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Timedriver - Dreams of a New Dystopia

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Timedriver - Dreams of a New Dystopia The science fiction sub-genre of cyberpunk is all the rage these days. The release of film Blade Runner 2049 and video game Cyberpunk 2077 released in 2017 and 2020 respectively have piked interest in the sub-genre. Even more, the rise of AI tools like chatGPT among many others has inspired more people to contemplate how technological progress will affect humanity. It is in this background we witnress the rise of cyberpunk synthwave artists. It is in this background Timedriver released Dreams of a New Dystopia . There's definitely dystopian element to Dreams of a New Dystopia . But there's also colorful melodies reminiscent of neon lights to remind us that even in a dystopain city, there are still endless possibilities. Per chance, to even have a good time. That's probably the feelings this album evokes. Sure, the world isn't ideal. But we can dance away our woes in the neo
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Synthwave 2023

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Synthwave 2023 Another exciting year is in the books. I will now highlight some of my favorite releases from this year. A synthwave highlight for me this year was getting to see Midnight Danger perform live just in time for Halloween. I've been to a few synthwave shows before and they where fun. But, I've never been to a popular artist show. Midnight Danger absolutely rocked the place. Anyways, every album on this list is perfectly capable of rocking the place. Mega Drive - 200X I'm always eagerly awaiting a Mega Drive music release. I truly feel he or she can do no wrong. My favorite album is still Sequencer, but this may very well be a close second. I'm convinced that it surprasses both 198X and 199X and narrowly edges out Neuroframe. Neuromancer - Hardwired This is nothing short of incredible. It's like Neuromancer took parts from all of your favorite darksynth masters, mixed them all t
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Corruption City

Corruption City Darkness consumes No sun will rise Welcome to our city; the city of the future. Convenience and pleasure all at your beck and call Recieve your reward a few pieces of paper to spend at your leisure Selling your soul to the city The daily routine of toiling for trinkets has you strung out and feeling depressed All human connection seems so distant drink away the pain a few shows to distract In the neon lights in the downtown rain you begin to wonder why everything's the same You won't continue this mindless game of breaking your soul for someone else's gain Reach out to who's out
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Rolling Stones Top 100 Metal Albums

Top 100 Metal Albums According to Rolling Stone This list is actually not bad. It's about as good a list a mainstream publication could make. Naturally, the diehards will complain about "poser" metal genres like metalcore, nu metal, and hair metal making it on here. But this list was for every type of metal. Besides, most people started listening to "poser" metal before getting into the real shit. I myself started off with nu metal. Then I moved on to metalcore before finally listening to death and black metal. Anyways, I obviously don't agree with everything on this list. But if I where to make a "Heavy Metal 101" list, this would not be a bad start. It definitely could have been worse. Rolling Stones Greatest 100 Metal Albums List
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Orax - Crash

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Orax - Crash I'm always excited for a new Orax release. He is one of the very first synthwave artists I got into when I first heard Cometa . I'm fan of all his work. I must say, Crash might just be his most experimental work. Then again, Betray was also very experimental. However, where as the latter album was an artist exploring new sounds and trying to see what musical ideas work, the former album is an artist that is already confident with his sonic tools and knows ahead of time which experiments will be a success. Checkout the guitar riffs on tracks "Crash" and "Black Mustang". They're groovy, catchy, and sexy. I love how Orax applies just enough synthesizer and sax to add spicy flavor to these guitar driven songs. Another successful experiment is the playful, but still dark, vibes on "Chains" and "Complication". The best thing about Orax is his ability to weave dark and yet beautiful melod
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Dreamhour - Now That We Are Here

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Dreamhour - Now That We Are Here I first heard of Dreamhour when I listened to the album VLLNS . I think it's a wonderful album full of killer grooves and catchy melodies. My favorite tracks included "Cerebral Chase" with it's smooth chorus and both "Blood Patrol" and "Shobdohin" with its sexy guitar and synth lines. I cannot say I enjoy the follow, PROPSTVR as much. For whatever reason, that album simply didn't vibe with me. Maybe it's because the theme of VLLLNS is just way cool, and in having a cool theme, it generated cool music. What's not to like about a story involving a megacity vampire cult? We're not here to talk about those two albums. We're here for Now That We Are Here . There a few songs on this album that give me PROPSTVR vibes, such as the first two songs. Naturally, I can't fully appreciate these songs. Other songs contain quite good synth melodies, but are less tha
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Synthwave 2022

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Synthwave 2022 I don't see any signs of synthwave slowing down. On the contrary, the genre is growing and is stronger than ever. It is true that this creates bloat with a lot of artists being mediocre. However, this shouldn't dissuade anyone from seeking out those talented artists that write brilliant music. It seems the genre has grown in popularity and perhaps even recognition amongst people that don't even know what this music is. I put this on at a party one time and a person commented "This reminds of the Weeknd!" The feedback loop has begun and there's no slowing it down now. Mainstream artists have taken cues from synthwave and synthwave artists have taken cues from mainstream artists. So we get this constant supply of ideas travelling in both directions. And that's one bi-directional channel. It is well known that extreme metal influenced the darksynth lords like Fixions and Dav Dralleon. As long as these channels remain open, the
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