Muffins Are Thankful

I know that we here at No Muffins For You tend to take a sarcastic, perhaps even belligerent, point of view, but we'd like to step back and be serious for a moment. All too often, this holiday is turned into something devoted to food.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love the food prepared around Thanksgiving. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all sorts of pumpkin flavored delicacies. HOWEVER, we here at NMFY would like to remind you folks of the real heart behind this wonderful day.

This isn't about the history behind it, this is about being truly grateful for the blessings you have. We here in America, are among some of the wealthiest people in the world, and odds are, you're not too bad off if you can be reading this.

So, take this time to think about what you have to be thankful for. Whether it's your family, your friends, your faith, your possessions, or just the food on your plate or the clothes on your back, be thankful.

And after you figure out what it is you're thankful for - and you had better have figured out something - let's do something novel and KEEP BEING THANKFUL. I'm not saying to be happy or cheery or nauseatingly chipper all the time. What I am saying is to remember that you are really blessed, in one way or another.

So, to round things out, I'm gonna let you folks have a little peek into my life. I'm thankful for my friends, who have been there for me through thick and thin. I'm thankful for my family, who, even though they can get a tad aggravating from time to time, still love me and always welcome me home with open arms.

So now, it's your turn. Think about all the people and things you have in your life. Then, show gratitude to those people. And continue to show that gratitude ever day. Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.

How To Train Your Muffin

So, I haven't updated in what, about 3 months? If this upsets you, not only do I not care, but wish only grievances and pain upon you and any small fuzzy animals in your vicinity. Now, on to talking something other than you.

How To Train Your Dragon has my bid for the greatest animated movie of the year. This is not something I say lightly, as this year has been a veritable 50-megaton nuclear strike of fantasticness in digitally rendered tastiness. Dreamworks is continually surprising me. A pattern has emerged showing whenever they don't do sequels, they're movies are more fantastic than butter on toast (as also evidenced in MegaMind, another movie I may get around to this week...maybe). How can it be that this movie, based loosely on a children's book, wins out over the rest though?

Firstly, the soundtrack is intensely awesome. Now, I have a bit of a personal bias towards celtic-esque, big orchestral productions, but so should you. There are only two or three major themes present, but they're so epic you find yourself wanting more of them instead of more variety. Not that there isn't enough variety though. John Powell has done an incredible job of not only coming up with scores I find myself whistling as I walk to and from classes, but an almost deity-level job of creating them for the movie itself. There are a few scenes when the music is allowed to dominate the beautiful animations that I want to frame in an art museum and loop over and over again whilst punching anyone who says "That isn't art." in the liver.

How To Train Your Dragon could stand up on the music and art alone, but it doesn't! It's like a well-trained Olympic sprinter who decided he would strap a Saturn V rocket to his ass just because he can. That lunar-capable ass-rocket is the story and comedy. The story isn't anything horribly special, the formula's a classic. It's so well executed though, that you don't care that you "could've called what happens next." The main contributer to this is the comedy. It's original and worth a good laugh or two, but will leave you smiling no matter what.

I only have one concern so far regarding this movie, and it's the fact that a sequels on the way; hopefully DreamWorks won't screw it up, but my hopes aren't too high.

Regardless, if you haven't gotten around to How To Train Your Dragon Yet then don't do anything else until you do...not even using the toilet...it'll just be angry at you and nobody wants an angry crapper.

>EpicError

What Separates Me From Muffins

What Separates Me From You by A Day To Remember
1. "Sticks & Bricks"
2. "All I Want"
3. "It's Complicated"
4. "This Is the House That Doubt Built"
5. "2nd Sucks"
6. "Better Off This Way"
7. "All Signs Point to Lauderdale"
8. "You Be Tails, I'll Be Sonic"
9. "Out of Time"
10. "If I Leave"

Recommended If You Like: Four Year Strong, Lions Lions, All At Risk

Pop-moshers around the world rejoice! A Day To Remember has finally released their follow-up to 2009's Homesick, and they've once again shown that they really are the rightful kings of this genre. Blending pop-punk and hardcore/metalcore comes easily to these Florida boys, and they know how to use that talent.

