Why Court In The Act will be fairly inactive over the next week or so

The following are an accurate representation of what is currently going on in the world of Persona 101:

I seem to have had a hard disk failure; most things work well but many files on my internal HDD are becoming corrupt. No virus. Fortunately my music was on an external HDD so this does not spell the end.

In other news, it was my birthday yesterday, and I can now legally drink. Huzzah!

Dead Head - Dream Deceiver [1993]

Dead Head are one of the bands who the thrash world just seemed to overlook a little. Whilst the likes of Thanatos get far more praise than their work's due, Dead Head here created a classic death/thrash album and rarely get mentioned. The great thing about this album is that they're not afraid to vary the speed a little; and the variations work. Take, for instance, the song 'I Or The Needle'. A slow burner of the type that not many will be used to in the thrash, but it also happens to be one of the best songs on the album. Of course, there's also hyper-aggressive deathrash in abundance, and the delightful balance here between the two extremes makes the album extremely satisfying.

320 kbps

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Re-upload: Ария (Aria) - Герой Асфальта (Hero Of Asphalt) [1987]

I found out about this in the first place when a friend got me a tape of it on a holiday in Estonia. Back then, I was more into Devildriver than Death, and so promptly dismissed it as boring dad-rock. I dug it out of a box earlier this year, and no longer having a tape player, decided to download it. And what a good album it is. Full of heroic vocals, Maiden-esque guitar duelling and catchy choruses (although they're sung in Russian, so I don't know what they're about).

N.B. The song titles on the files are English translations of the Russian originals.

320 kbps

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Re-post: The Court In The Act guide to post-purge downloading (for Firefox)

I keep getting asked about this by various people - hence the repost - so feel free to spread it. I'd rather you included a reference back here though.

Ever since the removal of Megaupload and various other filehosting websites from cyberspace, almost a week ago now, people have been realising how much harder it is to come across downloads now. In the future, one might be able to just hop onto Google Blog Search again with the album name and blogurl:blogspot.com, but at the moment, this takes so long searching through pages with dead links that it's really not worth it. The key to post-purge downloading without resorting to p2p, torrents or other horrible things like that is opportunism - one must simply download the albums which pop up on blogs you follow. It's best to follow a lot of blogs. However, loading the front page of every blog every day does get somewhat tiresome, so here's the best way in my experience to avoid doing that (on Firefox):

Step 1: Go to the front page of the blog you want to follow. Click 'Bookmarks', then 'Subscribe to this page'. This allows you to receive an RSS (or Atom) feed from most blogs (although a very few will have them disabled). For instance, this is how I'd follow the Degen Erik blog:

2. Select a folder for the feed to go in. Although not strictly necessary, it helps to keep your browser comparatively clean when you follow blogs on an industrial scale like I do. Personally, I filter them by how frequently they are updated and then by genre. As Degen Erik is a punk blog which is updated several times daily, it would go in my 'Daily metal/hardcore' folder.

3. Now, assuming you follow lots of blogs, it's still a pain to keep up to date with the last post in each blog and just quickly look at the feed to see whether it has been updated or not. Therefore, I use a very useful add-on called Boox which makes the names of blogs which have been updated bold, and puts the number of updates next to them (right click and select 'Mark As Read' if you don't want to read the rest of the updates). Boox can be found at http://joliclic.free.fr/mozilla/boox/en/index.php.

4. I find it best to check daily so that you well and truly can stay ahead of the copyrightists - this takes me up to fifteen minutes maximum depending on how much I find that I want (keep in mind that I do follow 200+ blogs). If all has gone well, the end effect should look something like this (note that I have some other addones which may change the exact appearance for you):

I hope this helps.

Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky [1992]

I can't quite believe I haven't posted this one yet. Certainly Darkthrone's best in my (omniscient) opinion, and therefore among the top 5 black metal albums of all time. Although Fenriz has since stated that this album was essentially 'death metal riffs played in a black metal style' in order to meet deadlines for Peaceville, the essence of this album is black metal through and through. Each of the six tracks herein is an acknowledged Darkthrone classic - from the famous opener 'Kathaarian Life Code' via my personal favourite 'In The Shadow Of The Horns' to frosty closer 'The Pagan Winter', every single one hits hard. This is essential for anyone who claims to like metal music.

128 kbps

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Ahmad Jamal - Blue Moon [2012]

ARE YOU TOO FUCKING METAL FOR JAZZ? Well, get off your high horse because this is one of the best albums of the year. Ahmad Jamal has always been a technically gifted jazz pianist; in his earlier work he included a small amount of influence from African music as well, which certainly diversified his sound and made it a little more interesting (actually, I may be thinking of another musician, but I'll leave that there anyway). Simply put, this has quickly become one of my favourite jazz records. Despite its 77 minute (I think) length, the album is captivating throughout, as Jamal shows us perfectly how to play on a motif and improvise on a loose theme. Not extreme in any way but for being extremely awesome.

320 kbps

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Court In The Act Presents: Best Of 2012 Thus Far

http://8tracks.com/persona-101/court-in-the-act-presents-the-best-of-2012-thus-far

Nothing fancy, just another 8tracks mix. A mixture of major and more underground releases of the year.

1. Absolutist - Churches Burn
2. Dodecahedron - I, Chronocrator
3. Horrendous - Fleshrot
4. Napalm Death - Collision Course
5. Asphyx - Deathhammer
6. Edremerion - L'etreinte
7. Fukpig - Fascist Moron
8. Wyrdforge - Necromancy And Napalm Bombings
9. Liberteer - Class War Never Meant More Than It Does Now
10. Nekromantheon - Rise, Vulcan Spectre
11. Receptionist - When Nobody Sees, You Seize It All
12. Woods Of Ypres - Adora Vivos