From the forthcoming album Signal Fire, out June 12th on Relapse Records. Pre-order HERE.
NCBD:
Here's my NCBD pull for Wednesday, 4/15/26:
Thus far, I love this adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep.
I'm not really sure why we're side-stepping the next issue of Ordained to do a zero-issue one-off for the hitman called in to take out Father Roy, but I dug the first two issues of the regular Ordained series, so by all means, toss in a few one-shots. This feels like it might have been inspired by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher series, the way many of the characters had one-shots or mini-series; it just seems like, after only two issues, this is a bit premature. Either way, I paid to see a Priest kick Mob arse, and I've no complaints so far, so let's deep dive the man that I'm assuming is a total badass.
Another Bad Idea book. There was a preview of this one in Ordained #2, and honestly, seeing David Lapham and Bill Sienkiewicz's names attached, this could be a Rainbow Bright series, and I'd probably pick it up.
A silent Zartan issue? That worked really well back in G.I.Joe ARAH #85, so I can't wait to see what Hama and team do with it here.
Pivoting back to Scarlett and Storm Shadow? This reminds me how much I'm digging this book and don't really need the reliance on "Ninjas" that the original ARAH book did. Still, I feel like, although this book started off lukewarm, it's kind of hit a stride, so I'm cautiously optimistic here.
After reading last month's Batwoman #1 by Greg Rucka and Dani, I picked up the DC Compact edition of the run this new book continues, named Elegy. I didn't love it the way I love some of Rucka's stuff, so I'm hanging onto my sub for this new chapter for a month or two more, hoping it really grabs me
Watch:
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Playlist:
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Mountain Realm - Shadowlorn
Blackbraid - Nocturnal Womb EP
Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
sunn O))) - Domkirke
Metallica - Kill 'Em All
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect the Corpses Rest
Mercy Girl - Closer EP
Card:
First spread since returning home from my trip, I thought since I've been using my mini-Thoth while away, I'd come home and plug back into the legacy deck.
• 4 of Disks: Power
• Prince of Swords
• 10 of Wands: Oppression
Establishing a power base is great, but once done, something has to navigate how you use that power. Will without intellect can go awry, as it is as raw a force as nature offers, only on a human scale. Things go wrong when Will is ruled by Earthly desires. Read: There has to be something bigger.
I don't think I knew there was a video for this track before today. My discovery of Type O's music dovetailed with my discovery of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. That was back when Tale of the Body Thief was the newest entry in the series. I remember listening to this album, and this track in particular, as I read Louie's narration in Interview with a Vampire, just synced with Steele's voice, so that in my head, Louie sounded like Steele.
Mr. Brown, our friend Hellman and I hit the Forever Deaf Fest this past Saturday, thus rounding out my Chicago stint. We bought tickets for Plague Bringer - their first show in ten years and the first time any of us had seen the legendary Chicago Industrial-Death band live.
Worth every f*cking penny!
Also on tap, we caught Year of the Knife, who were fantastic as well.
Watch:
There's not a helluva lot Marvel does anymore that I care about, but the 'street level' stuff still hits me in the old-school sweet spot. While I've only seen the first episode of Daredevil Born Again season two, that's a priority now that I'm back from my Chicago jaunt. There's confirmation that DD season three is filming now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has me cautiously optimistic, giving me the kind of anticipation tingles that the MCU used to give me during its first couple of years. And now... Frank gets an R-rated one-shot!
Bernthal IS Frank Castle to me, and I'm super excited about this. Also, there are apparently some easter eggs in here I would never have caught, one in particular that pertains to the possible eventual relaunch of the X-Men. I know, that's getting into the weeds of stuff I'll probably only avoid and/or be disappointed by. Still, as a now forty-year comic reader, this shit is hard-wired into my blood.
Read:
Huge haul this past Friday while I was hanging out at Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics. I'm not going to post everything, but here are some highlights:
Here's something I don't think I knew existed, but I had to have the moment I saw it. Props on Amazing Fantasy for always carrying not only the best selection of comics, but an awesome selection of non-comic stuff.
Oni Press ruled 2025, but I don't think I've read anything from them so far this year. That changes now that I have the first issue of Time Daniel, David Andry and Maan House's Estuary: A Ghost Story. I know nothing about this, but it's another three-issue Oni Press Horror mini-series, so that's all I really need to know. Also, with a quick glance, House's art - which I am unfamiliar with - is as moody and atmospheric as the cover art promises, so this was an easy 'yes.'
