Album of the Month: The HU, Rumble of Thunder

Another band I discovered through Planet Rock and another CD I got for Christmas. The song I heard was their cover of Iron Maiden's The Trooper, which caught my ear. Sometimes I can tell from just one song that I'm going to like a band. I added the album to my wishlist even though The Trooper wasn't on there. It was a gamble that paid off.

The HU are Mongolian. They formed after heavy metal music was legalised in Mongolia, only a few years ago. Rather than trying to ape Western metal, they use electric versions of traditional Mongolian musical instruments combined with Mongolian throat singing, which works well in the metal genre. There are pictures of the trad instruments made metal in the CD booklet.

They also sing most of their songs in Mongolian, which I also like about them. I admire their authenticity as they try to make heavy metal that reflects their Mongolian culture, instead of just copying a narrow version of "metal" as it has developed in the UK and USA. 

As a fan of physical format media, I was very pleased with the bonus trading cards of the band members that came with the CD. You don't get this sort of thing when you just ask your smart speaker to play something. It was a nice surprise to discover them when I opened the CD. 

On the backs it gives the instrument the band member plays.

Musically, several tracks are quite nicely heavy. They tend to be up-tempo and almost aggressive. But Triangle is brilliantly melodic, while Mother Nature is a soft piece, befitting it's topic. 

This is the deluxe CD with three bonus versions of tracks that include guest artists singing lyrics in English. I didn't feel that added much and preferred the Mongolian original versions, but it's good to see artists like William Duvall (Alice in Chains) and Serj Tankian (System of a Down) embracing the HU and working with them.

Details

Year of release: 2023

Tracks: 15 (including 3 bonus tracks woth guest musicians singing English lyrics)

Favourite track: Triangle - this regularly gets repeated when I play the CD in the car

Tracks to skip: clicking in at 8 minutes and 59 seconds, Black Thunder is a bit long. 

Boostin' the rosters - a Blood Bowl update

A while back I bought a couple of Blood Bowl star players, and with a possible debut for my 'necromantic horrors' team this month, I've gone on and built these characters. 

So say hello to wicked werewolf, Wilhelm Chaney, and giant lizard player, Anqi Panqi. 

Anqi is a fearsome-looking dude in a dinosaur skull helmet. He was a fun build and will probably be a pain to paint.

Wilhelm is a very dynamic sculpt. I found affixing his tail difficult and I suspect it may come off if he gets knocked over in a game.

I do like how Wilhelm's stats include how many balls he's buried.

Meanwhile, Anqi keeps getting in trouble for saying stuff in post-match interviews. Probably lewd stuff if his awards for innuendos are any indication. But, then his name is Anqi Panqi, so what else could we really expect?

These resin models require superglue and are fiddly, resulting in a condition I call "superglue fingers". I'm hoping the coating will wear off by match day!

Time to light the lights for the return of The Muppet Show

The big Muppet news of 2026 so far has been a one episode revival of The Muppet Show. It seems to have been championed by Seth Rogan (executive producer) and featured Sabrina Carpenter as the show's special guest.

There is always a worry when a beloved franchise gets a reboot - as I said when The Muppets was released back in 2011. But Disney has done a reasonable job as caretakers of the Muppet legacy in the past 15 years, releasing lots of new projects although not much has really made an impact.

There was a follow up film, Muppets Most Wanted, that was okay. I didn't like it as much as the 2011 film. Disney tried two series featuring the main characters (The Muppets and then Muppets Now!) and also did a short series about the Muppet Show band, The Electric Mayhem and a Hallowe'en special - Muppets Haunted Mansion. None of the series grabbed me and Cathy and we didn't finish watching any of them. (Maybe, as Gonzo sings, we're going to go back there again, someday.) 

So, I watched The Muppet Show special with low expectations but high hopes - fan chatter before the release seemed positive and I'd seen a couple of clips that made me feel less apprehensive than I would have felt going in blind. And overall, it was a decent epsiode that vibed very much with the feel of the original show.

It was the usual chaos behind the scenes, lots of recognisable background characters, fourth wall breaking comments, a guest star who leaned in and took it seriously but didn't take herself seriously, and some fun musical numbers. The duet between Kermit and Sabrina Carpenter featuring lots of harmonising muppet fish and swamp critters felt very OG Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf were back in their box. Rowlf was back on piano. Scooter was back backstage. It was all done very well.

