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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years ago

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Following their much-acclaimed 2019 album Prokopton, November 19 will see Toulouse based symphonic melodic death metal force Aephanemer return with their third and thunderous full-length record A Dream Of Wilderness via Napalm Records. A Dream Of Wilderness promises to be an exciting and refreshing mixture of metallic elements that are both technically superior and emotively rousing. First single ‘Panta Rhei’ showcases the band’s ability to combine blistering, speedy riffs with a thrilling symphonic sound that takes you on a journey right into a melodic death metal fairy tale. [via Metal Goddesses]

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French melodic death metallers Akiavel unveil a music video for ‘Lady Of Death’ off of their new album Væ Victis. Watch it below. Vocalist Auré on the track: “’Lady of Death’ is a song about Aileen Wuornos. I absolutely wanted to put her on our album because I find her fascinating. I have studied her story a lot; I have a lot of compassion for her despite the fact that she has murdered people. That’s why the text isn’t very violent or bloody, it’s more based on how she feels. She had a lot of suffering in her. For the video clip we got closer to her psychological state. That’s why we chose the actress who clearly embodied her conscience and the struggle within her.” [via Metal Goddesses]

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When Sydney, Australia was put in lockdown the Temtris crew had their tour of the latest album release Ritual Warfare cut in half. Instead of wasting time they pushed forward and decided to make a clip for the powerhouse opening track ‘Race to the End’. Putting together the idea of filming each member playing the song on a green screen in their own home and piecing the footage together to make this killer track available for all metalheads to enjoy. This track has been a favourite of radio stations around the world and with lyrics we can all relate too about life and time. It’s a fast paced track with a dynamic bolt of Power/Speedmetal with a big catchy chorus and riffs that will stick in your head. [via Metal Goddesses]

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Ukrainian melodic metallers Ignea share a music video for their new single ‘Mermaids’ in collaboration with a symphonic death metal project Ersedu. Watch it below. The song is taken from BESTIA, a concept EP about the human nature of Ukrainian mythological creatures and the world’s duality. In Ukrainian, BESTIA (Ukr. «бестія») means both a savage beast and a mischievous person. This is a split record that consists of songs by two Ukrainian bands and is a result of their 10-year friendship. ‘Mermaids’, which features both bands, is a song about Ukrainian mavkas (sirens) who cannot find their place anywhere: neither on the shore nor in the waters. Just like humans, they are bored when their life is in balance, and they’re trapped in the problems that they create on their own. One of the ways to entertain themselves is collecting people and transform them into pearls, which was the fate of two travellers from the video. ‘Because all the pearls and treasures are here, under mermaids’ hair the essence of being.’ [via Metal Goddesses]

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Ecuadorian tech death metal trio Minipony have shared new single ‘Kill Like A Human’, which is a first and intense harbinger for the band’s upcoming full-length record Ajna, to be released in early 2022 via Subsound Records.

Employed To Serve is going to make your break your own neck from windmilling so damn hard with their new single ‘The Mistake’. Seriously, that opening riff comes in like a wrecking ball and never, ever lets up ."'The Mistake' is about letting other people's opinions of you seep into your subconscious and filling you with self-doubt," said guitarist and vocalist Sammy Urwin. "In life, you can't always win over everyone. But don't let the haters stifle your true potential and stand in between you and your goals." [via Metal Injection]

Dying Wish have shared another track from their upcoming debut album Fragments Of A Bitter Memory, and it's another vital slice of metalcore brilliance. It's called 'Severing The Senses' and melds classic driving riffs and spiky breakdowns with vicious and volatile storytelling. It's another sharp and savage example of one of the most exciting and important new bands the scene currently has to offer. Vocalist Emma Boster explains some of the song's vital themes: “I wrote the lyrics at a time when friends of mine were coming forward about their experiences with abuse after years of their stories being invalidated and suppressed. As a survivor myself, it was triggering for me to see their bravery met with even more denial and excuses from the person who caused them harm. That feeling of anger and sadness I get in those moments will forever be unparalleled. ‘I cannot escape this torment granted by the hand of a coward’ is specifically about those triggered emotions. After growing up in a home where I experienced violence, I had a very distorted expectation from men. As a result, I found myself in a relationship where I experienced other forms of abuse. ‘I felt the weight of every mistake you made’ and ‘I took the blame each time you broke my heart’ refers to the gaslighting and manipulation I dealt with in my first relationship. It’s a story I no longer tell because of how many times I’ve been told that my trauma wasn’t real. The idea of the letter on the deathbed is intended for the survivor to have the last word so they never have to feel invalidated again.” [via Rock Sound]