What Separates Me From You is a roller coaster of emotion, with tracks ranging from the absolutely brutal to radio-friendly, yet true to their sound. They haven't changed their sound much from their last release, however, which left me very relieved. Homesick is one of my favorite albums, and it consistently finds its way back onto my playlist.

"Sticks And Bricks" takes you by the hand and hurls you headlong into a metalcore driven effort to kickstart What Separates Me From You, with Jeremy McKinnon's vocals growling through the verse before giving way to a melodic chorus. ADTR really knows how to grab your attention on the album opener. They follow it up with "All I Want", a more melodic effort. I can't help but draw similarities between this song and songs off of Homesick, and I like being able to do that. "It's Complicated" lets the pop-punk side of things show a little more obviously, with a poppy guitar intro and McKinnon's clean vocals guiding the way. An acoustic guitar with a little touch of overdrive intros the next track "This Is The House That Doubt Built". This song switches between a ballad-like chorus and heavy verses. "2nd Sucks" fades in and starts with a clip from what I can only hope is the announcer from Mortal Kombat shouting "FIGHT!", before breaking into one big breakdown of a track.

ADTR starts the second half of the album with "Better Off This Way". With driving guitars and drums that give way to a flowing chorus. It makes an appearance earlier in the album as well, but if my ears don't deceive me, they've got a piano lending its aid fairly prominently during the chorus. In my opinion, this was a great decision on their part because it really fits the mood of the song well. "All Signs Point To Lauderdale" begins with some palm muted guitars and McKinnon singing the chorus calmly, before the full force comes in and rounds out their pop-mosh sound. "You Be Tails, I'll Be Sonic" might be my favorite song on the album, and not just because of the title (though that did contribute). They once again move to the melodic metalcore sound they do so well, and it's just an all around fun track. They follow that up with "Out Of Time", a pop-punk infused hard-rocking song. What Separates Me From You closes up shop with "If I Leave". They play a little bit of a trick on the listener by starting it with a soft, clean guitar riff. That ramps up suddenly to a full blown, hard-hitting guitar and drum onslaught.

Overall, A Day To Remember have delivered another stellar album. What Separates Me From You is familiar, but not recycled. It has the good old ADTR sound, but stands apart from their other albums. They have crafted an enjoyable listen that I highly recommend picking up.

Between The Muffins

It took 'em long enough, but Memphis May Fire are back with a new EP: Between The Lies. Is it as good as Sleepwalker? No. Is it worth listening to? Absolutely.

My biggest complaint about this release is that the southern comfort found in their previous albums is very hard to find. So hard to find, in fact, that it only makes one obvious appearance. I love post-hardcore, but the reason I loved MMF more than most post-hardcore is because they blended that southern element into their music so seemlessly.

Between The Lies begins with "Be Careful What You Wish For". MMF does something they really never did before and intros it with a bit of synth before getting down to business. After they do, in fact, get down to business, this opener is everything I've known and loved about MMF and then some. They've got the southern bite on the guitars, only everything is even heavier. Vocals feature a layering this time around on some of the screamed and clean parts, giving both aspects a better depth - a deeper pitch, which is refreshing. "Action/Adventure" lacks the down home southern lovin' of "Be Careful", however, as does the rest of this release. After that first track, Between The Lies sounds like the love child of Oh, Sleeper and Underoath - not a bad thing, but not the Memphis May Fire I loved.

Track three, "Vaulted Ceilings", starts off with a lot of atmospheric synth and effects on the guitars and drums that slowly builds to a brutal finish. "Deuces Las Cruces" brings the post-hardcore/metal back to the forefront. The guitars are fast and heavy, the bass is carrying the low end, and the drums are pummeling. Memphis May Fire close out their EP with "Gingervitus". This song brings to mind the aforementioned bands moreso than any other one on this release. That is not a bad thing, because they do this incredibly well. MMF continues to express top-notch musicianship and mastery of their instruments.

