Colors by Between the buried and me

"Colors" is the fifth studio album by the progressive metal and death metal band Between the Buried and Me, released on September 18th of 2007 through the label Victory Records. The American band brought out many different influences within the structure of the songs featured on the album, such as jazz, acoustic pop, arena rock, and bluegrass influences.

"Colors" is an album in which the concept of division isn’t really clear. The cuts between songs only serve to separate the tracks; the album is intended more as a work with a beginning, an end and its various movements, in which we travel to a journey throughout the progressive sound. 

The album starts with a soft piano that leads into a small introduction entitled "Foam Born (a): the Backtrack" and goes up the intensity until it ends in a metalcore outburst and where we can already guess some progressive dyes then they have great prominence on the album. .. At this point we dive fully into "(b) the Decade of Statues". This topic is completely gender, metalcore without respite but with ultimately progressive guitars. It’s in "Informal Gluttony" where the most unexpected elements begin to be heard. To begin with, the intro, which sounds mystical, leads his way to the heavy forcefulness that characterizes the group. And yet, two minutes song peak surprise us with a melodic chorus that we can perfectly relate to any group of indie rock.

"Sun of Nothing" and "Ants of the Sky" are the most experimental duo. In the last 23 minutes, between the two songs we can witness a large repertoire with unparalleled comings and goings: fast metal riffs, acoustic and vocal melodies, melancholy passages ... And long scales that have been directly influenced by groups with epic progressive rock of the 70s. "Prequel to the Sequel" follows in the line metalcore and progressive mixes, "Viridian" is a small stop along the way to"White Walls", which is the climax, with a devastating and intensive start that doesn't stop until the end. In addition it concludes the album with a track of four minutes, one of those that make history. 

Kenya: Ending Refugee Hosting, Closing Camps

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Last 6th of May, Kenya announced that they won't host more refugees, which contradicts their initial commitment respect the welcome of refugees. Kenya is the home of more of 463000 Somali refugees. However, the interior ministry principal secretary stated that they will close their refugee camps in order to not to jeopardize the national security. 

The policy regarding the host of refugees in my country is very ambiguous, basically they remain outside of these matters. Nevertheless, from my point of view a nice way of dealing with this issue but a very utopian would be that us, the citizens host some families in order to help them at least temporarily. 

BioShock recommendation

BioShock is a first-person shooter developed by Irrational Games , published on August 21th of 2007 in North America for the Windows operating system and the Xbox 360 console, three days later in some European countries and Australia, and August 31th in Spain.

Regarding to BioShock’s plot, imagine that your plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific, you don’t know where you are, hardly you swim and then you arrive to a lost lighthouse in the middle of nowhere. The gates of Rapture, the utopian underwater city, they open in order to let us know the horror what lurks behind its walls. So, the nightmare begins.

BioShock, based its charm on the exploration and immersion of the fascinating history of Rapture and the truthfulness and cruelty of a wild and violent world that doesn’t discriminate among its victims which are men, women and even girls.

On the other hand, the sound effects are another factor that makes the experience of visiting Rapture great. All weapons sound powerful, and shootings are a delight to the ears for its sharpness. But the real star of the sonorous shots is Rapture and its habitants.

The constant crackle of water pressure on the giant vaults of Rapture, the sounds of psychopaths wandering and singing in the streets, the awkward but thunderous walk of the Big Daddies and endearing but scary barefoot walking of the Little Sisters on the cold surfaces are so authentic, terrifying and unpayable. The atmosphere of a video game consists of both what we see and what we hear, and Bioshock is an excellent example.

In conclusion, in this recommendation I've basically talked about the audiovisual and story issues of the game. However, BioShock has an excellent gameplay, but It may feel a bit rough compared with FPS such as Call of Duty or Halo. To sump up, I highly recommend BioShock, It's an unique and satisfying experience.

Persona 4 recommendation

Persona 4 is a japanese videogame published by Atlus for the PlayStation 2 and it was released in 2008. Despite being a little bit old and not as famous as other American role playing games, I highly recommend playing this game. Not only does it have a great story, but it also has amazing characters, a great soundtrack and art work. The game takes place in Inaba, a fictional rural japanese town, and it begins with the murder of a famous journalist, but there is no clue to be found of who the culprit might be. Therefore, the main focus of the game revolves around Personas, avatars projected from one's inner self that resemble mythological figures and represent the facets worn by individuals to face life's hardships. Each Persona possesses its own skills, as well as strengths and weaknesses to certain attributes. So, the protagonists must fight to pass some dungeons and progresse with their investigation. 

