This weekend I had a little spare time so I decided to watch a few horror flicks that I had wanted to see for a while.

I started with Halloween III (Season Of The Witch - 1982). I am a huge Michael Myers fan and I have seen the Halloween movies each 3-4 times. But I had never seen the 3rd installment, mainly because I knew that the storyline had nothing to do with the Myers character thing. So I watched it and… phew… Now I know why it took me 26 years to see this piece of crap. It was so stupid. It proves that even the best screenwriters can give birth to very bad concepts. Halloween III is definitely one of the worst piece of crap I’ve seen in a long time. It sucks big time…

On the other hand, I also watched the remake of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). This one was quite excellent! Not a tremendous scenario but very good gory special effects, costumes and makeup (see pic above). I also loved the dark atmosphere that reigns in that movie. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who like that genre. Go mutants go! I just leaned that there is a sequel to the movie. I’ll have to check it out!

Following AC/DC’s Black Ice release, I was so entheusiast that I rushed out to the store again and I bought No Bull. This DVD contains the full AC/DC show that was held on July 19, 1996 at the Plaza De Toro De Las Ventas in Spain (a remarkable space usually designated for bull fights). It’s almost 2 hours of ear-blowing pure hard rock like only our favorite Australian band can deliver. Even if the filming quality is not at its best, the show is very good and demonstrates once again that Angus Young is restless.  In fact, he is a machine! The guy must lose 10 pounds of sweat at every show because he’s always running, jumping, spinning, etc.

Filmed after the release of the Ballbreaker album, the show includes these classic tracks:

1. Back In Black
2. Shot Down In Flames
3. Thunder Struck
4. Girl’s Got Rhythm
5. Hard As A Rock
6. Shoot To Thrill
7. Boogie Man
8. Hail Caesar
9. Hells Bells
10. Dog Eat Dog
11. The Jack
12. Ballbreaker
13. Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution
14. Dirty Deeds Done Cheap
15. You Shook Me All Night Long
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. T.N.T.
18. Let There Be Rock
19. Highway To Hell
20. For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)

For a guy like me who never had the chance to see AC/DC live, it’s a great piece of collection. Though it’s not the best concert I’ve seen on DVD, it’s worth the money spent to acquire it. I give it a 7/10 rate.

The world-renowned Aussies hard-rockers are back into prime time with a new release entitled Black Ice. And God it was about time that AC/DC delivered its fans some new music. The band’s last record, Stiff Upper Lip, hit the shelves back in 2000 (8 years ago). It was definitely about time! But believe me my friends, the wait was worth it because Black Ice is once again another excellent release from AC/DC.

There are no surprises in Black Ice: pure hard-rock songs recorded in AC/DC’s classic style, i.e. with a tint of blues. Brian Johnson’s voice is still as good as it was 8 years ago. No sign of fatigue here! Angus Young’s riffs are still edgy and persuasive. Cliff William’s bass guitar, Phil Rudd’s drums, Malcom Young’s rhythm guitar, everything is very tight.

I invite you to take a look at the album’s booklet to see what 8 years do on rockers in their late 50’s. The guys look quite older hahaha… William now has almost all-white hair. Rudd now sports Elvis-style sideburns. I love it hehehehe… But Angus starts to look a bit silly in his classic schoolboy uniform. But a trademark is a trademarks and you can’t touch this! So in the end it’s fine with me!

Rock And Roll Train is my favorite song on the album. Wheels is quite good either, so are Big Jack and Rock N Roll Dream. The latter one, though, has a slower beat which makes us feel that it’s almost a ballad (but is it not). The rest of the songs sound like stuff we already heard from AC/DC. Black Ice is definitely a collectionner item, a keeper as we say. Not a groundbreaking album but It’s worth a good 8,5/10. Long live to AC/DC and I just hope I’ll be able to see them in show once in my life.

Here come Evergrey with their follow-up to 2006’s excellent Monday Morning Apocalypse: a new album titled Torn. After having listened to the CD a couple of times, I just can’t say that it’s good and I can’t say it’s bad neither. Actually I don’t really know what to say about it.