I had a couple of minor quibbles. Bobo the bear shouldn't have been saying "It's good to be back" when he was a character first introduced on Muppets Tonight, not The Muppet Show. Pepe the Prawn was under-used and appeared in probably the weakest sketch of the show. I'm not sure what Beauregard was meant to be doing during the rats' musical number. 

However, those are really penickity issues. I'm quite happy that all I have are penickity issues as that's a sign of how much this one off special got right. Here's hoping it gains enough of an audience that Disney agree to doing more!

My January 2026 round-up

A very busy opening month of 2026, including a big birthday party for my mum who turneed 80, a work trip to Glasgow and the restart of political campaigning after a brief break over Christmas.

I was busy on the blog too, with a Blood Bowl match report, a Book of the Month and, for the first time, an Album of the Month post. I did a review of 2025, a sports round up and listed my cinema trips. I also marked Appreciate a Dragon day with a drove of dragons.

My Mum's 80th birthday party was on the final weekend of the month.  We had a loose theme of '80 years around the world' with a cake shaped like a hot air balloon.

A wall of photos, including a banner of family members spelling out 'Happy Birthday'.

Fred the hound was immortalised in icing next to the main cake we cut and served. His obvious misdemeanour attracted a lot of comments.

Mum with kids and grandkids...

At Mum's request we ran a short quiz. I was quizmaster. The most successful rounds were the picture rounds and the round where people had to guess the song title containing a country name.

My work trip to Glasgow was a day trip with an early morning flight from Bristol airport and a late return. I set my schedule to see if there and back in a day was doable. Turns out that yes it is doable, but it isn't desirable. I'm not going to rush to repeat it. 

We are now about 3 months away from the Senedd election and canvassing has started in earnest. I've been out talking to commuters at stations and knocking on doors.

I also went to the first Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick of the year (photos by Fiona from KGT).

My top find was a dumped huge 80s style boombox, so I held it over my head like the famous scene in Say Anything.

On another weekend I supported the Friends of Grange Gardens 'Big Garden Birdwatch' on a wet Sunday morning. Despite the drizzle I saw goldfinches high up in the trees.

And I went to four football matches - three Cardiff Dracs games and a trip out to Cefn Cribwr as a random game at a new ground. That was just after New Year and they still had mince pies available with the half time cups of tea.

Album of the Month: Creeper, Sanguivore II

A new feature for the blog, mainly because I got some new CDs for Christmas and I thought it would be fun to review them a bit like my Book of the Month posts. I'm not sure how I'm going to format these posts so I can't promise there will be consistency in how I rate the albums if it does turn into a monthly series.

My first album of the month is Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death by Creeper.  

It's an unusual concept album in an emerging genre called "horror metal". The story arc is supposed to be about a vampire rock band on tour leaving behind them a trail of victims, and hunted in turn by an avenging dark angel, the Mistress of Death (who I presume is pictured on the album cover). The band dress as vampires for their live shows. 

I must admit, the first time I heard one of their songs playing on Planet Rock I thought it was a joke. The song was Blood Magick (It's a Ritual) and when the lead singer, William Von Ghould, intones "Drink the Blood!" at the end of the chorus, I burst out laughing. But then I heard the song a second time and realised this wasn't just a silly spoof. There is some real musicianship behind the speed metal riffs in that song and it was catchy. Vampire lore generally is a fine line between gory and silly and, in a way, I was impressed how much they committed to the bit.

Then Planet Rock played the title track Mistress of Death and I got the soaring chorus stuck in my head. By the time Prey for the Night was on the Planet Rock playlist, I decided to add the album to my wishlist and my sister-in-law, Abby, bought it for me for Christmas. 

There is plenty of ambiguous wordplay throughout the album, reflecting how vampirism is often metaphor for sex. The gap between 'so give us head' and 'stones' in the chorus of Headstones, feels deliberate. Even more blatant is the command to "Suck" Suck! Suck!" in Parasite. The incredible chorus of The Black House includes this couplet

Come night fall, I want to hold you like a hammer in my hands

I want to nail you on the cross at your command

It might just be me hearing the double meaning of nail there, but I doubt it. I feel what shines through on this album is a group of accomplished musicians who know exactly what they are damn well doing, lyrically and musically.

