my heart to fear

IC2S Playlist Update 11/11/2015

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

It’s Remembrance Day here in Canada, and if you haven’t read my Quick Fix related to it yet, then you might find it interesting. Naturally, it’s going to be a sombre and respectful day around here though, especially since I have family in the Canadian Forces.

On a more positive note though, I’m making quite a bit of progress on the Metal Gear retrospective. I’ve completed 4 games in the franchise thus far and have their retrospectives all written up and ready to go, with a 5th game maybe an hour away from completion and the writing portion should take an evening to put together. It has been pretty fun thus far and I’m glad that I decided to take the plunge, because I doubt I would have gotten to experience the MSX Metal Gear games without it. It’s also giving me a better appreciation for the series, but I’ll leave any formal analysis for the retrospectives themselves. It’s going to be pretty great and I’m putting quite a lot of work into this, so I hope that you guys enjoy when it’s finally ready to go.

First up this week, we have “The Sneaking Chair” by My Heart to Fear from their album Algorithm. Back when Weathered Steel was still on the air, this song just dominated their Top 40 playlist. Most songs only last a week or 2 before disappearing entirely, but “The Sneaking Chair” must have been the #1 song for at least a month. It’s a pretty great song, I’ve been meaning to put it in the playlist for a really long time. In fact, the last time I put a My Heart to Fear song in the playlist (“4th Dimension Opera House”, way back in May), I had originally intended to use “The Sneaking Chair” but made a last minute switch. On an unrelated note, I have no idea how My Heart to Fear comes up with their song titles, some of them are just all over the place. Some will be really straightforward (“Wish You Were Here”, “Angst”, etc) and then others are… well, “The Sneaking Chair”.

Secondly we have “Blood Brothers” by Iron Maiden from the album Brave New World. It had always been a bit of a secret shame for me that I considered myself a through-and-through metalhead, but wasn’t really into some of the genre heavy weights, such as Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. However, since Weathered Steel shut down I have switched my Internet radio over to Metal Rock Radio, which plays the metal classics and modern metal all the time, and has been getting me quite into Iron Maiden. “Blood Brothers” might be my favourite thus far, it’s just a really badass song that makes you want to sing along. As someone who likes Sabaton and Disturbed, you can probably tell that this sort of “comradery”/battle song really appeals to me and is making me want to have an “Iron Maiden week” where I just fire up Spotify and blow through their entire discography to find all their gems.

IC2S Playlist Update 13/05/2015

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Welcome back for another IC2S Playlist update! We’re now 9 songs in, clocking in at 53 minutes, with a nice mix of rock/hard rock, metal, electronic and pop music. We’re actually getting to the point where you could throw this playlist on in the background while you work or go for a drive, so… yeah… if you do that, then I’d like to know what you think (as long as it’s positive, haha). Also, this happens to be my 100th post on I Choose to Stand, so that’s a pretty epic milestone to celebrate.

First up this week is “4th Dimension Opera House” by My Heart to Fear from their album Algorithm. I was really tempted to do their song “The Sneaking Chair” instead, but this one edged it out because of its really interesting lyrics (I’ll probably add “The Sneaking Chair” at somepoint in the future though, because it really kicks ass, so stay tuned). In a nutshell, the song is about how things only get worse when humanity gets what it wants. The song details a sci-fi story about how a well of unlimited power is discovered in a small town. It starts out as a promise of good, but it quickly descends into government regulation, riots, poverty, war and overpopulation. In the end, they destroy the well to stop all the problems that it caused in the first place, and make a concerted effort to forget that it even existed… until 10,000 years in the future, when another well is found. It’s a really interesting idea for a song, and the ending shows how the cycle of human desire and self-destruction continues itself. One interesting note for me though is that the song kind of feels like the conservative ethos told in an allegory, but it doesn’t change that I think it’s a very interesting song. My only real complaint is that I wish it was longer. The main body of the song could easily have had another verse about how the well screws up the world, but it feels like it just skips through all of that very quickly. Still, I’d recommend checking out Algorithm, it’s a very solid album from start to finish.

Secondly, we have “The Other Woman” by Caro Emerald from her album Deleted Scenes From the Cutting Room Floor. I have really gotten into Caro Emerald in the last couple weeks, I really like her jazz/big band/pop mixture and her classy, sensual style. This song in particular sounds very Tarantino-esque, or perhaps could form the basis of a kick-ass James Bond theme song (holy shit, please get Caro Emerald to make the next James Bond theme please!!!!). I dunno, there’s not much more beyond that that I can say – it’s just a really great song from a very talented artist, so check it out.