Between The Lies is not a bad release - quite the opposite, in fact, it is a spectacular EP. As I stated at the beginning of this review, the only complaint I had about this whole release is that it lacks the southern feel that truly made Memphis May Fire stand out from the crowd. Hopefully they'll bring that element back before they release their next album.

Anthems for Muffins

Brutal is back in town, boys and girls, and it has a name: Messengers, a five-piece thrash/hardcore band out of Dallas, TX. Hearkening back to the cross-over days of the 90's, these guys bring you some good old fashioned thrash metal.

They've been compared to such bands as Jesus Wept and No Innocent Victim, and though I can see the similarities, Messengers takes the foundations set by those bands and goes a step farther. They really do mesh hardcore and thrash metal perfectly, with nothing sounding too repetitive. Oh, and let's not forget that Messengers is the first good Spirit-filled hardcore release I've had the privilege of listening to in a long time.

Anthems is their debut EP on Facedown affiliate Strike First Records, and I'd like to extend a huge thank you to whoever signs the contracts over there. This is one of the best releases of 2010, and it'll find itself getting a lot of play time on my playlist.

Anthems opens up with "Shipwreck", a track that starts out slow with some feedback and noise that builds in volume until the guitar kicks in with a simple, speedy riff. Then a growl that truly brings back the feel of the Spirit-filled hardcore of the 90's fills your ears, courtesy of Chad Paramore - this man has a set of pipes. Now, I'm not a huge fan of pure hardcore, or the brand of hardcore popularized by bands such as Throwdown and Terror, so I was hesitant as I was listening to this first track. Then they've got this breakout solo that comes like a breath of fresh air, and that was all it took - I was sold on Anthems. "Creation" follows it up with some more thrashy guitars and crunchy growls. The third track, "Domicile" switches things up with a slow building instrumental intro. It gives a nice reprieve from the onslaught that was the first two songs. It builds to a crescendo, before the vocals come in to finish the track up.

Track four gets us back on the thrash/hardcore train to Brutalville, non-stop for the rest of the EP. "Weight" really embodies the Spirit-filled hardcore style of bands such as No Innocent Victim, and I think it's a great throwback. And it transitions seamlessly into my favorite song on the album "Judge". With Chad screaming "Who are you to judge? Who died and made you judge?", you'll have to fight hard to not throw your fist in the air and scream along. "Palerose" is up next with some more thrash style guitars and drums, which they round out with a wicked little solo. Messengers closes up their debut effort with the title track "Anthems" - a hardcore infused, hard-hitting finisher.

Overall, Anthems is a release that I was a bit skeptical of, to be honest. I'd heard nothing but high praise for it, and that always makes me nervous. However, Messengers not only lived up to this praise, but exceeded it. Anthems is one of the most solid EPs I've heard in a while, and I'm excited to see what this band will do with a full-length.

Ø (Muffins)

Ok, everyone's heard of Underoath. I know you have. If you haven't, then you're wrong, and you really have, you just didn't realize it. They've been around forever, and they've been constantly evolving from sound to sound. However, they appear to have found one that they fit perfectly.

Now, before I hear any whining about the fact that they aren't really Underoath any more, because they lost the last original member, I'm going to tell you to shut up. Yes, Aaron left. Yes, that means that none of the founding members are left. BUT many of the members have been in the band since the departure of Dallas way back in the day. This is still Underoath. Period. End of discussion. Good, now that that's out of the way, on to the music.

