Within Temptation - Resist

Hydra was severely disappointing, I don't think I could name more than one track from it, nor reproduce anything other than "faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster". And it wasn't (just) the fact that they abruptly turned pop, it was mostly the shallowness and repetitiveness of it all, there just simply wasn't anything to grasp on. Even Sharon was generic and bland for the most part, and I have no idea how you can take one of the most recognisable voices in the genre and do that to it. For this reason, I wasn't particularly interested in their new release, Resist. But because it's been a quiet season and because I didn't have anything to lose other than an hour of my life, I decided to give it a listen and I'm kind of glad I did. Not because it's a masterpiece or anything, but because it erased a bit of the sour taste Hydra and their live performance at Artmania left for me a few years ago.

Artmania 2013, Sibiu, 9-10.08.13

Day 1

Amaranthe

I used to strongly dislike Elize Ryd, she seemed very stuck up and self centered and vain and cold and unable to interact on stage with anyone else but her hair, but I must admit that she is much more tolerable in Amaranthe than she is with Kamelot. They were surprisingly fun! My favourite was the grunting dude, who's like a little troll in the background coming out to spoil the pretty pretty music of pretty pretty people.