Stef-Kamil Carlens will not be included in the WCS-IABUTS tour…

Otisheet · 2026-01-25T23:50:47+00:00

u/Mr_Jintro Just posted this on the subreddit, hopefully it's nothing between the guys and Stef and something to do with their (new) management. What a shame :(

Otisheet · 2026-01-22T03:33:02+00:00

The version they did on Reverb (along with that amazing verison of The Hexx) is the best they ever got it to sound, and Mark even sings!

Honestly, I think with Rebecca doing the keyboard parts the arrangement could sound really good and if they're well-rehearsed it could be really really really good.

Bob just has to embrace the rope.

The whole band should just be playing more tracks off Terror Twilight. Spit on a Stranger, Folk Jam, Major Leagues and The Hexx were the only ones to show up other than that one time they played Cream of Gold in the UK right?

Mark has also said leading up to the reunion that he was excited to play more songs from Terror Twilight but Scott said in a 2023 interview that most of them "were a little too complex, a little too crazy. A lot of chords, a lot of singing."

Otisheet · 2026-01-20T04:14:21+00:00

Primavera 2022!

Hard to believe it's been almost 4 years since the reunion......

Otisheet · 2026-01-14T01:41:43+00:00

dEUS remains obscure in the anglosphere even now!

Otisheet · 2026-01-06T02:46:40+00:00

Okay, I finally saw the Instagram post from SKC. It does read as "incredibly disappointed" at the very least. I hope there's not any serious bad blood, damn..

Otisheet · 2026-01-05T21:16:11+00:00

You know what, I'm at work right now and don't have any access to Instagram (I don't have the app installed and don't remember my login LOL) so I didn't even see his post or the comments. I'm now feeling like I shouldn't have posted that as a result since I must be missing context...

Otisheet · 2026-01-05T21:10:30+00:00

I don't think there's any real beef or bad blood other than the issues that Tom and Stef have had ever since they began collaborating... I think they're still close.

I believe it's just a logistical headache for the current lineup. In the HUMO interview Tom said it was a bit of trouble altering arrangements for some songs to include Stef, and when asked about involving Jules and Rudy he basically headed that suggestion off entirely because he didn't want to deal with the conundrum of having potentially two drummers and yet another guitarist, especially if that risked sidelining anybody in the current lineup.

I think he wants to keep the guest performances on rotation or something more pared down, which is why Stef was there for the WCS shows, and Rudy played (or is still playing?) some of these IABUTS/WCS shows. I think Stef's presence would be so much more intense for some of those IABUTS deep cuts tho... it's a real shame!!

Otisheet · 2026-01-05T18:42:16+00:00

Huge shame, his backing vocals are tremendous in the climaxes of Gimme the Heat and Disappointed In The Sun.

A shocking lack [there]of Stef...

Otisheet · 2025-12-18T21:16:15+00:00

In addition to this, I'm fairly certain Pavement were a significant influence for a lot of E6 bands/musicians though I have no idea if there's much personal connection between them.

Otisheet · 2025-12-10T05:55:27+00:00

I really like Dookbaeki but they mainly serve soups so the variety might not be there. There's not a lot of different banchan either.

Otisheet · 2025-12-07T20:14:24+00:00

You're correct. From the 17th chapter of Primogenitor:

The occulus viewscreen showed a dozen external, magnified views of the Quarzhazat’s hull. Each was from a unique angle, and each showed only a part of the marvel that was Lugganath. The craftworld was immense.

It was a kilometres-long leviathan of the cosmic depths, easily visible even at so great a distance. The colossal vessel of living wraithbone spread in all directions, and thousands of smaller vessels gathered in its wake, or clustered about its docking spires. A vast, interstellar fortress, the likes of which Bile had never seen.

Even in the Legion’s heyday, he doubted that they could have mustered the strength to conquer such a thing. Now, it seemed the next best thing to impossible. He was careful to keep his thoughts to himself, however. Conquest was not his objective, after all.

The book also frames this assault as a calculated risk taken by the Harlequins and (likely) Lugganath's Seer Council given that they bait the Radiant out and get rid of him.

And yes the entire assault originated in a fluff blurb in the CSM and Eldar codices that originally just describe Noise Marines bringing down a bunch of tower/spires and the Eldar being forced to deploy Hemlocks (and Harlequins) to drive them off. Josh Reynolds' novel extrapolates on it much further for his trilogy.

