Clean Muffins EP

Oceana is an average four piece indie rock band out of Florida. However, this was not always the case! They used to be a very talented quintet that played a post-hardcore style with a vengeance. However, that band apparently broke up in 2009, and this group of people that were once part of that greatness have since fallen so far.

I want to be very clear. I have nothing against indie rock that is done well. If it has talent, if it has quality musicianship, if it has originality, I can appreciate it, even if I don't like it. This EP has none of those things.

Clean Head opens with "Blue". A rather generic guitar riff, lacking any semblance of their previous overdrive laced glory, with a drum fill reminiscent of the old days laying down the back drop brings the track in. Now, at this point, you may be thinking, "Ok, this isn't the Oceana I knew, but maybe this'll still be good." Then the vocals kick in and your hopes are shattered. From a band that had such incredible vocal prowess on both the clean and screamed spectra, this was possibly the biggest disappointment. "Barracuda, Capital of the World" is the next offering on this abomination unto music, and it opens with what I suppose is a bluesy guitar bit and ambient vocals, but it's not done well. This progression of failure continues as the song goes on, and it really never gets better.

Track 3 is entitled "Wool God" and features the same barely distorted guitar that by now will be grating on your earholes to the point that you'll probably just want to turn this atrocity off and ask for your money and time back from whatever poor soul sold it to you. It has such a generic, tired feel to it that you'll wonder how many times you've listened to someone else play this before. Finally, we come to the aptly named closing song "Joy", as this is probably what you are feeling when you learn that this is the end of it. They open it once again using a mediocre guitar/drum combo. However, believe it or not, when the vocals kick in, they sound even worse than before due to a warble that found its way into his voice. They decided to throw a guitar "solo" in about halfway through the song. I use "solo" very loosely, because it's more like a beginner's guitar riff than a solo.

Even from a technical aspect, this EP really isn't very good. The mixing sounds like something they did themselves in a basement using crappy equipment and Audacity. The only high point is that all of the instruments are present, even the bass.

Clean Head is definitely a rebirth of a band. Unfortunately, this band decided to move away from something they did very well and try to produce something they are not suited for in the least. I can only hope this was merely a phase, and that their next release will bring us back a taste of the old Oceana.

>Pawn

Muffins Unbound

It's been far too long, but I'm proud to present another fine specimen of musical prowess to your ears. This has been a spectacular year for metal, and it's not over yet.

The next blessing that has been showered upon our mortal hearing orifices is courtesy of Tampa, Florida's quintet The Absence. Enemy Unbound is their third full length on Metal Blade Records. These five bring a wonderful blend of death and thrash metal that will make your ears bleed in joyful bliss.

What truly impressed me about this album goes beyond the face-meltingly impressive guitars, the guttural vocals, and the pounding drums. The Absence showcases a brilliant talent for songwriting, with songs that truly reflect the emotion that went into writing them.

Now, on to the actual music. Enemy opens with an instrumental that has an almost power metal feel to it. The guitars harmonize wonderfully for a pleasant aural experience. However, The Absence are not a power metal band, as you will quickly find out at the start of the second track (and for the rest of the album). "Erased" comes back and shows you what these boys are really capable of, with blistering drums and guitars. Then Jaime Stewart's vocals come in and the image is complete. Track number three, "Deepest Wound", may be my absolute favorite on the album. It is the definitive thrash/death song, with finger-bleedingly technical guitars, chest pounding guitars, and Jaime's growls screaming, "Marching onward to face our doom! This is our longest mile, our deepest wound!"

The next standout song is track five, "Enemy Unbound". It has a very thrashy feel to it, and you can't help but love the way it sounds. Number six is another instrumental. Now, most albums, especially metal albums, tend to lay off the brutal for a track in the middle of the album, but The Absence just keeps on wrecking. "Solace" is a portrait of exactly how talented they are, even if it isn't a point of rest. As if what they'd done so far wasn't enough, they actually wreck even harder after that. "The Bridge" and "Wartorn" are spectacular specimens of metal greatness. "Hidden In White" starts off with a quiet audio clip, which may get your hopes up for a bit of respite, but that will be quickly dashed, flayed, and drawn and quartered as they kick back into full death metal form. Just to mix things up a bit, they start "Vengeance and Victory" with a classical guitar solo that fades perfectly into the electrics.