#metal monday #aephanemer #akiavel #temtris #ignea #ersedu #minipony #employed to serve #dying wish

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 3 years ago

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Employed To Serve are putting British metal back on top

For the past decade, Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin of Employed To Serve have helped elevate British rock and metal both on and off the stage, from Album Of The Year releases to their championing of new bands. Now, with fourth full-length Conquering on the horizon, the pay-off is being felt across the entire scene…

Some years ago now, at the end of her last job in retail, Justine Jones made a decision. Providing she could eat and had a roof over her head, she wasn’t, she told herself, going to spend her life doing anything that was “un-fun”. Instead, Justine decided, she’d navigate the world by working hard on the things she loved and that she truly believed in.

“I’ve never been content to be a cog,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to be like a very heavily involved person. I like having a say, I guess. I’ve never liked having a manager, in terms of work. I have got that childish, rebellious thing, like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’”

Employed To Serve are not cogs. Nor are Justine and guitarist Sammy Urwin ones to sit around and wait for the lights to go green. With what the singer calls “our Hatebreed, perseverance attitude”, a self-starting, hands-dirty, DIY ethos that’s as much about enthusiasm for music and building a scene as it is firing up pits, they have become one of the most exciting British metal bands of the past decade. When Oli Sykes invited them to join the Bring Me The Horizon-curated All Points East festival two summers ago, he noted that they were “one of the few heavy bands around who I actually like”.

Kerrang! had got there before him, mind. In 2017, we crowned Employed To Serve’s second album, The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, our Album Of The Year. Its follow-up, 2019’s Eternal Forward Motion, was awarded a full 5K rating and a spot on our front cover, their second. When they gave us the nod a while ago that they were about to drop the first single from their brilliant fourth album, Conquering, coming this September, we didn’t even need to think about giving them a third.

Like Oli’s band, there’s an energy to Employed To Serve, an orbit around them that feels like it’s pulling in other bands, linking seemingly unlinked outfits together through sheer enthusiasm. Beyond the band, offstage, Justine and Sammy run Church Road Records from their home in the Surrey commuter town of Woking (a place notably annihilated by Martians in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds). Through this, they can sign and put out music by bands that they like: the only real signing policy amounting to “bands that excite me”, says Justine. There’s as much gratefulness towards the artists they release – Svalbard, Palm Reader, Cruelty, to name but three – for trusting them to look after their records, as there is to anyone who gives their own band the time of day.

“As cheesy as it sounds, we’re lifers,” says Justine. “I love music. I love releasing it. I love that I do it for a full time job. I love playing live. First and foremost, we are music fans. Obviously, we love being in a band and stuff. But we just live and breathe music.”

As with so many things for so many people, the depth of this dedication was thrown into sharp focus as COVID took hold last year. At the end of 2019, Employed To Serve were on a winning streak. Eternal Forward Motion was one of the year’s most acclaimed releases, they band had spent a month on the road with Bury Tomorrow in Europe and the UK, and on New Year’s Eve, Sammy and Justine put a bow on their long-term relationship by tying the knot. In March 2020, just before lockdown ended touring for everyone, the band’s UK headlining run just about snuck in, and saw them sell out London’s Camden Underworld, a show that ended in chaos with the audience onstage triumphantly carrying Sammy on their shoulders.

When things ground to a halt, the gap left was palpable. Once source of reflection came in taking stock in what the band had achieved, while also having to find a replacement for guitarist Richard Jacobs. It’s an exercise the pair are admittedly used to, to the point where Justine says, “We probably look like dictators, like it’s the Sammy and Justine show.”