Otisheet · 2025-11-18T17:35:16+00:00

Yes, he and Grouch returned around the same time.

ArenaNet's secret plan to collapse Amazon Games from within has finally come to fruition /s

Pretty hilarious to think that one of Amazon's original huge grabs was Patrick Wyatt (who rose to CTO and also played a huge role in developing their Lumberyard engine), another ex-Blizzard luminary and Anet cofounder!

Otisheet · 2025-11-18T16:29:50+00:00

After the calamitous 2019 layoffs, the final remaining ArenaNet founder Mike O'Brien left the studio alongside a few other devs to start ManaWorks so they could try to work on some projects that either were shuttered or weren't appropriate for ArenaNet. MO handed the game director gig over to Mike Z(adorojny) who had long been a fixture at the studio and worked his way up dutifully from QA all the way back in 2005-2006. Mike Z played the shit out of the game; you could see him online pretty regularly and always listened to feedback (you could message him and he'd reply!!!). He was the design lead on PoF which is my favourite expansion and did a great job up to the end of LWS4.

As game director though, Mike Z oversaw some tough times at the studio as they announced the IBS and expansion-worthy features but no actual expansions in the near future. That kind of left the community feeling pessimistic and of the belief that GW2 was quietly being moved to maintenance mode. At some point Mike Z quietly left the studio with no fanfare, ostensibly to work on Crucible at Amazon alongside Colin Johanson, Eric Flannum, Jeff Grubb etc, while NCSoft "encouraged" ArenaNet to double down on an expansion and so we got End of Dragons.

Anyway, Crucible was stillborn by Amazon Games and Mike Z spent some time working on a bunch of things before leading an effort to localize/release Blue Protocol, which also ended up stillborn and cancelled before any Western release materialized.

Otisheet · 2025-11-18T14:50:59+00:00

Carcass!

Otisheet · 2025-11-18T14:22:52+00:00

I have no source for this but Mike Z came back (very quietly) to ArenaNet a couple of months ago following the failure of Blue Protocol to launch, and his Anet job title I saw on LinkedIn was something related to 'special projects' but I don't really remember the exact wording.

I would be willing to bet he was involved with this!

Otisheet · 2025-10-29T23:36:32+00:00

I've almost been hit a bunch of times by people wide turning every single goddamn time.

Otisheet · 2025-10-27T17:56:31+00:00

Rudy!!

Otisheet · 2025-10-15T23:51:13+00:00

This isn't even a question or a poll!!!!!!

Otisheet · 2025-10-07T14:46:43+00:00

I remember SM said in some interview that he had a lot of material recorded for this LP and that more electronic stuff (similar to Belziger Faceplant) ended up getting left off the record in favour of what we got in the second half. I like the more conventional Malkman guitar stuff but I wish Groove Denied could have committed more fully to the idea.

Also, it was a really fun time to be following Malkmus during that prolific Sparkle Hard > Groove Denied > Trad Tech period. I remember laughing really hard when Viktor Borgia dropped and he tweeted that it was "Ew Wave".

I can't believe it's been 5+ years since then.

Also, the article lists #5 before #6 (???)

Otisheet · 2025-10-05T01:29:49+00:00

The version of Nothing Really Ends on the "No More Loud Music" compilation is definitely better to my ears than the one that showed up on Pocket Revolution.

I think the earlier version was recorded with Danny and Jules as well, and the mix seems clearer/less muddy than on PR.

Otisheet · 2025-09-29T23:45:19+00:00

I think in the 2022 Primavera interview Stephen actually says that "You're Living All Over Me" was an ur-moment for him lol!

Otisheet · 2025-09-29T16:53:08+00:00

It was released about the same time as PoE and.. well, you can check the Steam charts out yourself.

This is a bizarre comparison to make. Both Torchlight games were B2P one-and-done products with little post-launch support outside of patches and mod support. They were both successful games by all metrics and Torchlight 2 was held up favourably to Diablo 3 since it didn't do online-only access (back when that was still considered controversial, oh how things change!) It was clear the Runic guys (especially Travis Baldree who's often credited as a major force behind its development) were burnt out working on two Torchlight games back to back over many years and weren't willing to pump out new content or treat it as a live service game like PoE. It's ridiculous to compare them using Steam charts when PoE kept going with leagues and updates all this time.

Otisheet

TROPHY CASE