ALAN WAKE'S NEW NIGHTMARE RELEASED AND POETS OF THE FALL'S NEW ALBUM ANNOUNCED

Riding the coattails off the last blog, I was reminded of Alan Wake, which leads to a two-pronged post. Firstly is the newly released Alan Wake's American Nightmare & Poets of the Fall's new album Temple of Thought.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare 

In 2010 Remedy Entertainment released the successful  Alan Wake, a psychological thriller action game. Now in 2012 they have released a downloadable follow-up, Alan Wake's American Nightmare. It is an interesting turn in gaming, for while a standalone game, it is not considered a sequel by the developers. I'm not exactly sure what the distinction is between a follow-up and a sequel, but I was impressed before. 

Since its release in mid-February, the game has received positive reviews, despite criticism from IGN for a "sub-par story, oddly written dialogue, and lack of suspense." For a story-driven action-horror video game who's titular protagonist is a Writer, those seem like fairly glaring deficiencies.

On the other hand, they brought back Poets of the Fall's soundtrack in two new songs, "Balance Slays the Demon" and "The Happy Song" as their pseudonym "The Old God's of Asgard". Adopting a more 80s metal vibe, I loved "Balance Slays the Demon," which lead me into learning about the upcoming Poets album ... 

Temple of Thought

The upcoming 5th studio album from Finnish Rock band Poets of the Fall is scheduled for release on March 21, 2012. Being a huge fan of the band's previous work for Remedy Entertainment, the singles "Late Goodbye" for Max Payne 2 and "War" for Alan Wake, I quickly fell in love with the band's entire discography.

The newly released single, "Cradled In Love" is undeniably peaceful and lovely, but still very much Poets, and sets the tone hinted at by the name of the album, which gives me high hopes for the direction the band is taking for this new musical endeavor.

It's nice to know that even in this day and age (being raised upon the Gods of Classic Rock) that quality musicians still exist and can compose the music that they release. It's a shame that they're not more widely popular considering the level of their talent.

~ Godzello