Kind of like the East, the top 5 in the West seem consistent, with minor shuffling based on whether Detroit or Chicago wins the Central and Calgary or Vancouver wins the Northwest (with everyone agreeing that the Sharks win the Pacific). Then there is Anaheim, which seems to be the West’s version of New Jersey – some have them as high as 5th, while others have them out of the playoffs entirely. And again, aside from the two abysses – Colorado and Phoenix – every other team enters the season with a plausible chance at the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry…

I was thinking about my season preview for the NHL and I realized that there appears to be little difference between last season’s final standings and this season’s assumptions.  The top 5 in the East are almost set in stone (the exception being New Jersey dropping off) – Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philly and Carolina all seem like mortal locks for the playoffs.  This group should be tight, with Carolina maybe being closer to the bottom of the pack than this group of elite teams.  As always, the difference between the 7th team and the 12th will probably be less than 10 points, which makes picking the bottom playoff teams more contentious.  The only team that everyone agrees totally stinks is the Islanders. Read the rest of this entry…

I haven’t written about football here since my foreboding and cryptic preview last season.  I really didn’t want to write about the fact that not only was I right about Brady suffering an injury, but also that it happened in the first half of the first game of the season.   For a Patriots fan, it was the nightmare scenario.  Regardless of the success Matt Cassell had, last season was essentially a throw-away, leading to a painfully long wait for meaningful football action. Read the rest of this entry…

You have to hand it to the NY media for its ridiculously uninformed pipe-dreams concerning the Rangers’ ability to pluck any player of their choosing from any team in a cap-crunch.  I don’t know if this perceived sense of power comes from the fact that Glen Sather was able to unload the abyss of Scott Gomez’s contract or if it’s simply the ego of covering the team that plays in the largest market.  Lest we forget, it was Sather who gave Gomez such a horribly ill-advised contract and the Rangers are hardly a model franchise or desirable landing spot for most players.

It began with the much maligned Larry Brooks suggesting that the Rangers could do the Bruins a favor by taking Marc Savard and his $5 million salary off their hands.  Brooks must spend too much time reading HFboards, since he seemed to think that a top-5 assist man would be available for Brandon Dubinsky.  In essence, Brooks is talking like a retard fan – “we have the goal scorer (Gaborik), all we need is the setup man!”  Under Brooks’s harried logic, the Bruins should actually being trying to acquire Ovechkin to take feeds on Savard’s wing.  If unsigned Dubinsky yields Savard, then Ovechkin could be had for Dennis Wideman (a respectable player, but nowhere near the level of the other guy).

Then last week, as Phil Kessel’s contract dispute lingers, it was suggested by another Post writer that the Rangers and Devils need to hurry up and try to acquire him – either by trade or by extending an offer sheet.  As the article notes though, the Devils have never expressed any interest in Kessel, but they need to dammit!  Unlike the Rangers, the Devils could fit Kessel under the cap, but for some reason, Mark Everson is wholly convinced that Kessel is a top-line center (ignoring those two failed seasons as a center in Boston).  Unlike the Rangers, the Devils don’t really have a need there, with Travis Zajac filling that role.  Everson’s line of thinking is clear – “Kessel > Zajac” – except for the flawed premise of Kessel not actually being a center.  He would certainly be an upgrade on the rightwing of Zajac and Parise, but his lax defensive play and lack of physicality would certainly not endear him to the New Jersey’s new coach – neutral zone trap master Jacques Lemaire.  However, Everson is mostly talking-up Kessel as the missing piece for the Rangers, seeing him as a Gaborik’s center and even touting his *ahem* “defensive skills.”  Forget the boneheaded wrongness of those assumptions, since Everson never considers that the Rangers have about $1 million in free cap space, still have to sign Brandon Dubinksy, who will likely get around $3-4 million, and that the Rangers lack the necessary draft picks that would have to be ceded to the B’s if Kessel chose to play in MSG.  This barrage of nonsense must be bitterness resulting from Boston’s hosting this year’s Winter Classic (even though we all know next year’s will be in Yankee Stadium).

The WaPo had a great piece on Pig Destroyer in its Sunday Magazine a couple of weekends ago.  Initially it starts off the sort of tedious, misinformation one would expect from a Beatles-loving journalist, but as the article goes on it becomes much more thoughtful and insightful.  It’s quite clear that as Rowell got to know the members in their non-band guises, which are there more common roles, they also set him straight on some of his early missteps and outsider preconceptions.  While this band is already steeped in ridiculous lore in the metal community, I would have to assume this will only further it.

