Two previews of tracks from Scar the Martyr's album

Scar the Martyr have released previews for two more of the tracks off their debut album. The first, My retribution was released this morning, while that of Cruel ocean was made available only a few minutes ago. This project is sounding exceptionally promising. I'm looking forward to being able to listen to the full album.

Listen to Nine inch Nails 'Hesitation Marks' now

The first album from Nine Inch Nails in nearly five years can now be streamed via the following link. According to NIN's facebook page, different sites are hosting the stream depending on where in the world you are trying to access it from.

Also, if you order Hesitation Marks directly from the NIN store, you'll be able to download an alternative version of the album for free, which features a different mastering process. This version has been dubbed the Audiophile Mastered Version, and is aimed primarily for listeners with serious audio equipment.

I may preorder the album and download this alternate version anyway, in the hopes that I will one day have the equipment available to hear the differences between the standard and audiophile versions.

Official trailer for Grand Theft Auto V

Watch the official trailer for Grand Theft Auto V here, or below:

Diablo III expansion announced

While some PC gamers have been getting pretty uptight over the release of the console version of Diablo III, they can now rejoice as they too are getting some love from Blizzard Entertainment, in the form of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.

For now the expansion looks to be a PC exclusive, but I'm pretty sure (read: really hoping) that Reaper of Souls will be released for consoles too.

The expansion includes a new hero-class, the crusader (which looks like a Black Templar from Warhammer 40,000), a fifth Act to the story, and no doubt a new arsenal of weapons and magical goodies to help slay some new monsters.

Ironically, I've spent the last few afternoon replaying Diablo II, so that I can complete Act V of Diablo II, before I get stuck into Diablo III in September.

Nirvana's original recording contract

Sub Pop, one of Nirvana's former record labels, has released a photograph of their exclusive recording agreement with Nirvana, who went on to become the biggest act of the '90s. 

Appropriately the caption on the Sub Pop site says, "six hundred bucks well spent."

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Don't forget to check out the announcement 20th Anniversary edition of In Utero here!

Scar the Martyr's new single will disintegrate your soul

Joey Jordison's side-project Scar the Martyr have released the second single off their eponymous album. The track is called Soul disintegration, and it sounds like the most promising release of recent months. Turn up your speakers and play the track as loudly as you can!

Third track off 'Hesitation Marks' released

Nine Inch Nails have released another track from their next album. Today NPR Music shared the third (second according to them) track from Hesitation Marks, due out on 3 September.

The song is called Everything, and it sounds almost nothing like previous material from Nine Inch Nails. It's possibly one of the poppiest, most radio-friendly pieces ever penned by Trent Reznor. That said, I doubt it'll actually get too much radio play here in South Africa where it'll be lucky to even get a mention on local radio, despite there being a pretty big Nine Inch Nails following here.

So far none of the four tracks (three studio recordings, one live performance) I've heard from Hesitation Marks have been particularly mind blowing, but they're still on average pretty good. I guess I'm just not used to hearing 'happy Nine Inch Nails' yet. Despite the apparent change in direction, I'm still rather looking forward to this release, as Nine Inch Nails has been my favourite band since the release of The Fragile. I at least hope that there's one of Reznor's trademark, scene-setting instrumentals on Hesitation Marks. 

If nothing else, I'm hoping that fellow Nine Inch Nails fans wont start labelling Hesitation Marks a complete disappointment à la Korn's 'The path of totality' and possibly Korn's follow-up album 'The paradigm shift' too.