Torn is a classic Evergrey album. It is smoother that its predecessor. It contains pretty good guitar solos (especially one in the song Numb that I like a lot). But it does not contain any groundbreaking songs, songs that will be remembered for a long time. The songs on the album have a very dark tone and sound pretty much the same according to me. Torn contains no surprises… Does it mean that Tom S. Englund and his bandmates have produced an average album? I don’t think so. Torn just misses some spicy elements that could make it a very good metal album. I think it’s not as good at Monday Morning Apocalypse. That’s pretty much what I have to say about it. I guess I’ll learn to appreciate Torn with further listenings. But at this moment, I’ll give it a rate of 7,5/10. And I’ll specify that the good songs on the album are probably Broken Wings, Fail, Numb and These Scars (pretty good).

Whooooo… I was trying to find sleep this weekend during the Sunday to Monday night. It was about 2 AM and I was watching TV. Let me tell you that there is absolutely nothing good on TV at this time of the night. But at some point I landed on an obscure channel where they were presenting the kind of uninteresting infommercial. And that’s when I figured out that the the clown that was trying to sell me a ultra-nice-and-powerful-innovative-cooking-gadget was in fact Mr. T himself. The guy was standing there behind the counter with his deck on and looked just… weird. The same look that he had in the 80s but with 25 additional years to the counter. The guy is almost 60 years old now and he still thinks he’s good looking as at the time when he was the head of The A Team. My only comment: scary!!!!! This did not help my to fall asleep believe me…

I just read on the web that ABC is trying to bring back to life the popular sci-fi series “V”. I was a kid when “V” was aired back in the early 80s but I remeber that I loved that show. I never missed an episode. And while I am writing this I’m asking myself why I didn’t but the DVDs yet hmmm…

The new “V” series will be written by Scott Peters and produced by Warner Bros (who had also produced the original miniseries). Can’t wait to see that!!!

We now have Stéphane Dion on the power play. What an incredible style this guy has when he handles a hockey stick!!! Let’s give him #69!

Scary…

…but they gave a damn good show yesterday night at the Medley here in Montreal. The Florida-based band was back in town with Matt Barlow back at the mike. I was the first time I could see him sign live for Iced Earth and he definitely kicks ass!!! The band played a full set of a duration of 1h40 which pleased every fan in the crowd.

At some point the show got interrupted because a stupid moron in the audience had the brilliant idea to spit on Jon Schaffer (pictured up here), the lead gutarist and leader of the group during Night Of The Stormrider. Very bad idea because Schaffer was really pissed off and screamed at the moron to invite him for a fight. Of course, the moron tried to leave the place but amazingly, the crowd pulled him back to the front of the stage where he was taken care of by angry fans. Weird scene but that was good for him! The band actually appreciated the response from the rest of the crowd and were then boosted to deliver the rest of the show.

Besides that, Iced Earth performed a quite interesting setlist. Among others, we were able to hear Behold The Wicked Child, I Walk Alone, Come What May, 10000 Strong, Declaration Day, the complete Gettysburgh set (3 tracks), Dracula, Burning Times, Watching Over Me, Night Of The Stormrider, Vengeance Is Mine, Melancholy and of course Iced Earth. Very satisfying for an Iced Earth fan.

Only one negative aspect: the volume was damn too loud. My right ear still makes me suffer 24h later…

Two power metal supergroups were in town last Friday and gave a hell of a show: Gamma Ray and Helloween. In fact the two German groups were sharing the stage for this event that was held at the Medley. Once again Gamma Ray and Helloween did not deceive their fans, blasting them powerful classic tracks like Somewhere Out In Space, Into The Storm, Empress, Heaven Can Wait, Ride the Sky (these one played by Gamma Ray), Halloween, Future World, Power, Eagle Fly Free, Mr Torture, As Long As I Fall (these one played by Helloween). In other words, this event was a blast for every power metal fan. Especially when the two groups joined forces together on stage and played I Want Out to close the show! Delicious!!! And it was, as usual, very rough on the ears and tympanums. But what the hell, that’s how we like it huh?!

Ho yeahhhh!!! The hockey season is beginning in a few weeks! Here is a good classic TV souvenir (here in Quebec) to put us in the mood:

And here’s a pretty song for you: Jesus is my friend!

I told you that this is useless entertainment… You’ve been warned!!!