Bear's Monthly Mayhem - March 2024!

Thanks for sticking around!

Apr 02, 2024

Hey and hei! Let me start out by thanking you again for checking out my Monthly Mayhem newsletter! One of the most precious commodities that we have these days is attention, so I appreciate you for dedicating some of yours to me and my writings!

If you’re a new subscriber, I hope you enjoy this monthly write-up of my most recent reviews, projects, services, and merch gigs, as well as a general catch-up (and a cat picture or two)! The purple links will take you directly to the articles!

LIVE MUSIC FINLAND

The change of the month meant that Altamullan Road’s debut tour was finally winding to a close and since my partner was interested in going after hearing us raving about it, I decided to take him out to Porvoo and enjoy the show one more time ourselves. This live report was a bit different from the norm, since I’ve already written up their shows twice. It was also very fun to meet the other three members of Eye of Melian, two of whom I am acquainted with from the interview I did with them in 2022, while the other who turns out to have made many of my favorite orchestral arrangements over the years — small world! I hope to bump into a few of them again in May.

Bear, Robin, Martijn, Mikko

I had four gig nights potentially booked in a row in the second week of March, with an interesting-looking Love Potion Club lineup on the 6th, Sulphuris (a friend’s band) on the 7th, Mia Hafrén’s album release show on the 8th, and Maaliskuun Musta Messu [aka March Black Mass] in Lahti on the weekend. Juggling the car and my energy, I ended up at all of them, but I was working merch at the last one with Enslain — since the genre is not generally my jam, I only did a brief writeup, which focused more on the event and its overall quality, with just a brief summary of the acts.

I did pass up on quite a few gigs in the middle of the month, mostly because I got quite tired after seeing all of those shows in the first week. I had hoped to go see Hevisaurus on the 17th in Järvenpää because it’s been probably a decade since I’ve last seen them, but that didn’t end up working out. However, I did get to see Sonata Arctica’s show on the 23rd (which doubled as my friend’s birthday, so luckily he’s a big fan) and Pihka Is My Name at Playhouse Bar on the 27th, so I sandwiched my month with some live events despite the mid-month break.

MUSIC REVIEWS

This was a crazy busy month! I had reviews popping up already in the first few days of March, like Mia Hafrén’s debut English-language album, “For the Brave,” (what a bold release!), followed shortly by the self-titled debut from After Infinity, which is a collaboration between many of my favorite local artists. I also had to share my feelings on the new Kius EP, because it was great. Next was Coventhrall’s sci-fi space opera, “Legacy of Morfuidra,” which you know I had to cover because I’m the “concept album guy,” so to speak. Then, I had three friends join me in sharing our thoughts on Bruce Dickinson’s new solo album, “The Mandrake Project.”

Right after that, I enjoyed Jo Below’s EP from March 15th, “New Worlds,” so much that I had to write it up, and I did share some thoughts on Emilia Ex’s debut EP, “Mitä sä sit luulet?” Among the albums I’ve been most excited about this year are Merta’s, “Virta,” and “Odyssey into the Grey” from Lost in Grey, which are both due out on April 5th.

Over at Tuonela Magazine, I did write up a Featured Single for Merta’s most recent single, “Harha,” since I hadn’t done anything new over there in a little while. I also did an anniversary review for Sonata Arctica’s “Pariah’s Child,” which turned 10 this month. Also, since I decided to rewrite my review of “Virta,” Tuonela inherited my original draft!

Also, don’t forget to check out March’s New Song Watch!

Non-Music Reviews

The first game review I dropped in March was for a really short puzzle game called Gardener’s Path — fun, but flawed. Also, I released a review of Metroid: Dread, which was grossly overrated.

On the list of eco-products that I’ve been trying and testing, I’ve shared some thoughts on Wild deodorant and body wash.

Projects

One of the first things I did this month was move the Monthly Mayhem archive off my website (for the sake of practicality and organization) and over here to Substack, so if you’re so inclined, you can read back over a chunk of my 2023 catch-up articles as well. I tossed the oldest ones that just had links but kept a few that had blog entries, just for the sake of personal nostalgia. Chances are most people won’t read them, but you’re welcome to explore the archives now if you’re so inclined!

I’ve also updated my Wordsmithy Services page to include my work for Enslain Metal Merch, which also links directly to the webpage, so if you’re looking for someone to sell merch on your tour, consider hitting us up — I’ve heard that we’re one of the most affordable merch groups in Finland!

I’ve also been editing Kathy Criswell’s novel, which she’s funding on IndieGoGo right now. I really love the way she uses prose — if you like the really poetic authors, like Patrick Rothfuss, I think you’d enjoy her writing. Or if you’re looking for some queer literature as well! Plus, supporting her supports me by proxy!

On the creative writing front, I’ve been bouncing between rewrites of two short stories set in the world of my fantasy opus, The Vitmar Chronicles, which I’d also love to start releasing this year, if I can find some artists to do covers for me. Funnily enough, both of these stories are based off dreams that I’ve had. One was a love story between a very small woman and an extremely tall man, and the other was a story about a little girl getting trapped in a dream, which is centered around the strange way that we create false memories within dreams when we start to question what’s happening. I can’t say how long it’ll take me to finish them up, since I’m in the process of completely gutting and re-writing them, but they will hopefully be the next among my releases, to start teasing the world of Ilynika for when I eventually start publishing TVC.

