I just finished watching the one-hour “Office Wedding” special. I waited a long time for this to happen. And it happened. Jim and Pam finally got married.

“The Office” has been my favorite television show for the past three years, and I don’t give a fuck what the naysayers have to say about the British version being better – I love this show. 

They couldn’t have gone about this better and it ended exactly as we all had wanted – a heartwarming and cheerful union of two of contemporary television’s most beloved characters. I don’t want to ruin anything, but even though it followed the typical “Office” formula of car crash scenes that culminate in joy and plenty of humor, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I’ve always appreciated “The Office” for its character development over these years, and I’m glad to see how this panned out. There are just so many memories: Jim’s simple crush on the office receptionist; the office casino night in which they kiss and Jim tells Pam that he loves her; moving in together in his parents’ old house; Pam going to school in New York; the proposal in the rain at the highway rest stop! It’s been a beautiful relationship and a wonderful time. I just hope what comes is as good as the rest of this ride.

Does anyone listen to industrial/electronic metal anymore? Actually, did anyone really listen to it when it was around?

Certainly a product of its time period (you know, the ‘90s), Powerman 5000 will have many of you saying, “Who?” and others saying, “They still exist?” Well, they do, and now their back with their sixth album, “Somewhere on the Other Side of Nowhere.”

“Somewhere” attempts to recreate the success of “Tonight the Stars Revolt!”, the band’s 1999 hit album that housed their breakthrough single “When Worlds Collide,” with plenty of sci-fi imagery, catchy power hooks and pretty generic hard rock.

While the album does succeed in recapturing that sound, it doesn’t stand the test of time. Frontman Spider One, who is the band’s only original member, is still stuck in his own little sci-fi/punk world that isn’t so appealing in today’s musical landscape. At the same time, however, I couldn’t help but find myself bobbing my head to some of the more ridiculous cuts.

“Show Me What You Got” layers chugging riffs, what sounds like cheap keyboard effects and a seriously catchy chorus (that’s made even more effective over some stop-time towards the end of the track) – chalk this one up in my guilty pleasures column. Sadly, it’s the best track on the album and it’s second on the track listing. Tracks like “Time Bomb, Baby” and “Make Us Insane” are tolerable but ultimately are hindered by poor lyrics and lack of originality in the music.

“Do Your Thing” is an attempt at something a bit more pop infused, but ends up sounding like some rejected Fatboy Slim record with a hard guitar riff, the album’s title track is out of place and there are a few interludes that just aren’t needed.

“Somewhere on the Other Side of Nowhere” has many faults. From its lame writing, ‘90s “the truth is out there” style and repetitious sound, there’s not much good to be said about Spider One’s power rock time capsule.

2.5/10

Check out: “Show Me What You Got:

The one thing I always wished “Rock Band” was more metal. The series has been superior to Activision’s “Guitar Hero” in every way imaginable (presentation, gameplay, style) except for the track selection. Yes, “Rock Band” has many more songs with updates coming pretty much weekly through downloadable content (DLC), but not everyone has access to the music store. So Harmonix has put together a stand-alone expansion, “Rock Band: Metal Track Pack,” to please the metal head inside all of us.

“Metal Track Pack” is Harmonix’s third genre-specific disc, the first two being country and classic rock. The collection features 20 songs, with artists from different periods of metal from the classic (Judas Priest, Motorhead) to the contemporary (All That Remains, Children of Bodom) and a sampling of the in between. Standout titles include “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine, “Two Weeks” by All That Remains (a lot of fun on vocals) and I Mother Earth’s “Levitate.” While I appreciate bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Lamb of God being featured, “3’s and 7’s” and “Laid to Rest” have been featured before in older “Guitar Hero” titles.

If you’re an active user of Harmonix’s music store in the full version of “Rock Band,” there’s not much to see here. Of the 20 songs, only six are new titles that cannot be currently purchased in the music store (“Bulls on Parade,” “Hair of the Dog,” “Killed by Death ’08,” “Levitate,” “Master of the Universe” and Transmaniacon MC”). I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually end up there, so it may be best to pick and choose what you want in the store, rather than shell out $30 for the disc. Sure it would cost more to buy them one by one, but not all the songs are worth playing (like the tracks from In This Moment and Hawkwind).