G.I. Joe was my toy of choice growing up.  Growing up in the Cold War climate, on a military base, it actually seemed logical to me that there was a shadowy group of bad guys bent on world domination and an elite force of good guys with the perfect mix of skills to stop them.  Needless to say, I knew the live-action movie would be a total bust, even if Dennis Quaid looks exactly like the picture of General Hawk on my cake from my 7th birthday.  Fortunately, such debacles bring about reverant fans.  On that note, we get the Journal of a New COBRA Recruit and the Journal of a Seasoned COBRA Veteran.  It pretty much depicts what I imagined the life of a VIPER to be. It’s Funny, with spot-on references to the ’80’s cartoons, comics, and toys, Keith Pille clearly spent hours foiling COBRA Commander, Destroyer and Serpentor.

Equally brilliant is The Ballad of G.I. Joe – after the jump – composed by Daniel Strange and Kevin Umrbicht.  Hilarious, with great celebrity casting.  Who wouldn’t rather see Henry Rollins kicking ass as Duke, as opposed to that sissy dancer guy?

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Aside from their bold vision for progressing the genre of black metal, what really makes Cobalt noteworthy is the fact that the duo’s frontman spends the majority of his time serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq.  You can just image the kind of grim and bleak content in the lyrics.  While it’s impressive that the duo is able to string together a coherent album under such circumstances, Gin also suffers in places because of it.  David Wunder’s drumming seems to falter at times, either not matching the intensity or the tempo of the guitar riffs.  Wunder’s drumming is at its primal best when matched with the thick, clean chords, which is where the band truly shines.  These passages are torturous and tense, creating a throbbing atmosphere that builds towards the heavier, distorted riffs.  The drumming falls behind, but not for lack of trying.  Essentially, in an effort to evoke Tool, Wunder tries to carry the primal beats over the up-tempo riffs, but his vision is too grandiose and ultimately fails.  The sloppiness is endearing and rarely takes little away from the overall track.  Why I don’t fault Wunder as a drummer is because he really nails the brutal, more metal-styled drumming, blasting away over Phil McSorley’s tremolo-picked guitars.  Also, his arrangements are so complex, but the instrumentation is so bare and straightforward, making it quite remarkable that they are able to evoke so much dynamism from so few layers.  Like so many of their labelmates on Profund Lore, cobalt are really pushing the boundaries of black metal.  Without admitting it, there is a very strong Enslaved influence in their sound, notably in the highly complex riffing.  Rather than taking an overtly progressive/psychedelic trope, their sound is heavily tempered by atmospheric undulation in the vein of Swans and Neurosis, relying heavily on the build-up and tension of tribal drumming against clean tones.

Watching the demise of major media outlets in Boston has been pretty shocking.  First, there has been the long-running fear-mongering about the restructuring and potential closure of the Boston Globe.  Then, this week, was the news about WBCN being replaced by sports talk.  Sadly, BCN had been dying a slow death – its music has been dead since the late ‘90’s and nothing could make up for the ratings loss when Howard Stern’s show ended in 2006.  It’s just further proof of the absolute failure of most media companies to adapt to modern technologies and continue to dig their own graves, unfortunately at the expense of key pieces of community fabric. Read the rest of this entry…

Knowing that the Bruins likely wouldn’t be involved in any dealings, I wasn’t anxiously awaiting the news of a big signing and grumbling every time someone on my B’s wishlist signed somewhere else.  Instead, I was able to enjoy Wysh’s “live blog” (really just a series of tweets from various news sources) providing updates on all the happenings.  For the most part, I found myself in disbelief at most of these deals, to the point that it looked some GM’s had a few too many celebratory Canada Day drinks given their absurdity and some appeared to have hit the bottle too early hard, too early, and slept through most of the day.  So, let’s take a look at why your team was a loser yesterday. Read the rest of this entry…

Not to be outdone by forbearers Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse release what will probably hold as the best brutal death metal album of the year, Evisceration Plague.  Superficially, the album is everything one would expect – totally ripping and brutal, with great production by Erik Rutan.  If Scott Burns of Morrissound Studios was death metal’s early producer extraordinaire, Rutan should be considered the modern equivalent.  Rutan is able to capture clear sound out all instruments, even making the bass audible, in a genre that is not known for quality sound.  Better still is that he does it without sacrificing any of the music’s heaviness.  The only “noticeable” change from the band, other than pushing their musical heaviness further, is the seeming lack of gore-based lyrics, which may bother some long-time fans.  The songs are unrelenting, generally driving with a ferocious drum beat and riffs, only spiced up by the occasional sinewy, dissonant guitar solos.  It’s amazing that Cannibal Corpse is able to approach such a stoic and austere musical style with the same bravado and intensity after 20 years, but they remain unchallenged as the best at straight-ahead, pounding fast death metal.