Not Another End of Year Metal List! 2016

Two-thousand and sixteen can just go hang itself, am I right? While the year might be overall garbage, it did at least provide a good amount of metal. Once again there was a lot of metal that I listened to and I narrowed them down to my ten favorites. There were not a lot of stand outs for me at first but once I started deliberating what would be included in my list, it became apparent what the top ten really were. Here are my ten albums of 2016!

Game Haul - Quest for a Complete Nintendo 64 Library

Hails and pixels gaming metalheads! I come forth bearing gifts for myself! A few months ago I decided that I am going to go for a complete American Nintendo 64 game library. I already have about fifty titles in my collection and seeing as there is just under 300, I figured I'd give it a shot. There are enough titles for that console that I want that I would end up with a number coming pretty close to a complete collection. Add to the fact that there are not many games that are super-expensive (a handful break the $100 mark usually and I have a few of the harder to find and expensive ones already) and I figured it wouldn't be that difficult to collect. Here is what I picked up today!

Opeth Sorceress World Tour 2016 Report

I have seen a lot of bands live in the three decades that I have existed on this rock in space. The only band that I’ve seen nearly a dozen times is Opeth. To say that they’re my favorite band is an understatement. I first saw them when they were on the Blackest of Black tour back in 2003. They only played two songs but it was amazing. I have caught them nearly every time that they came through the valley. On the rare chance that they didn’t come directly through the Phoenix area then I would usually travel to a neighboring city to see them. With the release of Sorceress earlier this year it was time for Opeth to embark on their world tour.

Leprous North American Tour 2016

Ever since I made the Congregation by Leprous my album of the year for 2015 I have been wanting to see them live. I finally got to fulfill that desire on October 17 when Leprous descended upon the dive-bar venue, Joe’s Grotto. It’s a small, almost seedy bar perfect for metal. The fact that it has a great sound system helps too. My fiancé accompanied me to this show as well as one of my friends whom we met at the venue.

Twenty Five Years of Super Nintendo

Original image credit to JDLinus

Twenty-five years have passed since Nintendo introduced their 16-bit behemoth, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Those days were dominated by buzzwords like “blast processing” and “Mode 7” to give the 16-bit giants (sorry TurboGrafx-16) a 1-Up on each other. The Super Nintendo was my first home console but second overall video game system after the Game Boy, which I owned.

Devour Me 2016 Tour Report

Live shows are always a treat because you get to see talented musicians perform your favorite songs and you are sometimes treated to special moments that you otherwise won’t get from an album. Agalloch performing “Sowilo Rune” live for the first time as a tribute to Christopher Lee was an amazing experience. The performance of Ne Obliviscaris from their Devour Me tour yielded a similar experience.

GameOn Expo 2016 Report

Hails and pixels metalhead gamers! I just got back from a long day at the second annual GameOn Expo! This is a convention started by YouTuber Gamester81 that celebrates all things video games. I went to the first one last year but only for the opening day as I got busy with work on that weekend. I also didn’t go for the full weekend this year but the day was filled with fun, games, friends, and my fiancée. Hit the jump to read all about it!

Yasunori Mitsuda and Dream Theater Together?!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears) collaborated with Dream Theater? Well, I think that there might be some evidence to this baseless claim that I may or may not have come up with! Dream Theater recently released their dystopian rock opera epic, the Astonishing, and all around it’s a fantastic double album. But there’s a song on there that sounds very similar to a track that would appear on the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. Don’t believe me? Just take a listen to the intro!

Now listen to this Chrono Trigger track.

They sound very similar. It sounds like that Yasunori Mitsuda and Dream Theater indeed collaborated on the Astonishing.