Since the pack is a stand-alone, it loses some of the “Rock Band” touches that make the full titles so great. Create-a-rocker is not a feature, but you can still play “Band Tour” mode – the game will just give you four of the pre-made characters. All 20 of the tracks are available to play out of the box in “Quickplay” mode. The venues are recycled from the first two titles so the presentation is the same – when it comes down to it, you’re paying for the songs and nothing else. The game also comes with 12 new Achievements in the Xbox 360 version, totaling up to 250 Gamerscore points. 

The Good: Some fun songs like “Killed By Death ’08″ and “Bulls On Parade”

The Bad: Most of these are already available for DLC

The Not-So-Metal: In This Moment. I mean technically they are, but they’re not very good.

“Hope, a new beginning / Time, time to start living / Just like before we died,” sings Alice in Chains’ vocalist William DuVall on “All Secrets Known” – undoubtedly a reference to the band’s revival and efforts to escape the shadows of its past. Despite the forward-looking attitude, however, these are shadows not easily forgotten on “Black Gives Way to Blue,” the band’s first disc of new material in 14 years, but more importantly, since the 2002 death of the band’s original singer, Layne Staley. 

As with most bands that need to replace a vocalist, the first question that comes to mind is how does the new stack up to the old, and the answer is surprisingly well. I understand many purists might denounce the band’s decision to continue with making music under the Alice In Chains moniker, but it must be accepted that what happened, happened and it’s only fair for the band to move on. DuVall sounds a lot like Staley and although he lacks the tortured artist ideal that made the band so intriguing and real to begin with, he gets the job done.

The music itself is also of the typical Alice In Chains flavor. The guitars sound dirty, the tempo is slow and the mood is very dark – all befitting the grunge movement the band was born from. But after a while, it’s pretty uninspiring. Everything seems to be moving slower than it should and the grind of the guitars will wear you down with repeated listens. 

While listeners will spend the entire album waiting for that one song – the song that has that big, power chorus that oozes the pain of a man really in trouble – it never comes. Sure, Alice In Chains’ niche has always been dark, drudging and moody alternative metal, but “Black Gives Way To Blue” just leaves you wanting a little more. 

By no means is “Black Gives Way to Blue” a bad album – though, as I mentioned, it is what Alice In Chains always has sounded like and to the faithful, this will be pleasing.

“Check My Brain” is about as catchy as the album will get, and the few slower acoustic songs like “Your Decision” and “When the Sun Rose Again” are good listens. 

The album closer, “Black Gives Way to Blue” (which guest stars Elton John on piano), is a lovely song dedicated to the late Staley, but again demonstrates that there’s nothing really new about this beginning and there’s nothing wrong with that. DuVall and Co. spend the better part of an hour paying tribute to a deserving musician. 

6/10

Check out: “Check My Brain,” “Black Gives Way To Blue”

For the remainder of the year, NPC Reviews will be counting down the 10 most important artists of this decade – artists that have had a serious impact on music as we know it.

“New American Gospel.”

No, it’s not the name of some Christian rock album or sermon on tape – actually the furthest thing from it. That was the title of Lamb of God’s second album, and it stands for much more than a simple theme continuation of their sacrilegious moniker – it’s a tribute to the metal that the genre was born on and a fist pumping “f— you” to the direction that American metal was going.

When “New American Gospel” – and more importantly 2003′s “As The Palaces Burn” – came out, the pool of talented metal bands was nearly bone-dry. It was the time of nu metal – bands like Linkin Park and Korn ruled the charts with no competition – and the legends were fading. No one knew what to expect of metal (but like I mentioned last week, it’s heavily dominated by metalcore these days). Then Lamb of God stepped up and demanded to be heard.

Some may say that their music is effortless, abrasive and uninspiring. Some may criticize the unpolished sound of “New American Gospel” (which it was) or the politics that has seeped into their albums lately (which it has), but you can’t sit there and say “Laid To Rest” isn’t one of the most vulgar displays of power you’ve ever heard. Each album in their discography steps on its predecessor and corrects its wrongs. 

“As The Palaces Burn” was the unexpected sequel to a great debut (I don’t count “Burn The Priest”) that showed they weren’t a one-trick pony of destruction. “Ashes of the Wake” made the sound all their own as Lamb of God became a well-oiled killing machine devoid of rust and that amateur feel from their previous releases. “Sacrament” … well, it pretty much just continued what “Ashes of the Wake” had going for them, but “Wrath” – which received one of the few perfect scores from me in my three years reviewing albums – took it to a whole new level where the band was no longer writing music as much as they were composing it. 

