Mini album reviews: Sylvan, Triumvirat, Shadow Gallery, Ayreon, Spock's Beard

Here are albums I recently acquired, with a very summary review, and a star rating (number of stars out of 5). I will not make extensive reviews as you can find many on the web anyway. Some of these are fairly recent albums, others are older albums I have, or used to have, on vinyl, which I eventually wanted to purchase on CD. So here we go...





Sylvan - Posthumous Silence. This is one of the most highly acclaimed progressive rock album of 2006, from this German band, so I decided to check it out. Mostly after hearing some samples on their web page, I was very interested. It's the band's fifth album (they actually already have a sixth album out at this date), and it's one of those concept albums, meaning that it's written like a story that unfolds through the album. Most of the time you will also find musical elements that are present in multiple places, depending on what part of the story is being told. This is a very good album. You will find a lot of elements of prog, from mellow to heavy, melodic, emotional and complex. The recording quality is excellent, as is the musicianship. I must admit though that I should probably listen to it a few more times to appreciate it fully, and follow the lyrics to better understand the story, which I did not have the opportunity to do yet.


My rating: ****½



Triumvirat - Illusions on a Double Dimple (remastered). I've been planning to fill a whole in my CD collection, that should be filled with my four favorite Triumvirat albums, mostly since these are now remastered, with extra tracks, all this for a fairly good price. This is one of them. Triumvirat is not as widely known as the classic prog rock bands of the 70's, but they are just as good. They are often referred to as the German counterpart of british band ELP (or Emerson, Lake and Palmer), and with reason. Jürgen Fritz is a masterful keyboard player, and I always found that Triumvirat's music was more accessible than ELP's, even though they we not as successful after all, if my information is correct. This album is like two short stories (one per "side" - remember this was originally on vinyl record). It shows that Fritz has a classical background, and the trio does deliver.

My rating: ****



Triumvirat - Spartacus (remastered). Hey, there's that rat again! What a fugly cover, that is! and has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this album either. And the writing is in neon-disco blue, while it talks about and anciant roman-era hero (fictitious, if I recall correctly). But, that's just the cover, and the content is as good as the cover is ugly. This is arguably the best work from the German band. Another concept album, but there is not a single weak track, and all holds well together. Many would say they are ELP copy-cats, but I think they stand on their own. But they do sound similar though. I really enjoyed the extra studio track, which I never heard before, as well as the extra live tracks. I'm really not a big fan of live recordings, but since I had never heard the 'rat live before, I did enjoy it. And it shows how well they played together, and how good musicians they were.

My rating: *****



Shadow Gallery - Tyranny. My first Shadow Gallery album was Room V, which I really liked. But Room V was the follow-up story to one of their previous albums, Tyranny. So I had to get it, as I also read that it was a good album. I must admit I was a little dissapointed, as I was expecting the quality I heard on Room V. But I did not. It's not a bad album though, far from it. The musical style is between metal and prog-metal, as it is not prog all the way. It is probably their second best album after Room V.

My Rating: ***½




Ayreon - Actual Fantasy Revisited (CD + DVD package). This is a re-recording of Ayreon's second album, Actual Fantasy. One big improvement for me is that all the drums were re-recorded with a real drummer, while the original recording used a drum machine. Again, an excellent Ayreon album, as A. A. Lucassen only is able to do. The package I bought also contains a bonus DVD with a 5.1 remixe of the entire album, a video for Stranger From Within, and a documentary on the making of the album. Very nice package I must say. Arjen is always generous on what he offers as extras for his fans, and that is very much appreciated.

My rating: ****½




Spock's Beard - Beware of Darkness (special edition). I put this album amoung the best ones from SB, after The Light, V and Snow. The other albums all have excellent tracks on them as well, but they also have weak ones. Beware of Darkness is very strong, and has two of my all-time Beard favorites: Doorway and Waste Away. This version of the album has been remastered, but I don't know if it makes that big of a difference since I always though their albums sounded pretty good to start with. Maybe if I listened to both side by side, I would heard the difference... The extra tracks don't bring much to the album I think. They are demo versions of two track. To me, demo = unfinished versions, so why bother, mostly when there is nothing noticeably different from the finished version. If the demo was somewhat different, or completely different, it would be more interesting, but they are not. Nevertheless, one of the best SB album, which of course, I did not have on CD already...