Silent hill 2 recommendation

Silent hill 2 is a survival horror videogame published by Konami for the PlayStation 2, developed by Team Silent and its release date was the 24th of September of 2001.

First of all, Silent Hill 2 marked a turning point in its genre and for the next Silent Hill games, unlike other games that wanted to scare us to death, on the contrary Silent Hill 2 bet for a new kind of psychological horror in video games. It's clearly one of the best examples of horror modern in any media. If that weren't enough, Silent Hill's sequel is an evident example of how a game with good storytelling (full of symbolism) and true survival horror experience should be. As a consequence, this masterpiece moved many players more than a decade ago. It's hard to believe that Silent Hill 2 has more than a decade, especially since it looks very fresh and contemporary. Furthermure, without a powerful graphics engine, Silent Hill 2 managed to be visually pleasing, all this due to its art direction and its excellent atmosphere.

Moreover, the idea of playing as an anti-hero like James, his dark secrets and hidden past was something completely new at the time and it’s even nowadays. Silent Hill 2 was the first game in the series to show the existence of own torments of each character, double personalities and psychological traumas materialized. Few games have captured horror in such an intimate way; it treated sexual themes without showing meaningless obscenities. Silent Hill 2 didn't need to scare with jump scares or excessive gore or sex to be called "adult". The game managed to reach the depths of the player, conveying feelings of loneliness, nostalgia, melancholy and intrigue. It's a horror game, but it attacked our most vulnerable side: our hearts with a devastating history; and our psyche, posing a constant intrigue that will keep us hooked on the game until we finish it.

On the other hand Silent Hill 2 might have some negative points such as the short duration of the game or the rough gameplay. However, from my point of view this masterpiece has the appropriate length and the gameplay is the right for a desperate atmosphere.

In conclusion, Silent Hill 2 is a must play because of his excellent storytelling, immersive atmosphere, the depressive soundtrack which fits perfectly in every moment and his importance regarding the evolution of the genre.

Japan: Bullied LGBT Students Unprotected

News

In Japan, the government have taken measures to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (they are called LGBT and they're the most vulnerable group to bullying) students from bullying, however, their methods of preventing bullying haven't been really useful, that's why in 2016 they're debating in order to changer they policy against this problem, which is growing progressively as it's spreading in japanese schools.

Regarding to our country, I think that bullying is present in almost every school and more than we think. I know a case in my school about a boy who wants to be a girl and, as it's expected he receives insults for being different. In my opinion, we as students can't do much to prevent bullying, our only options are telling it to the teachers or the police, that's why I'm not pretty sure about a useful way of helping people that suffers from bullying.

Gantz recommendation

Gantz is a seinen manga created by Hiroya Oku in 2000. This japanese comic has a total of 37 volumes and the last one was published in 2013. In addition, due to his popularity it has been adapted into many different media such as cinema, videogame and anime.

Hiroya's most famous work combines action, science fiction and personal relationships in contemporary japan. Gantz's main plot focuses on Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, two students that die in their attempt of saving a drunk man who fell in the subway tracks. After that, they're instantly summoned in an apartment with unknown people where there's a black sphere named Gantz. Then, the sphere tells them that they're dead and they have to obey what the individual inside the sphere comands (killing aliens), in order to save their lives, but only if they survive. 

From my point of view, Gantz is a great manga, very enjoyable and not boring at all. What I liked most were the characters, most of them are flat characters except for Kei Kurono, although for me, the most interesting one was Joichiro Nishi is a veteran of the Gantz world and he's also smart, selfish and has a social Darwinist approach to life. But, why -in my opinion- has he been an interesting character? Mainly because of his hate towards society, his craving for the arrival of the apocalypse and his background story. Another brilliant aspect of the manga were some of the moral decisions they have choose because it left me thinking. Another thing worth noting was the drawing made by computers which gave realism to the backgrounds and immersion into the characters.

Nevertheless, some things may not like to everyone, for instance: the extreme use of violence which is excessive sometimes and the unnecessary and yet abundant nudity in the whole series. But in my case, I appreciated the ensemble. 

In conclusion, I highly recommend Oku's comic as well as I don't recommend it for certain people that aren't pleased with extreme violence and nudity, but for those that don't mind, they'll probably find in Gantz a very entertaining reading.