To wit, keen observers will note that they are the only members of Employed To Serve to be on both this Kerrang! cover and the last one. There’s no bad blood anywhere – Richard left to move to Japan with his wife, drummer Robbie Back has become a dad, bassist Marcus Gooda went on to focus on other things – it was simply the wage of getting older in a band. When life’s forks come up, you have to make a choice. For Sammy and Justine, the choice just happens to be to stay the course. Three new members have been drafted into the band – guitarist David Porter, bassist Nathan Pryor and drummer Casey McHale – but it still provided a moment of reflection for what was actually important.

Another, more serious bit of stock-taking came last September, when Justine resigned from her job as a label manager at Holy Roar records, after serious assault allegations were made against the label’s owner. Soon after, that label folded entirely.

But in both cases, where events could have sown doubt or caused serious damage, things instead bloomed. And so, Sammy and Justine turned Church Road – a small concern of Sammy’s for years already – into a full-time occupation and livelihood, taking on Holy Roar releases already on the slate and pressed, and releasing them herself. In the case of their first release, Svalbard’s When I Die, Will I Get Better?, there was barely a month to move everything over, and yet it still hit the shelves on the day it was always intended to. Because, looking back, it’s almost like there was no other consideration than to carry on.

“When everything happened, I thought, ‘Maybe I could go to a bigger label or something.’ But that’s not where my heart is,” says Justine. “My heart is in finding bands in tiny little venues and then helping them grow into their second hours and stuff. And it’s just more fun. Obviously, it’s very scary [running your own label], and I’ve spent a lot of this past year very stressed. But I don’t have to answer to anyone – I just do the best I can for the bands because I love them. My favourite thing is sitting on Bandcamp with a coffee or a beer, and going through each genre finding the best bands of that day, or going through Apple Music or Spotify and finding new bands. It has been like that since I was a kid. So doing a record label just makes sense.

“Obviously I wish it was under better circumstances, but COVID has been almost like a blessing for this band, because it’s helped us regroup,” she continues. “It made us take stock of all the cool shit we’ve been lucky enough to do. Because sometimes when you get caught in the rat race of everything, you’re never really living in the moment. And then COVID happens, and you think, ‘What do I miss?’ Friends, family, playing shows. And I’m like, ‘Cool, I’m doing the right thing. Let’s get back to it.’”

For Justine, this meant becoming the boss. For Sammy, already a music obsessive with an apparent addiction to both old-school death metal and playing guitar in as many bands as possible as a member of Renounced and Motormouth (as well as playing in Glorious with Justine), it was an opportunity to dedicate his life to his passion even further. A gardener by trade, he’d lately found himself wondering what was beyond it.

“I was doing gardening work on and off for the last 10 or so years. I enjoyed the work, but sometimes I would kind of find myself being a little bit like, ‘What’s the five-year plan?’” he says. “I’ll always do the band. But we got a few members going off and doing other stuff. I knew I had to find something else to do, because I wanted to do something in music that also fit around being in the band. I just knew I wanted to be with like-minded people talking about music all day.”

Sammy and Justine talk about music a lot. Get Sammy started on metal, and his enthusiasm quickly runs away with him. For Justine, their impending gig at Download Pilot a couple of days after our interview is as much about watching everyone else as it is their own show. Though one of the heaviest bands on the line-up, as a showcase of the breadth of rising talent the British rock scene has, appearing on the same ticket as Enter Shikari, Trash Boat, Creeper, Boston Manor, Neck Deep, Loathe and Conjurer is a large-scale version of what they’ve been driving at for years.

“It’s so funny, because it kind of sounds weird, but within the British scene, it makes total sense,” says Justine. “It’s a very rich scene at a minute, and it’s for all spectrums. You have bands like Orchards and Gender Roles on the Big Scary Monsters label, but equally, there’s loads of heavier bands, too. Everyone knows how hard it can be being a British band, because it’s hard to get over to America. And now, unfortunately, it’s gonna be hard to get to Europe [after Brexit]. So everyone’s got this thing like, ‘We’re this little island here and we need to stick together and support each other.’ It’s a nice collective, and a moment in time to be a part of.”