This brings us to the close of the album. The Absence did something completely unexpected here, and I love it. They closed with a progressive metal instrumental with a hidden acoustic track at the end. That's right, an acoustic track - meaning acoustic guitars and conga drums. These guys have a level of talent completely absent (see what I did there? "Absent", "The Absence") from the current popular music scene, and whether you like the style or not, you can't ignore that fact. Enemy Unbound is an album that keeps finding its way back onto my playlist, and I suspect it will for quite some time. If you're a fan of excellent death or thrash metal, or just appreciate things that don't suck, I highly recommend picking it up.

>Pawn

Gravity Muffins

Well this is an interesting time. I have very little money for new games so I'll be dipping into the PC gaming genre for a good deal of time. First of this list is a new game I discovered called VVVVVV. It's a 2d gravity bending platformer. One of the most frustratingly amazing games I've ever played.

I started out with just a demo of the game, including only two levels and nothing else. Frankly, I only needed one level before I was hooked. The style of the game focuses on the puzzles and tricks you need to solve the puzzles. They use the gravity bending so often it's like it's no big deal, and throughout the game you find different ways to manipulate it to get through challenges.

There -is- a story behind it, and it's a little confusing without finding all of the terminals. You are a captain of a space crew, and your ship is broken, the crew scattered. Due to a dimensional disturbance, the teleporters aren't working quite right, and you have to go out and rescue your crew. So begins your journey.

You start with some pretty basic puzzles to get you used to the gravity bending, and then a few more to get timing down. Then it dumps you into harder puzzle rooms and you have to think and strategize your way out of them. Truth be told, this reminded me a good deal of Portal, without the satirical computer nagging at you the whole game.

Instead, you have shinies. Yes, that is what they are called. The secondary objective of the game is to collect all 20 of the shiny trinkets. This is something I have yet to do because of how utterly frustrating it is. Throughout just simply beating the main objective of the game, I died nearly a thousand times. Quite literally, my death count was nearing 1000. You die more often than you don't. Oddly enough, it doesn't break the flow of the game -too- much and while it is horribly frustrating, it does show you what not to do. Unlimited lives make it easier too.

Checkpoints scattered throughout the game along with teleporters will save your progress and let you start from there when (not if) you die. You can jump around the over-world map with the teleporters and you can fly about through the empty space between levels for fun.

Overall, I think this game is a fantastic break from the normality of mainstream games. Totally worth the $5 it costs on Steam.

Muffin EP

By now, many of you have probably heard of the band The Devil Wears Prada (no relation to the movie of the same name - these guys are much better than that). With three full length releases under their belt, including 2009's With Roots Above And Branches Below, which made it to #11 on the Billboard charts.

Well, the Dayton sextet is back with a little EP that will be sure to make your skin crawl and your spine shiver. That's right, boys and girls, The Devil Wears Prada is taking on the zombie horde with their newest effort Zombie EP. Featuring a much heavier sound than they've ever shown before, this EP is sure to find its way back to your stereo, CD player, or mp3 player over and over again.

Now, I want to be clear here. This is a fun album. Vocalist Mike Hranica stated in an interview that it was supposed to be something fun and brutal. It truly is an EP about the undead. With that being said, I'm also going to say it's one of the best releases this year.

"Escape" opens the album with an atmospheric rain audio clip and some filler keyboards before Mike's scream tears through the night, carried on the wings of some wicked guitar and drum work. The next track, "Anatomy", brings something more familiar to TDWP fans, with their signature guitar/synth combination. A news broadcast leads us into the third song on the album, giving you the basic instructions of how to kill a zombie and ending with the warning, "We are outnumbered", from which this track, "Outnumbered" takes its name. They bring something heavier than we've really heard from The Devil Wears Prada with this song, as it really emphasizes the lower end of the audio spectrum. "Revive" might be my favorite track of the album, because, despite the almost absurd nature of this EP's concept, the boys of TDWP have still managed to write a truly thought provoking epic that is backed by some spectacular musicianship. Finally, Zombie closes with "Survivor" - a chilling track with a very progressive feel to it.

