The tacos were AWESOME. If I do say so myself. Dad, Mrs. NFB, and myself polished off a little over a pound of hamburger seasoned to perfection in just a few minutes. Either we were starving (not likely be the looks of any of us), or it was really fucking good.

I got told we're making that again, therefore I'm gonna say it was good.

Gonna try to toss in some chopped peppers and onions, and maybe a bit of tomato the next time while it simmers to see if that doesn't add the little bit I felt was missing. The flavor was brilliant, but it was a little thin for my liking.

Dad hung out and watched some TV with us and a good time was had by all. Now he's off for a week of drinking with his car club buddies. We wished him fun and good times and off he went.

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I wish I would have had the original. I would have captioned it with Rob saying something about, "This is metalz?" Seriously, look at his face. He's been brutalized by the band shopping experience.

So, let's break this shit down.

• The Day That Never Comes - Starts with a little twist of Unforgiven then breaks into a squee of Fade to One. That chorus break is so Fade to Black that I expect them to break out Kirk's little post chorus solo. Ah, and the Mastah triplets post chorus. Beauty. And what's this funky back-beat shit in the initial "heavy" bit? "Love is a four letter word." Whoah. Twelve year old deepness. Ah, blatantly ripping off the One speed riff. A little Lightin' days solo rippoff. Taking the Am I Evil break riff and moving it down the neck. Orly? Motorbreath chord progression? Fancy. Heavy drums mean super clipping on the guitars!
• That Was Just Your Life - Overkill intro? Did they forget what band they were trying to rip off here? Apparently, because it builds into another Overkill riff with a Testament harmony overlay. Rawk. Very New Order/Years of Decay. *INSERT SLAYER MOTIFF* And then fuck it with Lars forgetting how to drum. Nice. Back to Overkill. Man, that one riff could almost be cool if not for the horrible drumming. Do I sense some Megadeth rippage there? Really? Not even Dave can do that right anymore. Oh Lars. Let the cheesy bass-snare-bass-snare speed fills go already. Still not as good as the Dethklok "that was your life."
• The End of the Line - I'm beginning to sense a theme, and it's a theme I gave up when I turned fifteen. Whoah. All that's missing here is the poppy funk bass. HOLY SHIT! THAT RIFF! So Master of Puppets. Oh, but singular instead of power chorded. So that makes it OK. Background yells? Leper Messiah, without the heavy. OK, that makes me feel like boogying down. But, you're supposed to be making me want to bang my head. Fail. Oh, this is messy. Harmonies are cool. WHOA, KIRK! LAY OFF THE WAH BUDDY! Fucking Kerry King solo from hell turkey in a blender sound. Smooth breakdown. DREAM THEATER!? More twelve year old deepness - "The slave becomes the master." You know it's deep, because he has to repeat it.
• Broken, Beat & Scarred - Shortest Straw intro. Nice. Didn't they already use this harmony slide riff thing? On this album? OK, here's a section that actually sounds original. Like a nice progression from the old days. Bad that it took this long to hit something like that, but impressive right here. Well, that didn't last long. Thing that Should Not Be solo. Nice. I liked it better in D tune though. Bleh.
• All Nightmare Long - We're gonna get all King Diamond up in heyah! OK, I was wrong. Slayer. At least I got the right metal circle by the name. Those two groups used to hang out all the time. Four Horsemen riffs. Cool. Wait, this isn't bad. Again, that was quick. HEY! THERE'S THE KING DIAMOND! Mixed with fucking Dokken. That's not something I should EVER be able to say about Metallica. Are we attempting to shred here? Cause if so, it's not working. I guess they are trying. But that's like one of the first solos I ever did. Horrible. A mid-song count-in? Really? Four up power chord!? HEAVY! Except, not.

I can't anymore. I just can't. Why are so many people trying to tell me this album is awesome? It's filled with the type of mimicry that I hated about my own playing back when I was a teenager. That might fly when you haven't established yourself as a band, but come on. You guys have been writing music for the better part of thirty years now. Some of it has sucked, but this is the first time I can remember where the entire album is derivative of something else. Not just on the "that sounds sort of similar to this" level but on the, "fuck dude, THAT'S THE SAME RIFF, YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRANSPOSE IT!" level.

I'm sorry. I tried. I'm not hearing the awesome everyone else is claiming they hear. It's just bleh. Plain ol' bleh.

But, I'll admit, it's not the "OH MY GAWD SHUT IT OFF" crap they've been pumping out over the last fifteen plus years. More just, "this again? I liked it better the first time."

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Surprisingly, I'm still in a fairly good mood today. Despite Zippy's best efforts. He's trying REALLY hard to pawn a job off on me he's been sitting on for two months and I'm deflecting at every turn. He was supposed to go to Funhouse2 on Monday but played hooky and now he's refusing to go trying to remote it out. He's supposed to install a fucking printer. You can't remote that out dumbass. Well, you could, if there was someone down there bright enough to swap cables between the old printer and the new one.

But, not my problem. He'll figure it out eventually. Or not. Whatever.

New crapateria dude rawks. He brought in a pile of new beverage coolers. And while he stocked up on energy drinks he also did something super awesome and stocked up on ACTUAL fruit and vegetable drinks. Maybe the old guy really did suck? Who'd have thought it?

Enough. Outz.