“Even though we’ve written a more metal record [with Conquering] for us, that’s definitely not a statement of us closing the door,” says Sammy. “Obviously we’d love to tour with Gojira or Lamb Of God or something like that. But if Creeper came to us and said, ‘Do you want to tour with us?’ we’d say yes.”

It was on such a line-up that Justine first appeared on the cover of Kerrang!, alongside Becky Blomfield of much-missed alt.punks Milk Teeth, with whom ETS were touring at the time. It not only showed two rising talents in the British scene, but also how well such different ends of it slotted together. Which was kind of the point.

“We were like the little metal sandwich in that tour,” says Justine. “But we worked well, because it was an example of this sort of British scene that’s going on at the moment.”

“People turned up who would be wearing ETS T‑shirts, and then singing along with Milk Teeth and vice versa,” says Sammy. “That’s so cool to see. Obviously there’s still a little bit of gatekeeping going on in the world of metal. But, for me, that was a really good sign of a shift.”

“It makes total sense. I don’t know why it’s not more of a thing, having mixed bills like that,” says Justine. “Everyone in our generation grew up listening to Slipknot and blink-182; two polarising bands, but it makes total sense. I listen to both of them religiously. So that actually kind of makes sense in a bill. It’s literally a music fan’s show. I remember Thursday opening for My Chemical Romance at Wembley on The Black Parade tour when I was 14, and Reuben opening for Billy Talent as well. I literally got to get into heavier stuff from those mixed line-ups.”

Put it to either of them that between their music, DIY attitude and simple lust for wanting to marshall a scene without walls, Employed To Serve could be called leaders, or at least the setters of examples for others to follow, and it’s a compliment they’ll take, but also something that they don’t want to take too much credit for.

“I mean, it’s for others to say, isn’t it?” says Justine. “We just have mental to-do list of stuff we want to achieve. And if that inspires people, that’s sick. It’s never like we try to be the leaders or anything.

“At the end of the day, I love the idea of kids getting into metal because of us and vice versa.”

As such an entry point, Conquering is a very good one. Ultra heavy and explosive, it leans even further into Sammy’s love of death metal OGs like Morbid Angel and Death, plus classic thrash, with shredding solos everywhere, as well as more vocals from the guitarist. And not even changing three-fifths of the band since their last album has had anything other than a sharpening effect. Fundamentally, Conquering is exciting, full of energy, and powered by a deep-set love for simply doing it.

“The floodgates have been opened, I guess, in terms of wearing our influences for this record on our sleeve,” says Sammy. “I like to think we still maintain the ETS that was there before, but it’s obvious that during lockdown and leading up to this record, for me it was about early Machine Head and Testament and Exodus and stuff. I feel like this is our chance to show that side of us a bit more.”

“It’s where I feel at home, as well, because I grew up listening to early Lamb of God and ’90s-era Roadrunner Records bands,” adds Justine. “Straight-up metal, but not straight-up metal in the sense that we’re doing it by numbers. We sound like us, but there are more choruses and solos.”

“Lyrically, it’s similar to Eternal Forward Motion and touching on some pretty bleak stuff, but for the most part we tried to put a positive spin on it,” says Sammy. “I wanted put all of that energy into something positive. I didn’t want to say the same things again, because I didn’t want to make it sound like it’s the same record. I’d say it’s an even more positive record than before.”

The day we meet for this interview, long after the tape recorder goes off, conversation about bands and music continues into the small hours. Three days later, at Download, as Sammy chucks himself into the crowd at the end of the band’s set and Justine alternates between roaring her head off and smiling her face off, the delight in all this is self-evident. Employed To Serve are one of the best metal bands in the country – one of the best bands full stop, in fact – but on a broader scale, they also act as a reflection of an emerging wave of bands for whom being in a band is an act of joy, of doing something with your life, of not settling for things that are, as Justine says, “un-fun”.

“Stuff in the band does get to you sometimes and you do get grouchy or whatever,” admits Sammy. “But we realised that we’re also very fortunate people who have played with people that have become our best friends. It’s about taking stock and being like, ‘This is fun.’ That’s what the album is about. It’s about not letting things in your life get the better of you. Because sometimes they do, and you find yourself getting all aggy, and you’re only doing yourself a disservice at that point, really.”