Simon & Luffy

With regard to Islands of Nightsea, I confess that I’ve parted ways with my whole group at this point, with the exception of Jason, who has stayed on as a returning guest writer (no longer a regular writer). Ultimately I’m finding myself a bit heartbroken with regard to that project, because nothing ended up being what I had hoped for when I created it back in 2018. I wanted to make an incredible new world that my most creative friends could play around in and use as a setting to write wonderful stories that would make the world a better place. However, everyone treated it like my project and it ended up leaving me doing so much more work to activate people and so much less work actually creating. After hemming and hawing for months and months, I finally made the call to have a fresh start with the whole series and see if I can find people out there to collaborate with who are as enthusiastic about the world and stories as I am. Who knows what will happen and if I’ll get any support or funding to find a new artist, but regardless, I need to rediscover my joy for that project, I think, and perhaps that means taking some distance from it for a while.

Off the Record

I had a few artists lined up for tentative interviews this month, which led to me playing interview-tag with Today Was Yesterday the whole month. The interview did end up being really fun — I love talking to Americans about how different the scene is over there! Sadly, it is not out yet because I had an issue with my audio during recordings that I’m trying to sort out, so chances are it’ll come out next month instead.

I did also eventually snag Juhis Kauppinen of Merta for an interview that we’ve been planning for some months now, so that’s been added to my Off the Record interviews now!

Gathering of Geeks

I did end up getting an episode out this month, featuring the aforementioned Kathy Criswell, where we talk about the books and shows we’ve loved growing up, as well as how positivity, kindness, and empathy can get you everything you’ve ever dreamed of. It’s a very heartwarming episode, so I do recommend giving it a watch/listen!

Much to my surprise, I did end up finding another guest to record with this month, in the form of James Edward Raggi IV, who is the creator of the “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” RPG. I had expected to talk about TTRPGs but he ended up telling me his very interesting history about having a music magazine and eventually developing the game system, as well as the controversy around one of his writers. This episode will be out in April sometime.

Enslain Metal Merch

The first and only event of this month for Enslain was the aforementioned Maaliskuu Musta Messu in Lahti, or the March Black Mass for you non-Finns. It’s a black metal festival put on by some folks that I’ve enjoyed working with for a few years, Black March Events, and it was nice to be invited back after Enslain had helped out in 2023. This event is organized by Teppo Ristola, whom I’m acquainted with because he plays drums in Lost in Grey and Where’s My Bible, so I enjoy both his music and his events!

Maybe I need a table banner too?

General Bearsness

The first thing I did this month was learn how to GM properly. For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, it’s a gaming term for “game master,” which is the modern version of “dungeon master.” Folks who know me from the geek side of things may know that the longstanding most popular article on my website is my extremely negative review of the Kingdom Death: Monster board game and I’ve wanted to make a TTRPG campaign based off its setting ever since we finished playing it years ago. My group has already played three tutorials (it’s a big group) and one session where they explored the dark, but the beginning of March taught me what it really means to GM properly. I admit that I’ve half-assed it a bit until now (we’re playing this in the Zweihänder system) because learning new TTRPG systems is like learning a complicated new language, but despite having completely roasted my brain during my prep (so much that I exhausted myself for several days), we ended up having a pretty fun session, so all I need is more practice and it’ll get easier with time. As my partner predicted, I had seriously over-prepared. Sadly, our second session on the 29th was cancelled because two of the artists had tight deadlines at the end of the month, so we opted to play some different games instead with our smaller group.

I also finally got around to wrapping the furniture handles in yarn, so when Teddy wakes up and starts attacking them, the sound is muffled. He’s a total pain in my butt… he’s lucky he’s cute.

Teddy

My spring fever set in this month when the sun started to shine, but fortunately those days were few and far between, with as much fresh snow as sunshine. It will be sometime in April before I actually see what lies beneath, I’m sure, though at least I have seen land appearing here and there… the path to the wood shed is almost clear, at least.

My partner did finally let me train him in a full Ashtanga yoga primary series session recently, which was very fun because he’s extremely flexible, yet I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it through — Ashtanga is extremely brutal, which is exactly why I love it. I don’t do gentle workouts. Needless to say, I spent the end of the month being extremely sore.

That’s about it for this month! Thanks for following along and keeping up with me and my general mayhem!

Here’s another quote I found inspiring:

“Is there anything more powerful—or is there any thought more empowering—than the belief that you can change/create the future?”

— Kyle “The Captain” Creek

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Coming Next Month…

There’s a new Love Potion Club coming up, so hopefully I’ll be able to make it. If not, I’ll at least be at Saarisalo, Mia Junes, & Helmi Ada on the 5th to test out some new local acts! Then on the 6th will be Lost in Grey’s album release show at Hyvinkääsali (that’s going to be a good one!). Following that, it’ll be the Merta tour for three weekends, which I’m really looking forward to. I’m also trying to decide if I want to go see Walter Trout, because he’s a great blues guitarist. The new JoJo & Friends has Julye Blom, who I’ve wanted to see for a while, so hopefully I’ll make it to that show, and I also heard that Helena Haaparanta has a live show next month at Playhouse Bar.

You can also expect reviews of, at least, Ayreon - Live Beneath the Waves, Šamane, and some more games, like the newest Kirby game and perhaps Cobalt Core, which is a new one we’ve been devouring for a week or two now.

Thanks again for reading along this month! You get bonus points if you read this far!

And below is my Best of 2024 playlist! Welcome to follow along!

Bear's Book of Balance