My rating: ****

My new Logitech Harmony 670 remote

I'm not the kind of guy who cares about remotes really, although remote controls are very much a guy-thing. My wife would say that I'm not a guy-thing guy at all to start with anyway, except maybe for a few things (don't worry, I do put the toilet seat up before I pee... :o). Jokes aside, I was truly getting tired of manipulating all our remotes, even though we have only four of them - yeah it's not THAT much, some have up to 7 or 8. And also, not that I blame them, but my wife and kids tend to not know what to do with them when one setting is off from our regular settings. For example, I like to watch our recorded TV programs on the amplifier (or receiver, most call it I think) to get the surround sound, or simply a better sound overall even if surround was not available. I find that it is worth it just for the voices that come out much clearer through the amp. But to do that, I have to change a setting on the digital cable receiver, and if I forget to switch it back, then they won't know how (that setting in particular, you really have to know where it is as it's really not obvious to find).

For those reasons and more, I've been investigating Logitech's Harmony suite of remotes. Reading reviews here and there, looking at the different options of the different models available, and asking questions to people who already owned one. I had a pretty good feeling this was the remote I needed. It seemed to have enough compatibility and flexibility to accommodate anything and everything I would need it to do. The only thing stopping me every time I considered them was... the price! God they are pricey, for my taste anyway, for something that does things you already can do with what you have, but in a more convenient way. They go up to $600 for the most expensive one!!! Mind you, I don't think they have any worthy competitors. None that I have heard of anyway. So they have no incentive to bring the price down that much...

Came a special on the Dell web site: $90 off on the 670 model, to bring it down to just under $100. The best price I've seen yet, even compared to e-bay, where they almost always sell for an amount too close to the retail amount (factor in the shipping and the US to CAD conversion, and it's even less a deal). I decided to buy it. Here's how it looks like (yes, it Glows!!!):



Bottom line? I like it! Like many reviews say, it can be a bit of a hassle to set up, but not in every case. One thing is certain though: you HAVE to know in which input your components are plugged in your TV and in your amplifier. You pretty much have to know how everything is hooked up together. I hooked up my home system myself, so I knew. But I can easily imagine someone who does not know heck about this kind of system, having headaches trying to set up the remote. It does try though to make things as simple as possible, but there's only so much it can do.

The basic setting is pretty simple: write down all of your component's brand and model, and enter them in the interface (oh and, you have to set up an account because the setup software it's web-based, but that's not harder than any other web sign up). Then you set up the "activities" as it suggests you (it is actually pretty good at knowing what you can do with what you have - for instance, I did not remember I could actually listen to radio on my amp!). If you are lucky and all works perfectly, then you're already done, unless you want to add some custom activities. It gets more time consuming when you have to do adjustments. In my case, I had to adjust the time delay it should be using when switching from one video input to another on my television. Otherwise, it would perform the switch to quickly, and my TV would not register it, thus not switching input correctly. It would end up on the wrong input. But that's more my TVs fault, since it works that way, and fortunately, the Harmony remote allows such an adjustment. After that, all worked perfectly. Press on "Watch TV", and it opens only what is needed, puts everything on the right inputs, and the control buttons on the remote control the correct components (ex: the channel buttons changes channel on the digital receiver, but the volume buttons change the volume on the amp). Then press on "Watch a Movie", and it closes what needs to be closed, and opens what needs to be opened, etc. And of course, the "Off" button closes everything. It remembers what you were doing so that it knows what to perform next. All in all, I spent maybe an hour total to set it up. But once it's done, all works perfectly. It's a charm!

At the movies: 300

Boy am I glad I saw this one in the theaters!! For me, theaters are move for visually attractive movies, otherwise my home theater does a pretty good job for anything else. Mind you, I do not have the opportunity to see all the movies I think is worth seeing in the theaters. And for those, my home theater still does a pretty good job, but I often say "I can't imagine what that movie would've been like in the theaters!".



Anyway, 300 was worth going to the cinema for, because it delivered. The ultimate eye candy. Yes, basically it's simply the story of a battle, with a backgroud story of how the Spartans lived. But still, I think it gives just enough to pick your curiosity about Sparta. Me and MommyBabou afterwards went on the internet to read a bit about the story of the 300's. And it seems like Frank Miller remained faithful to the true story, as it is known. You would think he had exaggerated as some places, and he probably did. But in some parts, like for the first troops that were sent to fight the 300's, he actually understated the numbers.


