Last week, Nine Inch Nails released a new single Discipline to a mysterious, untold album. The track was a free download off of NIN’s website. Buried in the metadata of the MP3 was a message saying to come back to the NIN site on May 5th. Today, they released for FREE their latest album, The Slip, as a thank you to the fans. You can get it in a variety of flavors from MP3 to FLAC off their website. A physical CD is still being planned for a July 08 release. The Slip is a shorter album than Year Zero, but its a pretty tight package. You gotta hand it to Trent Reznor for coming through with this amount of quality material over that past few months. NIN is planning a tour starting off this summer in all major cities. Trent’s been a busy guy!

I first heard Lifetime in the summer before my junior year of high school (that would be 1993… man it feels weird to say that), it was the ’seveninches’ CD which compiled their early vinyl releases. High school is such a different time, when you can hear an album and have it completely change your life. Looking back as an adult I realize the absurdity of that statement, but as a 16 year old kid I really felt like something changed inside me after hearing this band. I’m sure most people can relate on some level, whether it was a band, movie or book… I imagine everyone has probably felt this way on more than one occasion in their life.

Anyway, Lifetime went on to make a couple of the most influential punk/hardcore albums of the late 90’s: Hello Bastards and Jersey’s Best Dancers. After that, they broke up and left a legacy behind that was carried on by bands like Saves the Day (whose debut album sounds like it was lifted directly from Lifetime’s songwriting book). Then, ten years after the release of Jersey’s Best Dancers, Lifetime returned with a self-titled reunion album.

Done listening to “The Protomen” and still looking to slake your thirst for metal versions of of the Blue Bomber’s adventures? A Collingswood, NJ band may have what you are looking for. Going by the name “The X-Hunters”, they play nothing but tunes from the Mega Man X series. This is what their MySpace page had to say:

“No-nonsense, guitar driven Mega Man X songs. No midis, synths or windchimes here. Need an opening band for your generic event, birthday show, or large nerd gathering? Try our famed 15 minute set. ColonelSigma@hotmail.com for contact information.” I dug what they had to offer on their MySpace page with possibly “Magna Centipede” being my favorite, so give it a shot!

Yesterday, I got Tool’s highly anticipated DVD video for “Vicarious” off of their latest album, 10,000 Days. Though the album has been released over a year ago, there was no sign of a video to support it. My guess is that aside from the fact that the band has been touring nonstop since the release date to this day is that there is no longer a market for music videos. MTV and its affiliates are a mere shadow of what they once were. It’s almost pointless to create a video as there is no longer a venue to show them. Instead, Tool has released their last few videos directly to DVD where their fans could purchase them for around 10 dollars each. Considering the quality of their videos, extra DVD content, and packaging, it’s a purchase I am happy to make.

Right off the bat, the packaging is awesome and is designed in the same motif of the 10,000 Days jacket. There is a pair of stereoscopic lenses built into the packaging that you look through to view a series of cutout images which are also included with the DVD. A stereoscopic image is one that has two versions of the same subject taken at a slightly different angle from each other. When viewed through the glasses, the mind melds the two images together and perceives a 3D image. Pretty cool stuff. But thats just the tip of the iceberg because then I watched the video…

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. We have been meaning to catch one of these shows ever since we first started seeing each other, and this year we finally went to it.

These guys pretty much rocked my face off. You’re probably familiar with more of their music than you think, especially the more well known stuff like their version of Carol of the Bells, and Wizards in Winter. It’s basically Christmas music meets face melting 80s hair band style wailing guitars, backed by a crazy light show with more lasers than Star Wars. This all goes on nearly nonstop for close to 3 hours. If there is someone that doesn’t walk away impressed, they have to be the most boring person in the world.

The Super NES is home to some of the most memorable video game sound tracks of all time. Much of this is thanks to the then incredible sound processor inside of the SNES. See, unlike nearly all video game consoles before it, the SNES had a dedicated sound processor called the SONY SPC700, which was designed by none other than Ken Kutaragi. The SPC700 worked in conjunction with a digital signal processor or DSP, and together they made the most amazing game music possible. One thing that impresses me even today is how much better SNES music sounded even compared to arcade games that were released during the same period. For example, the music in Street Fighter II for the SNES outclasses the arcade original by a long shot.

Some game music composers were able to do really incredible things with the sound card, making many of the most memorable soundtracks in gaming.

The following are a handful of games, in no particular order that made the most of the SNES sound chip, and pushed the hardware to its limits.

Okay so here’s a couple CD’s that I’ve been wanting to write about but haven’t been able to thanks to our previous host. For some reason I always get in a weird mood during the fall. It’s easily my favorite time of year, October being my favorite month, Halloween my favorite holiday, etc… Anyway, here’s a couple bands I’ve stumbled upon lately that are shaping up to be the soundtrack of Fall 2007 for me. I wanted to share them with you, the Shamoozal reader (you know who you are) in hopes that it might expose you to something you’ve never heard before. I’d probably classify both these bands as “Love or Hate”. Obviously, I’m in the former.

So without further ado…

I’ve been on a self-admitted Tom Clancy kick lately. I’ve been bouncing between Splinter Cell: Double Agent, G.R.A.W. 2 and Rainbow Six: Vegas for the past month, and I just started reading the Rainbow Six novel this weekend. There, i said it… I’m not ashamed.

What I am ashamed about is that somewhere in the transition between the previous and current generation of games, I missed out on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Not just because it’s been widely hailed as the quintessential Splinter Cell game, but because of it’s amazing soundtrack by renowned DJ, Amon Tobin.

This July 10th marks the arrival of the new Smashing Pumpkins album, Zeitgeist. Personally, I’m a huge Pumpkins fan, and while a really dig Zwan Billy Corgan’s last solo effort, The Future Embrace, left me kind of cold. So when I heard that there was a going to be a re-union (minus Iha and D’arcy), I got pretty pumped.

On May 21st, the Pumpkins released their first new single, “Tarantula” and I have to say I’m a fan. Gone is the harsh, grungy, and over processed sounds from Machina. Alot of online posters have been saying its a return to Gish and I think I agree. There’s a cleaner sound, but there’s a few parts where it rocks out and reminds me of Siamese Dream.

Apparently, the Pumpkins are gearing up for a tour. According to this wiki, they just recently played for the first time in France on May 24th, 2007. They introduced Jeff Schroeder and Ginger Rheys as the second guitarist and bassist. I’ll tell you what, this Ginger Rheys (A.K.A. Ginger Sling) reminds me of the red-haired, punky chick from Guitar Hero…she can rock out, kick some ass, and look good doing it. Sounds good to me!