The fuck? Name one band that sounds like Summoning. Just a single one. I dare you.

Whether you like Summoning or not*, they are pretty obviously unique and one of the most instantly recognizable bands out there.

* If you like them not, don't worry, I don't like you either. Unless you're Zodi, because you're then 10 feet tall and I don't want to piss you off

Yeah there are a lot of things I would rag on Summoning for, but being extremely standard is not one of them.

Just kinda thought they sounded like run of the mill medevil and keyboard driven black metal. I really don't care for any of that so I can't name specific bands, but when I listened to the album I bought I was all frowns and waiting for a real song to actually start. It really sounded like intros to songs that just got stretched out. Upon revisiting them it did remind me of Therion's later material but as if everyone in that band was doped up and three quarters asleep. So I just really don't get how they are special. I can see how people enjoy them and that's fine. But I honestly didn't find them heads above any of the other bands that play this style that I quickly forget about.

So sorry, . I don't mind if you don't like me because of my tastes, I might not be 10 ft tall,(6) but I'm built like a barbarian. So that should count for something.

For proof of barbarian status :
https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 6302_n.jpg
http://www.cavepaints.com/uploads/2/8/5 ... 659753.jpg

Don't listen to them as much as I feel I should, but Nightshade Forests is my fav

Some people can't tell what makes 5 year old amarone better than 1 € bottom shelf rosé. Not everyone has to be a wine enthusiast.

It's honestly not that complex^^^

Just isn't that great, that's all.

Summoning are fantastic. The direction they took after Lugburz is the reason I enjoy them, they did their own thing and excelled at it. Sometimes it may be cheesy, but they certainly pull it off.

It's only natural for all bands to get some kind of hate/non-appreciation. I'm also sure there are people out there who despise Bolt Thrower, Manilla Road and other staple MA favorites :/

Pssst! You'll summon the Veracs!

It astounds me that Nightshade Forests doesn't get discussed/mentioned more often, even among Summoning fans. To my mind it's always been one of their strongest releases and probably my overall favorite. Perhaps it gets overlooked because it's not a full-length or something. A shame, really. So now that we're talking about it: LISTEN TO NIGHTSHADE FORESTS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJto61o1SwQ

I just got attacked by an exploding fish. I microwaved a salmon fillet that was in the fridge, and when I touched it with my fork, it exploded all over the place. I was shirtless, and my chest got burned by fiery salmon pellets.

Interestingly enough, I have a super exciting interview on Tuesday that's going to give me a personality test, and I definitely have my reservations after taking a few of those in the past. It's more of a corporate office job (though being a designer, I'll be the creative department), so I'm curious as to what it's going to cover exactly.

Also, why are you applying to jobs? I thought you got "Job B" just a week ago?

Aw, shit. I've never had one explode on me, but I had one partially explode and send chunks all over the microwave (which I didn't notice at the time in my haste to eat delicious fish). I don't use my microwave very much so it took a while to figure out where the apalling stench was coming from..

@Batman:
I've done a couple of those where I gave the "mindless slave" answers. Always got the interview after.
Companies want Work Bots, not people.

Well at least I tried... twice. So at least my opinion is directed from my own tastes. Just for that style the closest thing I'll listen to is Therion who are energetic and bombastic... I know they aren't the same style but it's as close to that as I actually enjoy and purchase. Bolt Thrower and Manilla Road are just excellent all around usually when those bands get slagged on it doesn't seem to stem from their actual music.

So good news and bad news: Good news is I got my CD from Speed Ritual Records (or SLK). Bad news is, my mail carrier is an incompetent monkey and tried to stuff it into my mailbox (which is a smaller type attached to my apartment building) along with my other mail, and it ended up laying on my porch for a couple of hours. I don't know how much other mail I lost with the wind gusting occasionally today, but now the outer casing is nice and cracked and the little tab that keeps the two pieces together is broken off completely. I'll post pics.



Luckily the CD itself isn't damaged so I don't need to return it, but I'm still incredibly pissed off.

The hardest jobs to land are the ones that aren't advertised. Be happy you even have somewhere to send in a resume, let alone getting to the interview stage.

Well I'm glad that the cd wasn't crushed up or the artwork ruined. But really that's fucking idiotic of your postman. He should've realized he was fucking up when he heard all the cracking cause it's not like it's a quiet break.

Aw man, that sucks. I need to have all of my packages labeled "please leave at back door" from now on because otherwise they get left in the worst places. When it was raining, one was left in the grill along with an illegible note about where it was. I had a guitar left near my front door where I couldn't see it from the door, that was supposed to be signed for. Fortunately it was extremely overpackaged, because when I found it, it had some snow on it. UPS leaves packages leaning against my mailbox sometimes, which is terrible because it's on a hill and a slight gust of wind blows them into the street. Most recently, I noticed an odd shape in my garden beneath a few inches of snow. Turns out a package of CDs and tapes was left leaning against a statue in the garden on the side of the house.