“I think Henry Rollins said, ‘Tenacity over talent,’” says Justine. “We work hard, but it’s tenacity. You could be the sickest guitar player but just sit in your bedroom and never play a show. No.”

“I mean, I do set myself up for it, where I’m kind of pulling my hair out,” adds Sammy. “I’ve had times where I’ve had three or four band practices a week. And there’s a gig this night, and a gig that night, and I’ve got to do this, that and the other. But you’ve gotta be in it to win it. And when a cool gig comes about, or cool tour comes about, or you’re just really happy with what you recorded, that’s when you know it’s worth it.”

As they say themselves, Justine and Sammy are lifers. As other members leave to start families or move abroad to begin the next chapter of their lives, rather than feeling left behind, it’s almost made them realise even more quite what a special thing they have.

When it brings you as much happiness as doing this clearly does, what else do you need? And anyway, it’s worth it to not simply be a cog.

#Justine Jones #Employed To Serve #2021 interviews

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sethabrikoos · 2 years ago

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Alien Weaponry, Gojira & Employed to Serve at @013poppodium 🎶 . . . Used gear: Sony A7SII + 50mm (prime) f/1.8 + Sony A6000 + 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 Gojira = Joe Duplantier (Vocals, Rhythm guitar) Mario Duplantier (Drums) Jean-Michel Labadie (Bass) Christian Andreu (Lead Guitar) Alien Weaponry = Henry de Jong (Drums, Backing Vocals) Lewis de Jong (Guitars, Lead vocals) Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds (Bass, Backing Vocals) Employed To Serve = Justine Jones (Vocals) Sammy Urwin (Guitar/ Vocals) David Porter (Guitar) Nathan Pryor (Bass) Casey McHale (Drums) . . . #sethpicturesmusic #sethabrikoos #poppodium #013 #metalboy #alienweaponry #tilburg #tilburgcity #metalsinger #metalguitar #metalmen #metaldrummer #metalguitarist #metalheads #metalconcert #metalgirl #fotograaf #gojira #fotograafnederland #concertphotographer #gojiraband #sonyalphasclub #sonya7sii #employedtoserveband 🤘✌️ (at Poppodium 013) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgrwyxKstWR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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bringinbackpod · 3 years ago

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Interview with Employed To Serve

We had the pleasure of interviewing Employed To Serve over Zoom video! Employed To Serve have released their brand new record, Conquering, out via Spinefarm. Drawing influence from the music of their youth and a new perspective on how to nurture the positive aspects of humanity and individual growth, Conquering is a celebration and acknowledgement of triumph in the face of a world that can be relentlessly adversarial. Employed to Serve began recording Conquering in the "unforgiving winter" of 2020. It was produced and mixed by Lewis Johns at The Ranch, Southampton and mastered by Grant Berry at Fader Mastering. ETS took the time thrown at them by a world stopped still to write their most visceral material to date. ABOUT EMPLOYED TO SERVE: Employe to Serve's origins are essentially humble, with the core duo of Justine Jones (vocals) and Sammy Urwin (guitar/vocals) initially starting the band as a two-piece grindcore project backed by a drum machine. Early experiences on the UK festival scene expanded their horizons and perceptions of what weightier music could be. Seeing heavy-hitters such as Converge, Meshuggah, and Glassjaw��alongside smaller but no less important acts like Rolo Tomassi, Veils, and The Chariot inspired the duo to develop their vision. 2014's Change Nothing Regret Everything EP operated as a stepping stone into full band territory, before 2015's critically acclaimed debut album, Greyer Than You Remember, became their calling card, followed up two years later by The Warmth of a Dying Sun, then their 2019 Spinefarm debut Eternal Forward Motion. Employed to Serve have already proved themselves as a searingly intense and honest live experience, sharing bills with the cream of the crop of modern heavy music, including Code Orange, Bury Tomorrow, Stick To Your Guns, Loathe, Counterparts, and Underoath. They’ve also decimated stages at some of the UK and Europe's leading music festivals, the likes of Download, Glastonbury, Graspop, and Hellfest. And the accolades are unstoppable; from their Kerrang! Album of the Year win back in 2017, achieving the assumed impossible with a KKKKKK (yes, that is 6 K's!) live review, landing in Metal Hamme'’s reader and staff Top 10 Album polls, and a 2020 sold-out Underworld performance, to a plethora of cover features across Music Week, Metro Weekend, Upset, and Kerrang!, Employed to Serve are unflinching at the forefront of metal innovation. We want to hear from you! Please email [email protected]. www.BringinitBackwards.com #podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #ETS #EmployedToServe #zoom Listen & Subscribe to BiB Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter! source https://www.spreaker.com/user/14706194/interview-with-employed-to-serve

#podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #music #aspn #americansongwriter #americansongwriterpodcastnetwor

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metalshockfinland · 3 years ago

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EMPLOYED TO SERVE Release New Single “The Mistake”

EMPLOYED TO SERVE have released brand new single, “The Mistake”, which is the third single from the band’s forthcoming album, Conquering, due for release on September 17th via Spinefarm Records. EMPLOYED TO SERVE guitarist/vocalist, Sammy Urwin says, “‘The Mistake’ is about letting other people’s opinions of you seep into your subconscious and filling you with self-doubt. In life you can’t…

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opsikpro · 5 years ago

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DEFTONES "Elite" Covered by EMPLOYED TO SERVE + DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN + THE NUMBER TWELVE Members

DEFTONES “Elite” Covered by EMPLOYED TO SERVE + DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN + THE NUMBER TWELVE Members

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Employed To Serve, The Dillinger Escape Plan and The Number Twelve Looks Like You Cover DEFTONES “Elite” Live Performance Justine Jones (Employed To Serve)Sammy Urwin (Employed To Serve)Billy Rymer (The Dillinger Escape Plan / End)Kevin Antreassian (The Dillinger Escape Plan)DJ Scully (The Number Twelve Looks Like You)

Frank Godla of Metal Injection presents The SLAY AT HOME…

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ghostcultmagazine · 3 years ago

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We caught up with Justine Jones of Employed To Serve for an interview, all about their killer new album "Conquering" - out on Septempber 17th, 2021. The album is as immense as Justine's performance is, and we discusssed how the genre-smashing, patriarchy collapsing band used the lock-down year to bolster their writing , how Justine approaches lyrics, how she and Sammy Urwin collab on the vocals, what it's like being in a band with your spouse, turning Church Road Records in to a full-time venture, what it was like returning to the stage at the Download Pilot festival, and much more. Interview by Ghost Cult Keefy (https://ift.tt/2VHaeIF). Video editing by Omar Cordy of OJC Photography (https://www.instagram.com/ojcpics). Theme music by Salted Wounds (https://ift.tt/2RZhEoZ). Order the album here: https://ift.tt/3kemq0G Read our review of Conquering here: https://ift.tt/3lKZrKz Employed To Serve: Justine Jones — Vocals Sammy Urwin — Guitar + vocals David Porter — Guitar Nathan Pryor — Bass Casey McHale — Drums Follow Employed To Serve: https://ift.tt/3CiDfxK https://ift.tt/2vbFhTz https://twitter.com/employedtoserve Gear we use: Set up A: Sony A7 III - https://amzn.to/3tQm422 Tamron 17-28 - https://amzn.to/3ePrlTd Tamron 28-75 - https://amzn.to/3fqCjgY Desview Mavo-P5 Monitor- https://amzn.to/33LlTub Manfrotto Befree Travel Tripod - https://amzn.to/3hxbL0e Set up B: Canon 80D - https://amzn.to/3ye8WqV Sigma MC-11 - https://amzn.to/3brZdU2 Sigma 18-35 - https://amzn.to/3tLlEd7 Tokina 11-16 - https://amzn.to/3bty9Uk Feelworld T7 Monitor - https://amzn.to/2Re9hta Audio: Sound Devices MixPre-3 - https://amzn.to/3tKkJd2 Gearlux XLR Mic Cable - 3 Pack - https://amzn.to/3w3zN6Y Deity D3 Microphone - https://amzn.to/3tRa6W2 Fifine Usb Mic - https://amzn.to/3w8JHEG Lighting: YONGNUO YN600L - https://amzn.to/2QkNrn5 YONGNUO YN300 Air - https://amzn.to/2QjN5gu Dfuse Softbox - https://amzn.to/3uQq4AN Aputure MC - https://amzn.to/3oirFgx NanLite PavoTube II 6C - http://bit.ly/NanLitePavoTubeII Lightstands - https://amzn.to/3uSBl3x 5 in 1 Reflector - https://amzn.to/33KHdjo And our iconic Rope Light https://amzn.to/3ycdmyz For the full list of Ghost Cult gear: http://bit.ly/OJCPicsKit This video includes a shoutout to Autumn Lies Buried (https://ift.tt/3zcSSVt) Get your shoutout by visiting our pinned post on Twitter! https://twitter.com/GhostCultMag/status/1142861626590355456 by Ghost Cult Magazine

