New Music from Testament!!!

The first track off Testament's upcoming fourteenth studio album, Para Bellum, is out October 10th on Nuclear Blast Records. You can pre-order a copy HERE.

Fourteen albums? That just blows me away. I've dodged in and out of keeping tabs on these guys. Most of their records still sound fantastic to me, and if this first track is any indication, Para Bellum will be no different.

---

---

---

Watch:

Last night I saw Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's 2016 Shin Godzilla on the big screen for the second time in three days.

Unlike many of my friends, I did not grow up with Godzilla. Certainly, I knew what the monster was. Who doesn't? The big G has occupied a fairly lofty space in the cultural lexicon for longer than I have been alive. I'm not sure that, without that layer of nostalgia, I'll ever be able to go back and embrace the Godzilla movies of the past (maybe, though), but between this and Minus One, hot damn am I a convery. This movie is STUNNING. Some of the best effects I have ever seen theatrically. They build a world and destroy it and, although I know I'm not watching half a dozen skyscrapers in Tokyo topple, I believe that's exactly what I'm seeing. 

---

---

---

Read:

I'm halfway through Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and to complement it as research for Shadow Play Book Two, I've also procured a $10 Kindle copy of Richard Ellmann's celebrated biography of Wilde, Oscar Wilde:

This is often shown titled as Oscar Wilde: Pulitzer Prize Winner; however, I find that adding the book's accolade to the title is a bit churlish, to say the least. 

I've pretty much accepted that despite the literal tower of books on my 'to-read' pile, the remainder of my 2025 reading will most likely be reserved specifically for research. Two exceptions are the Nathan Ballingrud and Laird Barron novellas due next month. Other than that, I'm all in on researching both Victorian and Elizabethan England, which have winnowed their way into my novel as main characters of the second act. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Windhand - Eternal Return

Sleep - Dopesmoker

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Testament - Infanticide AI (single)

Mastodon - Leviathan

Testament - The Gathering

Portishead - Third

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Hall & Oats - Rock 'N' Soul, Part 1

Deftones - private music

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XVII: The Star

• XX: Adjustment

• Eight of Swords

Struggling interrupts the path to enlightenment. 

That's a pretty vague interpretation, but I'm picking up what I'm putting down. This is a work-oriented Pull, letting me know that the theoretical middle finger roadblocks I'm throwing in certain folks' direction are perhaps counterproductive. I would argue that corporate backstabbing and rigamarole are also counterproductive, but that's just it - stop pointing that out and try to work past it. 

RIP Brent Hinds

News of former Mastodon founding member Brent Hinds' death filtered in this morning and really kind of left me aghast. Hinds had recently left the band, and from a lot of the videos my algorithm tries to feed me but I avoid, he'd gone on something of a tear speaking out against his former bandmates. Whatever drama ensued, it's all over now, and a very talented artist is gone. Crazy how monumental shifts can follow one another so quickly, or perhaps one brings on the other.  

---

---

---

Revocation - Cronenberged!!!

The new album from Revocation lands in under a month and I'm pretty psyched. I've especially taken to this pre-release single "Cronenberged," the name of which almost immediately signified how I would feel for it. And with a title referencing the Godfather of Body Horror, Revocation and Director, Cinematographer and FX guru David Brodsky 100% delivered!

You can pre-order the new album, New Gods, New Masters, from Metal Blade Records HERE.

 

---

---

---

NCBD:

Another Wednesday, another NCBD pull list! Super excited about these, so let's get into it!

So excited for the next chapter in this cosmic game of thrones (not a reference to George R. Martin). Hickman brings his trademark complexity, but also, he once again manages to infuse it with a sense of excitement I've not seen anyone bring to the big two in quite some time. 

G.I.Joe issue #9 was, I think, the best of the series thus far, so despite the instant exhaustion I feel looking at a cover displaying Cover Girl and Baroness as the stars of the issue, I have high hopes. I'd just really like to move on from them soon.

I feel a re-read coming on for Exquisite Corpses. Interesting to note that issue 3 had Pornsak Pichetshote and Valentine De Landro were credited as Writer/Artist, so I'd kind of assumed this might be a project that Tynion and Walsh had conceived, set up and handed off; however, that's not the case. League of Comic Geeks' entry for this issue shows the founders back on board for the next few solicitations. 

The first issue of Catacombs of Torment was a blast, so I've been jonesing to read #2, due out today! There is nothing quite as satisfying as a fantastic Horror Anthology, especially when it's in comic book form (This is probably based on the fact that I saw Creepshow as a very young child, and it imprinted on me forevermore).

---

---

---

Watch:

After rewatching Osgood Perkins' The Monkey this past Sunday night, I was reminded just how much I'm looking forward to his next film, Keeper, due in theatres November 14th! 

I'm continually amazed at not only how fast Mr. Perkins works, but how he's really matured as a filmmaker of late. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Knife - Silent Shout

The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

The Knife - Deep Cuts

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Drug Church - Prude

King Woman - Doubt EP

Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)

Helmet - Aftertaste

Spotlights - Love & Decay

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XVI: The Tower

• XII: The Hanged Man

• 7 of Disks: Failure

It'd been a minute since I put hands on my Thoth deck, so that's what I pulled for today. Looks like to change a paradigm, I'm going to have to go through a sacrifice and fail once or twice. Not sure what this is alluding to; might be the new methodology I've been tweaking for working on Shadow Play Book 2. Might be work-related. 