Ø (Disambiguation) is the seventh - that's right, the SEVENTH - release, and it is once again brought to us by Tooth & Nail Records. This time around, the boys of Underoath bring a much more atmospheric, darker, and heavier album to the table. It's full of mood-setting bass and synth, layered with crushing guitars. Also, the drums have been taken up a notch by Aaron Gillespie's replacement, Daniel Davison (formerly of Norma Jean). The album opens up with a very flowing and ambient, yet brutal track entitled "In Division". Spencer Chamberlain's vocals are as perfect as ever, and, with Aaron's departure, Spence has been able to step up to fill in on clean vocal duties  as well. "Catch Myself Catching Myself" has a little discordant feel to it through the verses, though it doesn't quite hit a chaotic style, before it resolves to a melodious chorus. The next track, "Paper Lung", changes pace a little bit, with clean vocals dominating the song. The guitars and bass really contribute an ambiance to give an almost ethereal mood to the song. However, by the end of the song they have transitioned back to the screams, shred-tacular guitars, and crushing drums. "Illuminator" brings us some more of that heavy sound Underoath does oh so well.

"Driftwood" changes pace once again - this synth and drum driven song really let Chamberlain shine on the clean vocals, which give an almost haunting feel to it. "A Divine Eradication" and "Who Will Guard The Guardians?" bring more of the discordant-yet-melody driven Underoath we've grown to know and love. Up next is the bass-fueled "Reversal", an ethereal, chaotic track. These Tampa boys crank up the speed with "Vacant Mouth" and "My Deteriorating Incline", pulling from their hardcore influences to really rip through the songs. Ø (Disambiguation) comes to a close with the aptly named "In Completion", which once again showcases Tim's singing ability. As the guitars build, they contribute such a dark, heavy weight to the choruses. A little over halfway through it, Spence switches back to his guttural growls before letting the album slowly fade down to the end.

I've been a long-time Underoath fan. I've listened to them from their first full length (The Changing Of The Times) straight up until now. I've seen members come and go, I've seen their style change. And after all this time, I can say with full confidence that Ø (Disambiguation) is the best and most mature Underoath release to date. They've grown as musicians and as people, and that growth shines through on this album. Ø (Disambiguation) is more than worth your time, so be sure to check it out.

Genocidal Muffins

It's once again time to delve back into one of the areas that I find unbelievably fun for a break. These are the kinds of those games that fall into the genre of unmistakable genocide. A mindless killing experience that lightens the mood from all the quests and objectives that today's games find themselves lost in. Games like Serious Sam, the original Doom series, and other games that I haven't had time to beat. No this isn't a specific game review, but it's more of a genre review in preparation for my next section of games. These are the kinds of games that make you leap for joy and the sheer mass of baddies that fall before your rapidly firing weapons.

Games that call themselves shooters very often find themselves being dragged into escort missions and treasure quests that lead to more arbitrary tasks that include stealth and style. Now I'm not saying that those kinds of shooters are bad, quite the contrary, I enjoy them more than most other types of games that I play. However I do tire of the constant similarity between the games with the quest and I get drawn into a daze with the constant cut-scenes that can't be skipped and the mindless story that they shovel down your throat in an attempt to get you to identify with the characters that babble away at your face with their pixelated mouths flapping like bullet riddled flags in the mild wind that plagues your environment constantly. I find that these kind of breaks in the game will kill the flow and while in some cases they can add a very personable element to your character, it also makes you sadder when you end up dying, making it feel like you actually let someone down instead of not giving a flying unicorn's shit when you die; then it's simply a break in the murder frenzy that gets vaguely annoying the more it happens. But as the games go on, you get better at avoiding the enemy fire until you can kill them and it gets to the point where you're so overpowered that nothing can touch you except for the bosses. Eventually it just gets aggravatingly easy and you stop playing the game until you basically forget what you're doing.