Lamb of God takes influence heavily from the great southern metal of old and has been making a strong push to deliver this tradition to today’s audiences who may have been too young to know where it all started. They are the Pantera of our generation and you’d be hard-pressed to find a heavier true American metal band. If I had to endure one sermon for the rest of my life, I only hope that Randy Blythe is leading it.

Five Finger Death Punch caught the metal scene by surprise with their 2007 debut “Way of the Fist” – but that surprise came from album sales, not critical reaction. It’s almost impossible for a metal band to do well commercially unless you’ve been around long enough to be established (e.g. Lamb of God’s latest album) or you cater to a specific audience. I call it “tough guy metal.” Most diehard metal fans call it garbage.

Either way you look at it, 5FDP did well the first time around. As most would assume, that means a follow-up was inevitable. And now we have “War Is The Answer.”

Now I must admit, I did enjoy a few of the songs off of the Los Angeles-based metal band’s debut, even if they served as nothing more than four-minute adrenaline bursts for the super-masculine, mainstream metal lover. In fact, I’m going to call them Disturbed Jr. The parallels are clear – balance of the melodic and aggressive, solid guitar work and tough looking mascots. It’s just that Disturbed does it better.

But Disturbed Jr. – err, 5FDP - is not completely lost in their style. There just isn’t enough good to warrant a recommendation for this album. The lyrics are tired and cliché (“Death can take me if I can’t refrain / I’m not like you, I’m a dying breed,” Ivan Moody sings on “Dying Breed”). The songs are practically carbon copies of the material on “Way of the Fist.”

“Bulletproof” feels so much like “Salvation” that I sometimes confused the two. The band regurgitates the chorus of their smash hit “The Bleeding” on “No One Gets Left Behind” and “War Is The Answer” is just the sped-up version of “Death Before Dishonor.”

It’s a shame, though, because there are bright spots here and there throughout “War.” “Far From Home” is easy on the ears (but hindered by awful lyrics) and the lead single “Hard To See” is pretty catchy.

If 5FDP ever breaks from the mold that’s made them so successful (which is doubtful; why would they break away from a money-making formula?), I think something listenable could be produced. Guitarist Zoltan Bathory has the skills to carry the band in the meantime, but this album ultimately proves that no, war is not the answer.

3/10

Check out: “Hard To See”

For the remainder of the year, NPC Reviews will be counting down the 10 most important artists of this decade – artists that have had a serious impact on music as we know it.

Metal is suffering a serious identity crisis, much like the one hip-hop faced earlier this decade. Down one path lies prog-metal, led by bands like Mastodon and Between The Buried And Me, which is finding a following in the underground. Another is the traditional; an old and worn trail that doesn’t find many visitors. And the most populated? Metalcore, and the way its popularity has grown this past decade, it might be the new face of metal music entirely.

While the roots of metalcore can be traced back to underground movements in the ’90s blending post-punk hardcore and thrash metal, it didn’t take over the scene until the turn of the century with bands like Shadows Fall and All That Remains. At its forefront was none other than Massachusetts-based Killswitch Engage.

While many diehard fans mark “Alive or Just Breathing” as the definitive KSE album (led on vocals by former singer and current The Empire Shall Fall frontman Jesse Leach), the current line-up’s work with Howard Jones on singing duty feels much more organic. I doubt Leach would have been able to take the band to the level of success that they have achieved. That’s not to say that I don’t believe in the first two efforts the band had with Leach – they were great in their own way, but it’s just not the KSE that feels right.

With two of their albums, 2002′s “Alive or Just Breathing” and 2004′s “The End of Heartache,” grabbing No. 4 and No. 6 respectively on the incredibly critical MetalSucks.net’s “21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century” list, KSE has proven to be not only a commercially successful metal band (weird, right?) but also influential beyond measure – it’s just not their fault that many of the bands that have followed failed to match their set standards.

Take one look at the metal section of your local music store and you’ll see traces of KSE’s influence in bands like Atreyu, God Forbid, All That Remains, Trivium and Unearth – the same bands that populate the majority of metal festivals throughout the summer (and the countless club tours that follow in the fall). By no means did Killswitch start metalcore as a genre, but it was their work that paved the way for so many others.