Plays Like Teen Spirit

Decent Interface

I had come to like the Russian beauty AIMP2 lately, what with its amazing sound quality and decent feature roster. Still, it didn’t completely consume me: it didn’t satisfy my music needs as The KMPlayer satisfied my video needs.

Enter Teen Spirit. I found this little gem floating here on the Internets and it sounds quite similar to Songbird at first: a new-age open-source music player. But it has everything Songbird doesn’t: simplicity, speed, stability and probably most importantly, it is custom-tailored for modern listeners.

The interface is simple, but has just about everything you’d want. I loved how it automatically seeks pictures and info from Last.fm and other places, with a neat fading effect. The player totally feels alive.

Probably what impressed me the most was the blazing speed. I didn’t see one delay in the program, it loads up instantaneously, plays instantaneously, it’s great!

The only qualm I’d say I have is that the lyrics search is kind of manual. You have to right-click and select a lyrics search, which is then stored on disk for future retrieval. Some sort of an auto-search would have helped.

It also boasts in-built Last.fm scrobbling support (but doesn’t use the official Last.fm scrobbler, perhaps saving some of my memory). Best way to sum it up: it’s got what you want, it’s very intuitive to use and it’s just stylish enough!

I’d say it still needs some work in the presentation department. While the interface is great, the “skins” are just colour themes. The panels aren’t movable (although they can be expanded and minimized effectively). Probably worst of all is the name and icon of the project, which sounds kind of amateurish. The icon is pretty boring too, I wonder why they didn’t use this:

Hammerheart

I’ve always regarded Bathory’s Hammerheart as one of my all-time favourite songs. With a profound, reflective meaning and a heroic choir, the songs stirs emotions like no other. It breaks convention while not sounding too alien, and is definitely, in my honest opinion, Bathory’s finest.

I remember first downloading Hammerheart on the day Quorthon died – a truly sad, sad day for Metal. Quorthon was the one-man inventor and maverick of genres like Black Metal, Folk Metal and of course, Viking Metal. This one song seemingly summarizes him perfectly and almost connects you with his soul, almost as in necromancy, without the darker connotations.

I sing in chorus for this one every time, to remember Bathory always. These are some of my most favourite lyrics ever.

Now that the wind called my name,
And my star had faded now hardly a glimpse up in the empty space.
And the wise one-eyed great father in the sky stilled my flame.

For the ones who stood me near,
And you few who were me dear,
I ask of thee to have no doubts and no fears.

For when the great clouds fills the air,
And the thunder roars from O, so far away up in the sky!
Then for sure you will know that I have reached the joyous hall up high.

With my blood-brothers at side,
All sons of father with one eye,
We were all born in the land of the blood on ice.

And now you all who might hear my song,
Brought to you by the northern wind have no fear,
Though the night may seem so everlasting and forever dark,

There will come a golden dawn,
At ends of nights for all ye on whom
Upon the North-star always shines.

The vast gates to hall up high,
Shall stand open wide and welcome you with all its within,
And Oden shall hail us bearers of a pounding Hammerheart.

Gravity

Gravity, by Maaya Sakamoto on the Wolf’s Rain Soundtrack.

This is a very beautiful song, and easily one of my all-time anime soundtrack favourites. Yoko Kanno never disappoints! While I’m loving every bit of Wolf’s Rain’s background music (and am rather unsure about the opening), the ending is nothing short of perfection.

Been a long road to follow,
Been there and gone tomorrow,
Without saying goodbye to yesterday.
Are the memories I hold still valid,
Or hath the tears deluded them?

Maybe this time tomorrow,
The rain will cease to follow,
And the mist will fade into one more today.
Something somewhere out there keeps calling,

Am I going home?
Will I hear someone singing solace to the silent moon?
Zero gravity what’s it like?
Am I alone? Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet?

Still the road keeps on telling me to go on.
Something is pulling me,
I feel the gravity of it all.

Farewell, by Summoning

This is probably Summoning’s best, or at least one of their best. It has their characteristic epic feel, along with godlike vocals, haunting melodies and a chorus that has been embedded in my head.

Planet Caravan

Listening to Planet Caravan by Black Sabbath gives me a high. The song is so cool.

We sail through endless skies
Stars shine like eyes
The black night sighs
The moon in silver trees
Falls down in tears
Light of the night
The earth, a purple blaze
Of sapphire haze
In orbit always

While down below the trees
Bathed in cool breeze
Silver starlight breaks down the night
And so we pass on by the crimson eye
Of great God mars
As we travel the universe

The Serpentine Offering

This is one of the few songs I like from Dimmu Borgir after they switched from good Melodic Black Metal to Symphonic Extreme Metal. They’re just not my type anymore, but they are some very talented people, especially Shagrath – he has a brilliant voice that fits between Black Metal’s shrieks and Death Metal’s grunts.

Songza is great

Found songza on the January 2008 edition of PC Magazine (which I got off mininova, of course). It’s pretty much the an audio search engine and player, somewhat similar to the classic SingingFish and the existing Spool.fm, which I think I will now sadly leave in favour of Songza.

Songza has an excellent design that is both different and simplistic, with a strong hint of Web 2.0 fashion. It’s giving me songs that Spool doesn’t, so I suppose I will be using Songza for all my random music-listening and previewing moments. Sorry, Spool.