Of course, the first package that was labeled "leave at back door" was left at the back door late afternoon, and it was dark when I was heading out in a hurry a few hours later, so I managed to punt my 8x8x8" box into the yard. Fortunately Dark Descent packed it well and the CDs were even wrapped in a shirt, so it was fine. If I were ever to start ordering LPs, they would probably be thrown like frisbees in the general direction of my house.

hahaha you have some crackheads delivering for you.

The most annoying thing I've had was an amp being delivered to my my house while I was on vacation. I stayed home pretty much expecting it and I was on the phone and checking my tracking to see where about it was and it had shown up saying it was an attempted delivery. Turned out the guy had just drove on past my house. Luckily I was on the phone with my friend who actually works at Fed Ex and he called up his boss who then called me and confirmed I was home which he then directed the driver to take his ass back to my house and drop off my amp.

haha

I feel lucky because where I live they deliver packages to the nearest post office or give them to your neighbor if you're not home, and leave a note. Then again I never lived in a rural or suburban area, so I don't know how it's handled there. Not sure if it's even legal to just leave stuff outside the house.

The UPS man that comes to my house suck ass and he's a fucking ninja to boot so half the time my shit winds up sitting outside all night until I leave for work in the morning. Seriously he can park his truck, run up to the house, open my screen door and drop a package so quietly that my dogs don't even hear him. On the occasions that they do the fucker is already in his truck driving away before I get the ten feet from the couch to the door, even if it requires a signature. Luckily I'm in a townhouse so I have a giant locked mailbox for all my usps needs and I've got the lady trained to leave all my signature required shit in there either way.

My funny work story for the day: I just left a restaurant stranded without phone/internet and quite possibly t.v. right at the beginning of lunch rush. I ripped down their cable lines with my trailer since cable companies (Comcast) are useless and notorious for not hanging their lines up to code. The funny part was that the lines looked like power lines coming through the trees and coming down from right next to the transformer so I had to make a death defying leap off my tractor to avoid getting electrocuted (or so I thought) into a mountain of snow only to find out they were cable lines. The ironic part? Two separate employees from two different divisions of Comcast just happened to pick that place to have lunch at today. Neither of which were skilled or able to re hang the lines.

A wild tractor appears in Erosion's story!!

Today is 7 years I have been gracing MA with my presence. I can remember where I was and what I was doing when I signed up. Weird.

When I ordered a car amp and subwoofer they just left it at the door without even ringing the bell so I was wondering why it never showed up and when I opened the door, there it was. Same thing happened when I ordered a laptop in the middle of damn Boston. They just left it at the door and never rang the bell when I was home. Thank god nothing was stolen.

I think Summoning is actually riff-driven, but the guitar riffs aren't usually the focal point of the songs - even in more guitar-centered albums like Let Mortal Heroes they are usually playing a counterpoint to the main theme. Since Lugburz, they certainly haven't been the most metallic-sounding black metal band, so I can understand metal fans not necessarily enjoying it.

Speaking of counterpoint, that's probably the best thing Summoning does, aside from also having absolutely brilliant melodies and themes. The music has the power to convey intense longing and nostalgy, which is something I absolutely love. At times the music can be quite dull, however. I haven't found as much to enjoy in the last two albums. I think Dol Guldur, Nightshade Forests and Let Mortal Heroes are easily their strongest albums, and Stronghold deserves a mention because of Rhûn, The Loud Music of the Sky and most of all A Distant Flame Before the Sun.



Had to.

Let Mortal Heroes is pretty much a classic. I still have a nostalgic affinity for Oath Bound because it was one of the first I got into, and also has one of my favorite endings to an album ("The Land of the Dead" has a sublime ending).

yea it's completely legal. Usually if it isn't specified to not be left, requires a sig, or if it's an area where the shipping company has had multiple complaints on packages disappearing then they will leave it. Cause usually it's fine.

Hell the worst thing wasn't actually the shipping of an item to me, it was actually this week my Sunn Alpha 212 showed up so my wife took it in and opened it up cause she thought it was the Vomitwolves shirts I had pressed... immediately got pissed and texted me going "You got another amp?! >:("
I try to have my stuff shipped else where or be home prior to my wife to intercept it and spirit it away into my truck or back to my shed before she even knows....

I just ordered a Orange CR120... so I hope it comes next week and I'm able to grab it before the wife sees the box. Esp if it shows up before the t-shirts...


Acid... That sucks, but I know this guy didn't even bother stopping cause I was walking around on the living room pearing out the window to see if he had shown up. and the way my living room is I have a huge 3 panel window, it would be difficult as hell for him to not be seen. I just don't know... I got it in so I'm good.




Going to celebrate by helping some dude jerk or shit in the public bathroom?