  Getting back to the main point of this rant, the other side of shooters being the more mindless of the massacre style games. Most of the time they don't bother you with plot and only ask you to kill everything that moves. You can do other things if you want, but you don't have to. Sure there are side quests, but they aren't really important. Bonus objectives show up every now and then but again, they don't hold much credence when you're looking at the game as a whole. Sure you might get some undeserved sense of achievement for completing all of them but it's like saying that you can balance a machete on your nose while eating live goldfish. Yeah you'll get some props for it, but it gets old after the fifth time you show it to someone. Now you might say that killing people over and over and over without reprieve will get boring but I believe you're sadly mistaken. Not only do you get to kill everything, but you can do it however you want to. You get the multitudes of weapons that you can experiment with on the untold hordes of baddies that will eventually plague your screen. It may just be me, but I find this to be quite mood-lifting when given that freedom. Sure it's linear, but then do you really want to have to figure out where to go while being raped by thousands of monsters that want you dead. It does get to be tiring after the eighth time you have to stop to deal with a mass of bodies between you and your next opportunity to find out where you need to go.
Drawing this rant to a close, I find myself wishing for a few more of the mindless genocidal fun of games like Serious Sam. The graphics are lacking and the story is nonexistent but that's not what you should be playing these kinds of games for. These are made for you to kill, murder, maim, gut, stab, rend, and tear your enemies to little tiny gore-ridden pieces. Fun, no?

>Ryft

Muffin's Blood

For those not in the know, Alexisonfire (pronounced "Alexis On Fire"), has been on the post-hardcore/punk scene for quite some time - nearly a decade now, in fact. And they've managed to maintain all but one original member. They've got four full length releases under their belt, with the best, in my opinion, being 2006's Crisis.

Now, they're back in town with a four song EP entitled Dog's Blood. A lot of fans had complaints about the direction AOF had started to take with their latest LP Old Crows/Young Cardinals. It would appear that the band heard and decided to do something about it. Dog's Blood brings back the borderline hardcore feel of old AOF with a vengeance. Now, like I said above, I absolutely loved Crisis - I consider it not only AOF's best, but it is also one of my all time favorite records. This EP takes some cues from that style, but speeds them up and cranks the volume to 11.

The title track starts our musical journey off with a single guitar and the drums keeping pace. I received my first, albeit my only, disappointment at this point when I heard the production on the EP. It's not of the same caliber of previous AOF releases, and I'll be honest, it hurt my initial opinion of Dog's Blood. However, they quickly made up for it with George Pettit's and Dallas Green's scream/clean vocal combination. The two work together perfectly to give this EP the perfect AOF sound that we all have grown to love.

Track two, "Grey",  brings a little swing beat to the party and some haunting guitars courtesy of heavy reverb effects. Pettit's gritty vocals float through the air, complementing the downtrodden feel of the whole song. "Black As Jet" follows next with a punk beat and guitars to match. I really enjoyed the play on words here in the title, and the song really shows a talent for crafting an enjoyable song to listen to.

AOF closes up their latest effort with a long instrumental - just over 6 minutes long. "Vex" has everything ranging from atmospheric, quiet gutiars with a bass to match to bluesy solos to rock 'n' roll lead parts. The boys of AOF really showcase the talent they have in this EP-closer.

Overall, I really enjoyed this EP, even if it was only four songs long. It shows that Alexisonfire are still doing what they do best: keeping the heart and soul of post-hardcore alive. Definitely check out Dog's Blood. Now.

Muffin Swarm

Yet again I'm without money so I'll dip back into a game I got for free. Yes free. No not illegally free. I got this game 100% no-strings-attached, beat you to death with a corgi if you don't believe me free. ironically enough, despite it being so free, it was still pretty awesome, though it is hard to experience with a bad internet connection.

This game is called Alien Swarm. It is a break from normal shooters as it takes the appearance of an RTS game with it's top-down style of viewing. It takes more things from other games, as it uses the L4D style of the four player gameplay. During the offline practice mode, you have three AI computer partners that help you by performing tasks you cannot along the way to your destination. I do have to say that having intelligent AI for once in something that isn't L4D is somewhat mood-lifting to me, as generally they are dumber than a Saint Bernard after it had been used to club baby seals. Other than the fact that you have smart AI, the game actually lives up to it's name. As you go into it, there are actually large swarms of aliens that come to lay eggs in your lower intestine or something.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward. You have a gun and aliens have blood and guts that are still intact. Remedy this situation promptly. I'm not really sure if there is a story hidden in the game, but I'm sure there is because there -always- is. Game developers don't know what to do with a game if there's no story save for Valve (Yay for TF2) and speaking of Valve GUESS WHO MADE THE GAME? But at any rate, you've got four different classes of person that you can use to kill things with, all with a different combination of skills and weapons. I'm not going to list them all for you because I really don't feel like trying to find the list because, like you, I'm lazy. If you weren't lazy, you'd have just gotten the game for yourself instead of reading what someone else thinks of the game. Congratulations. On top of the different classes you can play as two sets of characters, each set having the same classes, just different people. Awesome.