#IFTTT #YouTube

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whereismywizardhat · 7 years ago

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Curse of Strahd Play Report #5

Cast

Sammie the Halfling Paladin

Alias the Illythid Mystic

Hakan the Warforged Artificer

Kairon the Tiefling Hexblade

Torment the Tiefling Cleric

Baux the Elven Rogue

Finishing up the fight from last week, the players quickly tore through the assassins. The skeleton men had one last quick, with the two who weren’t killed by the Cleric’s Sacred Flame raising themselves with 1 hit die worth of damage. Wasn’t enough to hurt the party but I did startle the rogue who was in the midst of looting the body.

Our Illythid learnt Zuleika’s secret, by way of bullshit player abilities (aura vision). Surprisingly, he didn’t tell anyone, but that didn’t stop the rest of the party, metagaming little twerps that they are, from being jerks to her for the rest of the night.

In the thick fog, the group found themselves at a cross roads. After some navigation work through use of Hakan’s compass and Sammie’s memorization of the map, the players managed NOT to walk right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft: Well done guys, you managed not to doom Ireena.

After some “spoooky” happenings involving gates and werewolf howls, the players made their way towards Vallaki. Impressively, they also didn’t walk up to Old Bonegrinder. Danger sense was fully on their side today.

Zuleika split from the party at this point, saying she was banned from Vallaki. The party began disguising themselves, and then moved toward the town gate.

I was hoping that the players would royally screw up, but only one of them did. Baux decided showing his trophy (a skull from the assassins) to a nervous, slightly paranoid guard was a good idea. They got lucky that Sammie, pretending to be a small child, managed to smooth talk her way in.

Making their way to the church (and past a plot hook they would continue to resolutely ignore until I beat them over the head with it), the party met up with Father Lucien. Lucien revealed that there was no safety to be found in Vallaki after the sacred bones of St Andral had been stolen. Sammie made the angry sigh.

The group quickly zeroed in on the source of the leak: Yespa, the young altar boy. They then were asked if they’d like to stay at the Inn, which they refused, instead sleeping on the floor of the Church, not weird at all.

In the morning, Sammie, Hakan, and Torment decided to go grab breakfast. After getting into an argument with a street vendor, the trio went to the Inn. There, they met the Urwin the tavern keeper, who caught Hakan’s

SUBTLE

hint that they were adventurers, and asked them to figure out where the shipment of wine is. Then, the group met Rictavio, a half elven ringmaster, who also caught the SUBTLE hint. They don’t know it yet, but Rictavio planted a note on the werewolf den on Hakan. Luckily, none of my players read these, even though they could.

MVP of the game goes to Thunan-Kel, Hakan’s murderbot and son, for rolling a Nat 20 two times in a row and then a 19, thus removing 31 hitpoints of damage in one round with a knife. Thunan-Kel continues to be more valuable then most players, and will be awarded with all natural oil and a sad death scene when one can be made available.

Signing off til next week.

#curse of strahd #play report #d&d #dungeons and dragons

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