Recent content by Maturin

Just ordered a Boss TE-2 Tera Echo. Couldn't justify a straight reverb, but this is too creatively inspiring not to have.

Silverburst is a definite Marmite-factor, but a Les Paul Custom is always cool! Been playing my new Standard almost exclusively this year since I got it.

Midnight Danger just released the single "Nocturnal Immortal". One of the most exciting new artists for me - his synthwave style fuses exciting heavy metal guitar riffs & solos and retro horror movie soundtracks into something very cool, with an impeccable visual presentation.

Got an MXR Phase 90 and an Electro Harmonix J. Mascis Ram's Head Big Muff. Looking forward to trying them out on my "small board", which will now consist of 7 pedals. Been using a TC Electronic Helix Phaser on my main board, which is probably my most unexpected hit.

Read The Three-Body Problem (2008) and The Dark Forest (2008) by Liu Cixin. The former a decent SF novel, the latter a masterpiece. Currently reading Death's End (2010), the third novel in the trilogy.

Sweden ain't making it to the World Cup, that's for sure - despite pretty strong player material in the offense we're completely handicapped by a nitwit Danish coach. In all other countries Jon Dahl Tomasson would have been fired immediately after this kind of fiasco, but he will remain. Why...

On season 7 of  Outlander. Feels like the story is getting interesting again after a not bad, but directionless season 6 which retread old ground.

"Darkness Always Wins" is awesome. It recalls some old pop song so it feels like I've heard it before, but it is a great song. I sort of expected this to become their "Hail to the King", but it doesn't seem to happen? Lots of good music this year, but only two great albums so far - The Darkness...

First album had songs written like in 1990 (A World Without Heaven and Eyes of the Young are the oldest IIRC), and they played several songs which ended up on The Burning when I saw them in 2013 and 2015. So some songs were at least 7-8 years old on the second album. I reckon Steve and the band...

Read Damascus Station (2021) by David McCloskey, a spy thriller by a former CIA analyst. Does step into melodrama a bit too much to be regarded as realistic, but a very entertaining read nonetheless. Also read Black Sun (2019) by Owen Matthews, a historical thriller set in the last few days...

Read None of This is True (2023). A beach read, fast simple and not much substance. I like the idea of a thriller framed through a Netflix documentary based on the events... But for this sort of book to be fun it needs some crazy twists, and this book had none that weren't already obvious.

Anyone into Saraya? Here's "Tear Down The Wall", off When the Blackbird Sings (1991). More hard rock than metal, but the vocals are amazing.

Read With a Vengeance (2025) by Riley Sager. Todd Ritter is not a good writer, and with his pseudonym he's riding a wave of popular thriller/mystery novels penned by women. That this sort of guy writes very cynically thought out stories based on tropes, is of no surprise at all. Here he riffs...

Watched The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), the French movie. Rewatched The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), the English language mini-series starring Sam Claflin. Two adaptations, almost released simultaneously. Despite the popularity of the French movie, I found some jarring differences from the...

Read The Tusks of Exctinction (2024) by Ray Nayler. Science fiction thriller about mammoths brought back from the dead - led by the human consciousness of a 100-year dead elephant expert transferred into a mammoth-brain... Decent read. Also read The Year of the Locust (2023) by Terry Hayes...