The enemies are not terribly smart if you start off in easy mode, and I didn't get to progress much higher because I was promptly kicked out of the group I was in because of my laggy interwebs. This being said, I did get to find that there are a multitude of maps with a multitude of missions and you can mix and match character sets with your teammates to best suit the situation. You -have- to work together or else you will die. No ifs about it, you -will- die. Killing enemies, unlocking doors, waiting on really slow elevators... it's not innovative in the way of obstacles and objectives, but you have to give them credit for trying something new with all the old stuff attached. The enemies aren't terribly smart in the first few levels either... You might be able to get away with less than four people if you're good. Which if you're reading this review, I doubt you are.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this game thoroughly with the two hours that I put into researching it simply so that I had another game to review. It can stand as a game on it's own, all though it would have been really nice to see them put in a little more that you can do single player and offline. You gotta work on that next time! Either way though, it was worth the nothing that I paid and I'd do it again simply because of that fact. Hooray for being broke!

>Ryft

Muffins From The Grave

Ladies and gents, after a long silence, I return with nothing short of a masterpiece.

Deathcore wizards Conducting From The Grave have returned with their much anticipated followup to 2009's When Legends Become Dust. And they really bring down the house. Again.

Revenants starts out with a clean instrumental guitar riff, with the dual guitars harmonizing nicely. The calm is more like a brief respite before the true storm arrives, and arrive it does with a thunderous roar. Drums pounding, tremolo picking on the guitars, and a wicked bassline provide the groundwork for the album opener "And Our War Will Dawn". This track really sets the tone for the rest of Revenants. Both "The Tyrant's Throne" and "Unholiest Of Nightmares" follow the same style set in the first one, with crushing drums and guitarwork interlaced with growls and shrieks that would curl the skin of the devil himself. However, "Unholiest Of Nightmares" breaks things up with a little jazzy interlude toward the end of it, just to showcase their talent.

"Her Poisoned Tongues" is one of my favorite songs off the album because of the absolutely brutal breakdown at the end of it. Mikey Powell starts screaming, "Where will you turn when you've burned every bridge you've built and have to answer for every drop of blood you've spilled?" You will get off your feet, and you will throw down. Wherever are, whatever you're doing, you'll stop and you'll have this overwhelming compulsion to start a circle pit.

"Path Of A Traitor" has some more of the hardcore influence to it and has a blistering pace, as does "Nevermore". "We Who Shall Conquer" is yet another example of the mastery John Abernathy and Jeff Morgan have over their guitars. They switch gears with a slower, but no less heavy, song with "Curse In The Twilight". The title track implements some creative work with distortion effects to create a truly eerie, atmospheric death metal song.

Revenants comes to a close with a two part song. "What Monsters We Have Become, Part 1" features incredibly intricate and technical guitars, with an equally as complex bassline courtesy of Steven Lovas and top-notch drums from Greg Donnelly. They also bring some clean vocals in. I know a lot of people hate clean vocals in the metal scene, and I don't know why, especially not if they are used as expertly as they are in this track. They fit the mood of the song perfectly. "Part 2" opens with another jazzy portion that builds to a jazz/metal/awesome finish with the screams of "what monsters we have become!" bringing all the pieces together masterfully.

Overall, Conducting From The Grave survived some potentially fatal lineup changes, only to come out the other end stronger than ever and put forth a spectacular sophomore album in the form of Revenants. It's brutal, it's catchy, and it's absolutely dripping talent - it's one of the best metal albums this year.