I have wanted this for quite some time now, and I was happy to grab it at my favorite shop! Stokoe's art is beyond almost anything else, and when applied to Godzilla, well, it's unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Now here's the only one I had time to read while I was still in Chicago: Matt Kindt and David Lapham's Hero Trade: Project Chimera. I've been keeping an eye on Bad Idea's second-wave releases (I think that's what it's called; basically everything after Planet Death rolled out last year). Despite that, I don't remember hearing about this one. The cover caught my eye, and seeing Lapham's name made me open it and upon doing so, the B&W presentation made me think I was looking at Stray Bullets for a second.
So yeah, it came home with me.
This was originally published last year, two issues, and by the time you hit the end of the second issue, you know it's just going to be two issues. Further research shows that there are multiple series within the overall Hero Trade umbrella, starting back in 2020, all two-issue or one-shot length. I liked this enough that I'll probably keep my eyes peeled for future issues or any back issues I can find out in the wild.
Playlist:
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Jim Williams - Alpha OST
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March
Gorillas - The Mountain
Radiohead - Kid A
Radiohead - Amnesiac
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Eponymous
Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest
Blood Mother is the new project from Rick Giordano, composer/former member of a group called The Lion's Den, which ended last year. I was unfamiliar with both until two days ago, when I stumbled upon this track and it led me down a little bit of a rabbit hole that crescendoed in reading this.
Interesting snapshot of the state of things for an independent band in 2025/26.
Part of that rabbit hole was discovering The Lion's Den's music, and I'm pretty blown away. I'm sure I'll post some here eventually, but in the meantime, you can check out their catalog on Bandcamp HERE.
Watch:
I wasn't sure how I would feel about this new Faces of Death flick hitting theatres this week, but being that I'm in Chicago and can see it with friends, I figured we should cover it for The Horror Vision.
Other than its omnipresent shadow in the 80s/90s as a kind of specter-ish rite of passage I never succumbed to, I have no real relationship with the original films beyond feeling they're just kind of gross and indicative of everything that's wrong with humanity. That said, the writer in me is fascinated by this kind of thing, and when I found out it was the team that did Cam, my tentative curiosity began to pulse with a bit more anticipation.
Ultimately, this film is fine. I can't say a hell of a lot more than that. I don't want to see things that I can't unsee, but I feel like by the very nature of what this is, it should have left me at least a little haunted. Nope. Definitely an engaging slasher/thriller, but in the end, I don't know, while I'll issue the blanket, "Support Horror in the theatre," I just didn't really care that much. There's a bit more breakdown and discussion on the latest episode of The Horror Vision, which you can hear on YouTube or wherever you stream your stories. There's also a widget to the right that will play it here.
Playlist:
The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers
Motörhead - 1916
Nitro - O.F.R.
Skid Row - Slave to the Grind
Testament - Para Bellum
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Blood Mother - The Night Fires (single)
The Lion's Den - Bath House
Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Deftones - private music
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Portishead - Third
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Card:
Still away from home, so I'm using my mini-Thoth.
• Ace of Swords
• Two of Wands: Dominion
• V: The Hierophant
Collaboration from a breakthrough of the Will dissolves the mundane and creates something new. This is SPOT ON. I can't say much more yet, but it involves A) a promise I made to myself about my 50th year, and B) the day in the woods I described above.
Writing this Tuesday at 11L12 AM CST. Starting my first morning on the Southside with Black Sabbath's Paranoid. This is a regular ritual when I return to the soil from whence I came - Sabbath helps me reconnect to this area; I literally feel the harmonization singing in my blood.
Watch:
Yesterday, my Horror Vision cohost Missi and I hit a local big-box to see Julia Ducournau's new film, Alpha. I walked in knowing NOTHING and, as usual, that was the best way to go in.
Alpha is an arduous journey that had me squirming and contorting in my seat for its entire run time. The subject matter was a surprise to me, as was the unrelenting twist of the mundane into horrific body horror beyond almost what I could stand. It's not a gory film or a disturbing film in any capacity I could have expected. My elevator pitch would be, "Requiem for a Dream done by David Cronenberg if he were French." That's a bit of a cop out, but most elevator pitches are. Suffice it to say, this will easily be one of the 'best' films I see this year.
