Basically the idea of this CD is a bunch of metal, punk, hardcore bands that cover pop songs by various artists. Oh yeah and it’s hard rock covers!

My 3 favorite songs from the album would have to be:

• ‘Apologize’ covered by Silverstien.
• ‘Smooth’ covered by Escape the Fate.
• ‘When I Grow Up’ covered by Mayday Parade.

The metal band ‘August Burns Red’ covered ‘Baby one more time’, which was also an excellent cover, and very death metal!

Overall it’s agreat CD and I highly recomend it to everyone!

From all my obsessive research, it pretty much comes down to 2 different cars: The Honda Fit, or the Toyota Matrix.

I know it’s a tough decision. Both cars are great and have awesome features and selling points. Let me outline a few:

Toyota Matrix
The 2009 Toyota Matrix is a great big small car, if that makes sense! I love the body shape/style and the interior is gorgeous. I find that the Matrix would be slightly more expensive to get the same or similar features as the 09 Honda Fit Sport model.

The Matrix has a great interior layout. For example, the automatic shifter is located in the middle console, near the bottom for easy acces without having to look down and take your precious eyes off the road. I like that. Also the dashboard meters are sexy! Great display brightness both in day and night conditions!

Honda Fit Sport
THe 09 Honda Fit Sport is a wicked car also. It’s a little more ‘compact’ than the Matrix, but in my opinion has some better internal and external features for around the same price as the Matrix. 

Starting with the external. The Fit Sport has 16inch alloy wheels, an exhaust tip, and is very very very fuel efficient!

Interior. Inside the Fit is where it get really cool. They have this patented thing called ‘Magic Seat’ where the rear seats can be both folded down flat and also fold up for make room for tall objects like plants, bikes, etc!

Also the Fit has a built in USB audio connector, so you can plug in your iPhone or iPod and have it play music through USB as well as charge it! Awesome.

Summary
I can’t decide.

Bands are: Thursday, Bring Me The Horizon, Four Years Strong, Pierce the Vail, and Cancer Bats.

The show is @ The Kool Haus in Downtown Toronto, which is a nice venue, I’ve seen the band Underoath there!

I’ll also do a ‘post-show’ review of the bands I like and don’t like

First up is my business cards. I’ve been meaning to design killer business cards for a while now, so here is one of the business cards I’ve don up. I will be designing 2 more different styles, so this is just a teaser of whats to come!

Next up is an illustration of myself, that I will be using in an upcoming Flash website (The website is still a secret). Basically I used a photo as reference, then vectored in Adobe Illustrator, then I import the vector into Photoshop and begin the fun of digital painting and adding details / textures.

The guitar work on the album is by far the best Trivium have ever done! Also the drums are phenomenal! I saw a brief documentary on the making of the album, and found out that the drums were recorded with whole takes at a time. Not many good metal bands these days can play the song perfect in the studio all the way through to get a full drum take.

Matt Heafy’s voice also is in top shape. He screams a lot as well as clean singing, and overall it’s a great balance! His screams are a lot more brutal than on Ascendancy, which I like. 

Overall I loved the album, and the title track ‘Shogun’ is a 12 minute masterpiece!

When they go on their North American tour, I’ll be sure to get tickets to see these guys live. I know they will pull off any of the new songs live!

As well as developing my Photoshop skills, I also plan on bettering my Illustration techniques as well. I hope to pick up a drawing tablet from Wacom so I can draw right into Illustrator and Photoshop.

Below are some examples of the work I’ve done from Photoshop Top Secret, not all are from the DVDs, some I made up myself, but you’ll get an idea of the material you can cover and learn!

As always I’ll be back with updates at least twice a week!

I haven’t forgotten about the Smartt Definition Wallpapers either! College has pretty much consumed my life over this past month, but be prepared for some serious wallpaper action flying your way in the near future!

Here is a sneak preview if you will of whats to come, and as always I try to out-do my previous piece! So be prepared for some serious graphics flying your way!

If you guys dig my stuff, I would appreciate some feedback, as well as constructive critiques (I’m trying to build up a reputable portfolio here!)

Download Smartt Definition_01.zip

Cheers!

Basically the ideas behind this software plugin, is that you can bang out professional sounding drum tracks for recording in a matter of seconds! You can aslo use this software to trigger MIDI devices, or take an existing MIDI file, and turn it into pro sounding drums!

Drumkit From Hell was recorded in Sweden in Dug Out Studios, the very same studio whereone of my favourite bands: In Flames recorded many an album! DFH was also recorded and produced by Meshuggah’s drummer, and the band actually used to software in a couple of their albums!

I look forward to being able to play around with this thing, and work it into my own recordings and demos! When I get my Line 6 POD X3 Pro, i’ll be all set for pro home recording!

On another note, I’m really starting to get back into my hoby of audio production, and in light of this, I will in the near future, be posting up audio clips of some ideas I have for a project i’m working on with my friends. Stay posted for them.