Zombie EP is, without a doubt, The Devil Wears Prada's most brutal release. If you're a fan of heavy music, zombies, or having a good time, I highly recommend this album. If you're not a fan of those things, I highly recommend you rethink your life.

>Pawn

StarCraft 2: Muffins of Liberty

Here it is! I've beaten the campaign on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and I have a few things to say. First off, I still hold a large grudge against Blizzard for taking away LAN play, so I remain bitter. Secondly, battle.net integrated a game client into the mix this time with a cross-game chat that works quite well so far. I like this, so I'm not as bitter. Moving on, the game itself mixed together many things that I find new in the game that, when I went back and played the first one again, I wish they had then too.

Just to note a few of the basic changes, they added a progress bar for all building assignments. Whether it be constructing a unit, or fashioning a building, or even researching an upgrade, there's a gray bar above the respective sites showing the progress. This made keeping track of buildings and upgrades so much easier, and allowed better tactics to be employed with proper timing.

Another thing they added was a better campaign mode, though this is but the first of the trilogy. You have multiple missions to choose from most of the time, and you can upgrade units and research new things to use in battles in the garage and laboratory respectively. The research opportunities are only made available when you collect enough research points in the missions themselves. This made for a challenging and fun bonus objective systems within the missions that livened things up when you didn't need them livened up. But it was welcome all the same.

Continuing with the madness, you have new units out the wazoo for the Terrans, with new units for each of the other three races as well. Terrans are beefed up with the Thors, giant mech land walkers that can flatten about anything in their tracks whether it's in the air or on land, facing up against the Protoss Mothership, the ultimate in land and air assault craft, with the new Ultralisk from the Zerg throwing it's tusks into the fray. Now there are some units you can't use in the game, like the Protoss Purifier, a beefed up mothership, and the Zerg Omegalisk, which is unbelievably difficult to destroy with anything short of a platoon of air vehicles. Then there's the hybrid, but he's just an ass.

Throughout the campaign, you have (I believe) three occasions where you have to choose between two options. Each option will give you a different mission and different perks. Maybe an upgraded unit, or an advantage in a later mission, or just a different mission to stem from where you thought the plot was going. Either way, they don't really have an effect on the story to a large extent, but it is refreshing to see here and there.

Yet another addition to the game exclusively for the campaign are the hero units. Yes, before you had units like Jim Raynor and Kerrigan and Duke, but never more than one per mission. But there's a mission that you get FOUR of them. That's all you start out with in the mission, and each of them has a special ability that is quite equally awesome.

I didn't have a chance to play any online vs. because of my current situation for internet, but I've talked with some people who have and they say it's pretty damn spiffy. I'd like to get a chance to do a 2v2 match, because the idea of dismantling a pair of foes with a buddy is incredibly enticing. This said, for the most part I'll probably be sticking to 1v1 for the time being until I can find a reliable partner who doesn't show me up too bad.

After all of this, I have to say that as much as I'm still bitter towards Blizzard about this, I love the game. I'm stoked for the next installments of the series to come out and I'll almost guaranteed purchase all of them legally just to show my support. For those of you who have the game, I hope to face you in battle one day!

>Ryft

Deceitful Muffins

The Word Alive has only been on the scene for two years, but in those two years, they've managed to tour extensively and release an EP (Empire, 2009) and their debut full length album on Fearless Records entitled Deceiver.

This six piece band out of Arizona have certainly created a name for themselves with their own take on "scene metal" (which is probably the dumbest name for a genre ever). Featuring a blend of two guitars, a bass, drums, and a keyboard, they have a fairly typical line up for the scene today, but they mix things up so well, and no single element ever overwhelms the others. The mixing is top notch, and the whole album sounds very crisp.