This is theatrical rock metal. The story canters along, layering riff on riff before cutting away into a fuzzy lounge number (Razorwire), and a final confessional track that starts off as a mournful song of regret and climaxes with an operatic sign off for the album (Pavor Nocturnus). 

Like all successful vampires, Creeper are very much playing with their audience. The tunes for all the songs are mesmeric and strangely uplifting when played at high volume. This isn't gloomy goth music, it's life-pumping bloodrush music designed to get your heart rate up and your vigour fizzing. 

It's a short album too, romping through at less than 45 minutes. Which means, you can hit repeat on your favourite tracks as the album plays without extending the run time too much. I like to listen to The Black House at least twice each time it comes on. 

Details

Year of release: 2025

Tracks: 12 (including a narrated introduction to the album and a short interlude at track 9)

Favourite track: The Black House

Tracks to skip: none, although I have been known to skip the narrated intro and get straight to Mistress of Death, which is the first proper song on the album.

Irredeemable rewards (In memorium of Borders)

Looking in an old drawer, I found this sad memento of a lost place. RIP Borders Cardiff. Fondly remembered. (It was the first home for our Book Group, which outlasted it by over a decade.) 

Also, look how close I came to getting £15 off a purchase! You never know which loyalty stamp might be your last.

Blog history - Borders closed ages ago. But I chronicled when it first opened, when it entered into administration, and the forlorn empty shop. 

Ratpocalypse: our first Blood Bowl game of 2026

A 5-0 win for the skaven (coached by me) over the lizard-men (coached by Bryan) in our first Blood Bowl encounter of 2026. 

We used the new pitch that Bryan got in his season 3 box (which we unboxed last month) and also his new dice.

I like the new dice. The dice were very good to me! Almost immediately one of my rats had put the big kroxigor into the infirmary. The krox was crocked!

I feel like I've got the hang of my gutter runners now. They ran in 5 touchdowns with plenty of hand offs between them and successfully evading multiple opponents. You shouldn't be able to score when surrounded by four vicious lizards, but this guy did. 

My star players had mixed fortunes. Glart Smashrip did okay, with some successful blocks. But Hakflem Skuttlespike was badly injured again. 

He still needs painting...

Bryan's dice were horrid to him. His players tripped up while trying to rush an extra yard, fumbled the ball right to my players, and generally flubbed their attempts to block and tackle. However, the lovely dice treated me well almost every roll. Right at the end of the match I was able to foul one of the big saurus blockers and severely injure him. Literally adding injury to insult, there. 

A full box of injured lizards

So, a winning start for the new year. In February I'm hoping to debut a new team. So check in next month to find out what carnage ensues.

A drove of dragons

It's Appreciate a Dragon Day according to one of the calendars we have up. So here's a drove of dragons to celebrate.

Gradually I've gathered up quite a collection of pics of dragons. Like this selfie taken in the fanzone at the 2025 Welsh Cup Final.

Here he is in action at a Wales game.

Barry Town also have a dragon occasionally in attendance. 

Channeling Edvard Munch,
or having trouble with the costumes head?

There are lots of dragons on flags at football matches, of course.

Although sometimes other animals replace them.

There's a dragon on the flag on my Plaid Cymru membership card.

And in April last year, at the March for Independence in Barry, I got this fridge magnet from Rebel Dragon Designs, which combines the Welsh Dragon with the Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars.

I like the way artists put their own spin on the Welsh dragon. The artist Revealist has created this "dragon in a bally" which can be seen in a few places around Cardiff. The best one is in Grangetown, though.

Meanwhile this print caught my eye at an art fair in Canton last year.

When the new Lego Shop opened in Cardiff in September they had a massive, very impressive, Lego dragon installed outside.

It feels like dragons are spottable any and everywhere!

And if you're very lucky, maybe you can grow your own pair of dragon wings!

Happy Appreciate a Dragon Day! I hope you enjoyed seeing this drove of dragons!