye

You can check some of the new songs out on the bands Myspak.

Some good news for kaRIN & Statik, must have been that advertising in a Foamy episode.