Another thing we were amazed about, is the movie production. It was shot entirely on green screen! Look here for more trivia info on the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/trivia . The visual effects people really did a good job. The texture of the image probably played a role in the seamlessness of it, but it was still amazing work.

iMac sold!

OK, it seems like I had to rant about it in order to get a buyer for the thing? The guy is going to enjoy it. I was also a little sad to see it go since we were losing money on it. And it was a very nice machine. But like I said before, it just wasn't cutting it, and since we're techno-geeks, something had to be done about it.

YAY!

New Rush single

From the forthcoming album, to be released on May 1st, listen to the new single here: http://www.rush.com

YAY!!!

Seriously interested buyers.. yeah right!

Why is it that when I put stuff for sale on newsgroups and online classified ads, there's always a bunch of people claiming that they are "seriously interested", and then end up being not interested after all? WTF is wrong with you people? Ask questions, that's fine, but don't say you are interested if you don't know yet! And there are those who offer you trades... my add does not say "for trade" or "for sale or trade", does it? It baffles me... I even got someone offering me puppies in exchange for a 51" TV I sold not long ago... o.O

I'm currently selling an iMac. I know it's a big purchase for a potential buyer, we're selling it for $1200. So I understand that people would have doubts about making that purchase. I know it's a good deal, I know it works flawlessly, but it is understandable that people would have doubts. I mean if the machine is so good, why do I sell it, right? (I previously wrote a blog about why, so I won't go into detail again, but simply put, it was just not cutting it for the use my wife was making of it - and you cannot upgrade an iMac unfortunately). So that's why asking questions and even coming to see it and try it out is a good idea. The last person being "seriously interested" was supposed to come last Saturday, and the way he talked, he was coming to pick it up. Then he called saying he was sorry but he could not come because he did not know that his bank was closed on Saturdays, and at the ATM, he has a daily limit. So he would come Sunday instead, with a second daily limit withdrawal. Understandable, and he seemed honest. I told him it was no trouble. Comes Sunday... he did not come by. He didn't even call to say he wasn't coming. Seriously interested? Yeah, maybe he was too embarrassed to call again to cancel or something, but then he did not think that maybe he was preventing us to do other things... which he did not, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, that was my rant for the day I guess. The iMac is still sitting on a desk, waiting for some new-owner love....

The happiness of getting a Wii

Although I was willing to pay more than the retail price for a new Wii from a private seller, it was still hard to find. The retail price plus taxes comes up to $320, so given the rarity of the console, you have to be willing to do one of two things: 1- be patient and shop around (in person, not by phone) and be at the right place at the right time, or 2- pay more to get it now.

The people that were selling it at a lower price, that's between $350 and $375 (lower than that I found was fishy, because why would you be selling it lower, when you can very easily sell it at a higher price?), were selling it very quickly. I had no chance there. But then we looked on e-Bay, for someone living close enough so that I could drive there to pick it up, given that the seller would not mind that (because sometimes they do mind). So we did find one, but it was a package comprised of the following:

• Wii hardware, sensor bar, cables and controllers (2 remotes and 2 nunchuks) with original packaging and manuals.
  
  
• Wii Sports (Tennis, Bowling, Golf, Baseball and Boxing)
  
  
• 4 additional Wii titles: The Legend of Zelda (Twilight Princess), Excite Truck, Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2, and World Series of Poker 2007.
  
  
• 4 Wii 'Virtual Console' titles: Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario 64.
  
  
• 4 Gamecube titles: Spyro (Enter the Dragonfly BNIB), Zelda Four Swords, Zelda the WindWaker, Sonic Mega Collection.
  
  
• 1 Gamecube controller and Memory Card.

This came up to a whooping $600, but it was actually a very good deal since the seller invested over $800 for all of this. And also, there are going to be a few things we are going to sell from it, plus our old GameCube. And most of all, since we paid with PayPal, we were covered for the entire amount in case the seller was not honest. He was honest though, but it was all worth it.

And most of all, we are having a blast with it :-D