NCBD:
I am out of town, and so I won't be bringing any of my books home to read this week. I will be swinging into Amazing Fanasy sometime this week, so there may be an addendum post, but here's all the great stuff I will have waiting for me upon my return to Clarksville:
I said this on a recent episode of Drinking with Comics, but it kind of blows my mind that for as long as I've been a devoted, weekly comic reader (since July of 1986), forty years on, most of my pull list are titles based on 80s childhood IPs that I love. There have certainly been titles for all of these characters running most of those forty years, but it wasn't until Robert Kirkman (of course) acquired them that I actually started reading them.
Continuing the longest-running continuity the Turtles have ever had! I know they zeroed out the count back in 2024, but I still look at this by the 'Legacy' number, which would be issue 177. And while there's definitely a modicum of status quo creeping back in (Splinter's alive (I think), the four brothers are back together as a team (I think!), all the Jenika and mutanttown characters have been moved to their own books (which I don't read), I'm still pretty pleased with how this is going.
On our way to issue 50! No lie - I'm going to have to reread a lot of these "history" issues, but that's fine. SIKTC remains a modern, non-childhood favorite. In fact, my childhood might not have made it out of this book's world alive!
Tim Seely, Ryan O'Nan, Paolo Armitano and crew's Pretty Hate Machine will be my first comic from Mad Cave Studios, and how could I not buy this? Look at that cover - gnarly! And then, what was the other eye catcher... oh yeah. The title! Naming comics of movies/novels off of popular music titles is a tricky gambit, but I will give this one a fair shake because... finger knives!
Speaking of needing a reread to reorient myself, year. That's this one, too. Regardless, can't wait to jump back in and reexperience all the steeping paranoia and terror that is The House At... series.
Last week's Baroness one-shot that kicked off the month-long Silent Missions "Event" exceeded my expectations by a mile. I've always loved the Crimson Guards - especially Larry Hama's CGs with their plastic surgery, swappable domestic identities - so I'm fully expecting this to be on par.
And we close this week with the latest issue of Larry Hama's long-running ARAH. Last issue was probably my favorite Joe comic in a long time, and that makes sense. I dig the more fantastical elements of the Energon Universe Joe book, but nothing beats that time-tested Hama realism. While I haven't read this book since circa 1991, coming back to it with issue 300 showed me that some more SciFi elements had snuck in here, too, and it's always great to get something that reminds me of why I loved this book as a kid.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy
Blood Mother - The Night Fires (single)
Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem
Young Widows - Power Sucker
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tender Prey
Jozef Van Wissem - Praise Shall Sound From Shore To Shore... (single)
Afghan Whigs - House of I (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• VII: The Chariot
• Pince of Wands
• Princess of Wands
Fast action results in swift and positive results.
I am LOVING this new sunn O))) record! Something about the big, thick sonic slabs that these guys' music on vinyl produces as it leaks like scorched engine oil from my speakers and spreads out over everything around it! I had to leave my record player behind for a few days to drive up to Chicago, but that's not killing the absolute joy this release has left me with.
Watch:
What a F*cking Weekend!
Beyondfest's Beyond Chicago turned out to be a blast from start to finish! Here's what I saw and what I thought:
Friday, 4/03:
I knew nothing about Writer Derek Kolstad's Normal going in other than Bob Odenkirk was in it. I can vouch for the trailer above - it does not ruin any of the surprises. Still better to avoid trailers, but I post them here for posterity anyway, so if you need a little bit of a whetting, this should do it. Especially when I confirm that this flick is every bit as action-packed, clever and funny as it looks. I'm a moderate fan of both Kolstad's John Wick flicks and his other Odenkirk-collaborations Nobody, but this? This I fucking LOVE!
Saturday, 4/04:
Not sure I am qualified to make this statement, because I'm definitely not the most versed person in the history of Martial Arts flicks, but still, I feel okay speculating that Kenji Tanigaki's The Furious might have the most ambitious fight choreography ever filmed. This flick is a FIREBALL; The Furious sets up quick and then takes off and never gives the audience a breath. No exhales, just a straight line of amazingly choreographed (and oddly mostly non-lethal) violence for most of the movie's runtime.
Absolutely GLORIOUS!!!
Sunday, 4/05:
A double feature of David Kittredge's new documentary, Boorman and the Devil, and the film it discusses, the oft-maligned Exorcist II: The Heretic.
