Katatonia – “Ghost of the Sun”
From the album: Viva Emptiness

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Why this song doesn’t suck:
It’s just science… if it’s a metal band and they’re from Sweden it goes on my iPod. Swedes know how to make my earholes happy no matter what genre of metal their tunes happen to fall into. In Katatonia’s case, it’s kinda-ominous-yet-catchy-depressive-doom-metal. Here’s a song from Katatonia’s 2003 album (the cheerily-titled ‘Viva Emptiness’) entitled “Ghost of the Sun. The first song I ever heard from this band, “Ghost of the Sun” really got under my skin for some some. It’s slightly eerie yet strangely beautiful… and heavy… and catchy. And it’s worth a listen dammit. So do it.

Official Website: www.katatonia.com
Official MySpace: Katatonia on MySpace Music
Encyclopedia Metallum: Katatonia

Annihilator – “Alison Hell”
From the album: Alice in Hell

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Why this song doesn’t suck:
Annihilator is a band that should need no introduction, but I know some of you reading this are super fucking lame, so I’ll take 5 seconds and introduce them. Since 1989, Canadian thrashmasters Annhilator have been blessing disciples of metal with awesome music. Mainman Jeff Waters knows how to write killer tunes and started on a high note with Annihilator’s debut album ‘Alice in Hell’. As I mentioned in my previous post about Annihilator, this album’s quasi-title track, “Alison Hell” is near the top of my favorite-fucking-songs-ever-ever-ever list. Thus it does not suck. I rest my case. Case dismissed, the jury awards me the prize! Objection! Withheld! Stricken from the record! The song! Listen to it!

Official Website: www.annihilatormetal.com
Official MySpace: Annihilator on MySpace Music
Encyclopedia Metallum: Annihilator

Along with Devin Townsend, 3 Inches of Blood and Rush, one of Canada’s greatest contributions to the world of metal is Ottawa thrash band Annihilator. For the past 20 years, Annihilator have pumped out killer metal tunes, many of which easily make it on my personal favorites list (Alison Hell!). Check out the video above for some song clips from Annihilator’s upcoming self-titled album. Holy shit, Annihilator mainman Jeff Waters can fucking shred. If these clips are any indication of what this new album has in store, it’s going to be leaps and bounds better than their last effort, ‘Metal’ (which is honestly an alright album, but not all that impressive). Sounds like Jeff really pulled out all the stops for this one and I’m excited as hell to get my hands on this album when it drops May 17th.

Some fan-filmed videos of Jeff playing two of the new album tracks – “The Trend” & “Betrayed” – during a guitar workshop on March 11, 2010 at Italmélodie in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (and from the looks of it, having a hell of a good time doing so) after the jump…

These Old Spice Oder Blocker commercial were directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the dudes behind Adult Swim’s “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”, and they just may be the greatest things I’ve ever seen.

Building Kick! EXPLOOOSIOOOOOOOON!!

Enjoy two more examples of Tim & Eric’s obvious insanity after the jump.

Wailin is all about the gear, the threads, the performance, the groove and the vocal. And CYMBALS! He needs cymbals! More cymbals… dear god, MORE CYMBALS!!

Come on. No self-respecting band would ever play with this guy. He takes the term “overkill” and brings it to an absurdly horrible new level. Plus he dresses like a 16 year old girl. Is that a… is that a choker? Ah jeez.

Hit the jump for another video featuring some songs you may actually know (if you can withstand the vocals)…

Okay, I love the show ‘24′. I’ll admit I got into it a bit late in the game but when I started watching it I got sucked in big time. I obsessively watched through the first 4 or 5 seasons in only a matter of weeks, and while I continue to enjoy the show to this day (and so far, through this current season), I’m certainly not one to say the series is perfect. It’s not. The main fault of ‘24′ is that it’s becoming incredibly predictable. Every season follows the same basic formula and to be honest things are getting a bit stale. With the announcement that the current season, season 8, will be the last for ‘24′, I thought it may be therapeutic for me to run down some of the overdone elements that comprise any season of the show, swearing a lot while doing so. So I did. And now you get to read it. Yay!

CTU Has a Mole!
Holy christ, just how flawed can one government agency’s employee screening process be?! Nearly every season of ‘24′ features at least one mole working from inside CTU to completely dismantle their efforts to stop whatever terrorist plot may be going down in any particular episode. Fans know this is coming. We all instinctively take mental note of the new CTU employees and start guessing who the mole will be from the season premiere on. Who’s going to pick up the phone at the end of some random episode and start talking to the terrorist mastermind, telling him “everything is going as planned”? Who’s going to upload the system-crippling trojan backdoor worm virus? Who’s going to turn off the satellite tracking at the exact right moment? Who?! Oh, him? Yeah, figured.

CTU Gets Attacked!
Computer Virus? EMP?! C4?!! Mercenaries?!!! Poison gas?!!!! Holy hell, CTU is one of the most dangerous work environment for a computer tech imaginable. The guys on the Geek Squad don’t have to worry about being gassed to death or getting shot in the fucking forehead while installing Spybot, but it seems CTU techs don’t have that same peace of mind. With every season of ‘24′, you can count on something going horribly wrong at CTU, usually resulting in the terrorists sneaking through our defenses with their weapon of mass destruction of choice in tow. But fear not loyal fan. As long as Chloe reformats the master server drives through an encrypted socket (wait, huh?), they’ll be back online and ready to feed Jack intel!