Oath Bound is good, but other than Land of the Dead, most of the songs don't stand out amongst each other. On Mortal Heroes, every single song has a unique identity and is memorable in it's own way. To be fair though, one night I was making a 3 hour drive back home across the state, and spun Oath Bound in it's entirety. That album can be quite effective if the listener is in the right mood.

Nah, I meant here in Germanland. I'm really not sure, never seen it happen. Wouldn't be surprised though if it was illegal.

Nah, I didn't get it yet. I just had a second interview at that place. It went well, and I guess I'm still in the running for the job, but I'm not going to totally bet on it happening so I've been applying to shitloads of other places.

It's actually pretty depressing. That Job A place I was talking about a while back was a place that seemed interesting enough that I could actually make a career of it and be pretty happy, but I wound up not getting that job. Basically 99% of the jobs I've applied to aren't really things I'd want to do forever and that don't have a lot of upward mobility potential, so I've kind of thrown in the towel on finding a long-term job in this area with my current credentials.

So, a month or so ago, I decided to just say fuck it and take the plunge and teach ESL in South Korea for a couple of years. The pay is slightly less than what I could potentially make around here, but I'll get an apartment for free, utilities are next to nothing and the cost of living is generally pretty low, so based on research I've done I'll be able to pay off all my student loan debt within about a year then start saving some pretty decent amounts of cash. While I'm there I'll get lots of teaching experience, so after a few years I'll be able to come back the US and go to grad school. I still need a new job in the meantime, though, since I don't ship out until probably August, so I've been frantically job-hunting for a couple months now. It's complete shit and I can't wait to be through with it.

There's nothing wrong with having a job with zero chance for upward movement as long as you can deal with be a crony and getting shit on for the rest of your days. Its got its ups and downs and some days feels unbearable but at then end of the day it doesn't matter so long as the checks don't bounce. Congrats though batman, that's a very noble occupation you've decided on.

I'm glad I've climbed the corporate ladder. I'm an office monkey now, no longer a dirty proletariat. Office jobs are pretty boring and the corporate environment can be a pain in the ass but it beats being at the bottom of the ladder, and the thought of having it as a long term job just kills your enthusiasm about anything. Sometimes people get into some shitty job and say, "This will be only a temporary job until I put myself together, soon I'll be a lawyer earning 20k a month", but when they realize, 10 years have passed and they are still doing the same shit.

Well I have no delusions of grandeur, I know that all I'll ever be is a peon and most days I can handle it so long as the money is good and the benefits don't go away. I may never be a rich fat cat but I do better than most people I know who've gone to college and/or played the corporate ladder game, and there's something satisfying about working your balls off when the check comes in. Which is not to say drop everything and chace that dollar, just do what makes you happy. You know if you can.

Exactly what Marag said, and that's the reason I'm not too keen on doing that sort of thing. Plus even as an office monkey, in the area where I live unless you're an especially skilled office monkey (like, you know Oracle or are a patent attorney or are a chartered accountant or have an MBA or something), you're basically only ever going to make enough money to just get by. I already spent about five years doing that, making enough to pay all my bills on time but not enough to ever go on trips or buy anything nice for myself or save for the future or anything, or start a family if I ever want to do that. I could stand the prospect of working at a boring office job I hate for the rest of my life if it meant I got to have a good time whenever I'm not at work and maybe retire someday, but with my current skillset/experience/education and where I live that's just not really a possibility, I've come to realize. So, time for a drastic career change.

Aren't you also in one of the most expensive areas in the country too? I think you said D.C. area right?

Yeah, it's fucking obscene really. In this area, a small 1 bedroom apartment will run you something like $1100 on average, a 2 BR more like $1400 and a 3 BR will be around $1800-$2000/month. Gas and food are expensive, taxes are high. Plus, even though I technically live in the DC suburbs, it's still a huge pain in the ass to get into the city: an hour drive (plus a lot, due to traffic) or a ~20 minute drive to the nearest subway station, the walk from the massive parking lots/garages to the actual train proper, the wait for the train, then a ~40 minute train ride. If I were to move closer in or into the city itself to cut back on some of those commute hours/dollars, the rent would keep on climbing. A new apartment complex built at a closer-in suburb that would be within closer distance of a lot of jobs has these prices: studio apartments - $1430 - $1590; 1 BR - $1750 - $1950; 2 BR - $2240 - $2860.

Holy shit batman! All those numbers are more than what I pay for my townhouse. It's not exactly cheap in the Chicago are either and I really have no clue what living downtown would cost because I have absolutely zero desire to live down there but just damn those prices are high.

Feel your pain my unemployed brother! Very relieved my wife is working so we aren't homeless, but still would rather a job, even if it was just a little part time deal. It sucks not having enough money for roadtrips, going down for a surf, etc.

I called my local post office to see if I can file a complaint or something, and they told me to talk to the mailman directly. So I left him a nice little note explaining that my package was damaged, and my paper mail was scattered through my front yard. I'll see what he says tomorrow. I know tomorrow is Saturday, but they usually run on Saturdays too... at least from what I remember.