I'd never seen The Heretic before. I'd always heard it was "awful," but honestly, that wouldn't stop me. Really, this one has always kind of been in short supply, and also, as one of the few films that actually scares me, I just never thought The Exorcist needed a sequel. Combine that with my vitriol for part 3, and I've spent my life avoiding this one. But how, oh how dear reader, could I pass up seeing this on Easter Sunday?
Seeing Kittredge's documentary gave me so much context for finally seeing The Exorcist II; not just how Sir John Boorman ended up directing it, or why the studio went in such a unique direction with the sequel to one of the most successful films ever up to that point, but also, Boorman's often ignored place in "New Hollywood" and how this film fit into that era.
Excellent documentary that I would recommend to everyone, regardless of how you feel about the sequel. And I can say that because I did not love The Heretic. Again, Kittredge's film gave me the context to appreciate a lot about Boorman's film, but my major hang-up was Richard Burton, and he was a major hang-up. I won't be disrespectful, but I can tell you that, as much as I loathe George C. Scott's performance in part 3, I dislike Burton's more.
Didn't think that would be possible.
As a whole, however, I'll take The Heretic any day over Legion. Any day. With The Exorcist II, John Boorman created a truly unique film, and I respect the hell out of his vision, even if the end result doesn't turn out to be super palatable.
Read:
I finished Stephen King's original The Gunslinger in just three days. An unbelievably wonderful experience, re-reading this for the first time in over twenty years, opening the exact copy I acquired circa 1990, the large grain of the paper it's printed on in and of itself a beautiful, evocative memory.
Before moving on to The Drawing of the Three, I realized that I have had Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus on my shelf since it was published in the early 00s, and I've never read it!
So, after finishing The Gunslinger, I opened Vincent's book for the first time with the idea that after every one of King's installments in the Dark Tower series, I would read the corresponding chapter in Vincent's book.
Playlist:
Bakermat - The Ringmaster
Mascara - Going Postal
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy
Jozef Van Wissem - Praise Shall Sound From Shore to Sea
Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Idles - Crawler
Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
Boston - Eponymous
Dead Maus - Random Album Title
Firewater - Gett Off the Cross... We Need The Wood For The Fire
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Cop Shoot Cop - Release
Corrosion of Conformity - Good God/Baad Man
Flying Lotus - Yasuke
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• 8 of Discs - Prudence
• XVIII: The Moon
• 2 of Disks - Change
Lots of Earthly concerns and the neurosis they conceal. Diligence, balance and a keen eye so as not to be caught unaware by my own shortcomings. Already sussed this out a few days back, so I'll take this spread as confirmation.
New music from Monolord. I've always been a bit on the fence with these guys. Nothing on them, I think they came into my awareness at the same time a bunch of other similar bands did, back around twelve years ago. This track is pretty cool, though. New album, Neverending, is out May 29th on Relapse. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I cannot believe that James Gunn has made me care so much about characters I loathe in all previous iterations, and just aesthetically in general. But that's where we are.
I get the kind of chills watching this, I used to get from Marvel's trailers waaaaay back before they sank the ship with Civil War. And while Gunn is the "showrunner" here, no small debt to Director Craig Gillespie, whose I, Tonya and 2011 Fright Night remake both rule (yeah, I like the remake. Deal with it!).
Playlist:
Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST
sunn O))) - Loser
High On Fire - Cometh the Storm
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
The Mountain Goats - Bleed Out
Barry Adamson - Scala! OST
White Hex - Gold Nights
Saigon Blue Rain - Oko
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Live God
Double Life - Indifferent Stars
Mascara - Going Postal
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
The Replacements - Tim
Spoon - The Want My Soul
Card:
Quick pull before I headed out on my trip:
• 5 of Swords: Defeat
• VI: The Lovers
• XV: The Devil
I drove up to Chicago today. This trip started out as a "holy shit, we made it to 50!" celebration for Mr. Brown and me, and that's still essentially what it is, but it's also become a "Holy shit, Beyondfest is now in Chicago, too!" trip. I'm staying with my sister and her husband through Monday morning, at which time I will drive down to the South side and set up camp at Mr. Brown's until we see Plague Bringer on Saturday. First show in 10 years, and first show for either of us. Can't wait.
In the interim, I'm just soaking in not going to work for seven days (!) and Chicago! This pull tells me two things: I'm lessened without K with me (she didn't want to take this many days off work), and I'm open to squashing pre-conceived notions and receiving new, possibly 'heretical' ideas.