Deceiver kicks off with a bang on "The Hounds of Anubis", as Tyler "Telle" Smith's screams rip through the air, followed quickly by some excellent dual guitar work from Zack Hansen and Tony Pizzuti. The keyboards (played by Dusty Riach) and bass (manned by Nick Urlacher) give a perfect background blend, while drummer Justin Salinas absolutely obliterates any doubt that these boys mean business. The chorus kicks in with a melodious clean vocal harmony, courtesy of the boys on guitar and Mr. Smith. They keep the metal coming with a blistering guitar riff that opens the second track: "Epiphany", which follows the onslaught of the verse with more clean vocals that truly compliment the musical prowess of the band members. Track 3's opening has a bit more of a focus on the drums and keyboard, then switches it over to a brutal breakdown before bringing you back to the formula that has worked so well on the album thus far.

"Consider It Mutual" changes the pace of the album. It begins with a reverberating guitar riff and some more clean vocals. The song starts building upon itself as the verse continues, and all the instruments come in to give a melodic metal anthem that will have you singing along in no time. This track also features some wonderful work on the keyboards, in addition to the guitars. "2012" returns to the style of the first three tracks of the album before "Dream Catcher" brings an almost atmospheric feeling track to showcase the versatility of the band. "Like Father Like Son" is, without a doubt, the heaviest track on the album, and it is perfectly placed to bring you back down to earth and hold you there by crushing you in the chest. "Battle Royale" has a wicked little post-hardcore feel to it, and is also the only track to make it to the album from their EP.

"You're All I See" slows things down a little bit more with echoing guitars and a preponderance of low toms and kick drum. Deceiver rounds itself out with a skull-rattling, breakneck speed track dubbed "We Know Who You Are". The boys of The Word Alive really bring the pain on the album closer and end this release on a truly brutal note.

One of the best releases of this year, Deceiver is most definitely worth picking up, especially if you enjoy the musical stylings of bands like The Devil Wears Prada, We Came As Romans, or Attack Attack! Overall, it has some incredible guitar work, subtle yet skillful use of keyboards, and a nice balance of screamed and clean vocals - a spectacular full length debut from a very talented band.

>Pawn

Bordermuffins

Borderlands is an interesting combination game, almost like the Elder Scrolls series, but with guns. It has a Fallout feel to it, but it isn't quite the same. A first person shooter RPG makes for an interesting mix, but it gets pulled off quite well here. A few things got my attention, mainly the names of a few achievements that made me smile, but the game overall is pretty good.

The gameplay itself is entertaining to say the least, though it lacks an option to customize weapons, which bugged me a lot. The special abilities for the different classes you're given to choose from do make up for it, as each one kicks respective ass. The Hunter has a hawk that attacks your enemies on command, the Soldier has a turret that blows shit up, the Siren can run really fast by phasewalking and it hurts others, and the Berserker does just that, goes berserk. Each has numerous other skills that upgrade the ability, or you in general, and lets you kick more ass each time.

Moving on to the story, or what little it has in that manner. There's one overarching objective throughout the entire game, and that's to get to the Vault and open it. Easy enough. Except that there's countless completely arbitrary tasks to do along the way. Though the tasks are pointless, they are fun and do give you a metric asston of experience and money, so they're worth it. Each one associated with the plot is interesting in its own way and has an increasing level of difficulty that makes it near impossible to just do the plot missions and get through it with any sense of ease. Just like a game should be.

The RPG elements are lacking aside from the aforementioned abilities and skills. You can change your characters clothes colors and name, but that's it. Each class has a specified look and gender, and there's no getting around it. The FPS elements though are thoroughly drowned in the sprawling maps and environments that you are forced to navigate through for almost every mission. They don't all look the same though, which is a nice change of pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and the different style it had to offer from most of the other games that I play. It has good replay value, despite spoilers, and you can't play it the same way with each class. Changing class requires a change in tactics, which is another refreshing aspect of this game. Bravo 2K.

>Ryft