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

I love that Steve Moore has done an original score for every movie Joe Begos has made except his first. I love everyone of those scores, own them all on vinyl, and am happy to share the news that Terror Vision. 

My god do I love the design on this one! You can pre-order the soundtrack HERE, and from what I'm seeing, Jimmy and Stiggs is still in wide release up until Thursday when the new stuff comes out. I'm going to try to drive into Nashville to see it again, and I have to implore the rest of you to make the effort as well. It's not a perfect film, but it's made for the big screen and supporting something so DIY in big box chains is VITAL to our way of life as fans.

---

---

---

Watch:

Pierre Tsigaridis's new film Traumatika is getting a lot of hype coming out of recent festival screenings, and I'm super curious. I really liked his previous film, Two Witches, which I watched on the Arrow Streaming service back when it first landed in 2022. I can't say I remember the film very well, but that's definitely not the movie's fault. It usually takes a viewing or two for things to stick. 

Early reports and all the promotional material make Traumatika sound pretty daunting, but we'll see. I watched about a third of this trailer and it was enough to get me further on board, so I'm hoping come September 12th, this pops up on a big screen in my neck of the woods. The blurb on Letterboxd mentions two phrases that always suggest a promising formula for Horror: "Night Terrors" and "Demonic Possession." 

---

---

---

Read:

I finished Stephen Graham Jones' latest novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter over the weekend. This is the kind of novel that leaves a deafening vacuum when it ends, where you just look at the other books on your shelf or in your queue and can't quite bring yourself to replace it right away.

Luckily, while I've begun picking at my Sandman re-read again, my main focus for the next few months and possibly the remainder of the year will be on a list of titles I have determined I need to read to continue to work on the sequel to Shadow Play. Some of these are books I've known I'm going to have to read for a few years now, and some are new to the list. The point is, I'm finally working through this project the way I should have been all along. 

First up: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. It's a shame I haven't already read this, anyway, so I'm finally making up for lost time. a handful of chapters in, I'm hooked, even if it did take me a few to adjust to the more flowery, 'purple' prose style. Once I readjusted, it fit like a glove.

I'm just reading the cheapie Kindle edition, so I thought I'd post one of the more interesting covers from previous editions here, published by Penguin Clothbound Classics in 2000. Yeah, not the best 'vintage' for a book with this much history, but honestly, after google image searching this one, I don't know that it ever received a cover I actually like.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Nell' ora blu

Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi

White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000

Zombi - Shape Shift

Ruin of Romantics - Self Control (single)

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

Brittany Bindrim - Ever So Slowly (single)

Revocation - The Outer Ones

The Body - No One Deserves Happiness

Fantômas - Delirium Cordia

In Slaughter Natives - Sacrosancts Bleed

Ministry - Houses of the Molee

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

ISIS - Panopticon

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1

Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Pentacles

• XVI: The Tower

• XI: Justice

I saw the Knight of Disks - which I often equate with saving money, and knew exactly what I had to do. I had literally been thinking about it just before the pull, so this was an easy one. Especially after adding in The Tower and Justice. 

Let's Have a Pulp Friday!

I dug out Pulp's Separations yesterday and just had an absolute blast with it. Forgot how much I love this album. Here's the "hit."

I still haven't been in the headspace to give Pulp's latest record, this year's More, a proper listen, but perhaps soon.

---

---

---

Watch:

Last night I drove an hour into Nashville to catch the new Joe Begos film Jimmy & Stiggs on the big screen. 100% worth it!

This movie is the fucking definition of balls-to-the-wall DIY. So loud, so neon, so METAL! Begos stars alongside Matt Mercer in a whiskey-drenched, cocaine-fueled fight to the death against aliens who invade his apartment and do some pretty heinous things to the two friends, the titular Jimmy (Begos) and Stiggs (Mercer). Fantastic on-screen chemistry. Like Christman, Bloody Christmas, some of the dialogue goes a bit off the rails for me (pun intended), but it doesn't matter. I'm in awe at the sheer force of will that is the Joe Begos filmmaking machine. See this in the theatre, and when you do, arrive early for the two fake trailers and stay late for the behind-the-scenes. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Boredoms - Chocolate Synthesizer

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

lords. - bleeding out

Young Widows - Power Sucker 

Cryo Chamber - Echoes of the Hollow Earth

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part

Pulp - Separations

The Veils - Total Depravity

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1

BESET - Most Foul

HEALTH & NIN - Isn't Everyone (single)

NIN - As Alive As You Need Me To Be (single)

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm just launched a Kickstarter for his new The Art of the Fae Bound Deck Art Book. Check that out HERE.

• Kings of Wands

• VIII: Strength

• VI: The Lovers

Drive, Strength and Passion. Three things I find myself contemplating A LOT. I have them, but do I have enough of them? Is this an eternal question all creators ask themselves?

New Music From Ritual Howls!!!

Ritual Howls announced a new record and dropped an awesome new track, so let's all rejoice! You can pre-order a super nifty neon green vinyl on their Bandcamp right HERE.

I realized I completely forgot about and never ordered the band's previous release, 2023's Virtue Falters, so I have to go back and take care of that at some point. But this is a very well-timed release; we're approaching Autumn, and just over the last two days, I've felt twitches of it. First, I pulled out the copy of The Damned's live Night of 1000 Vampires the other day, an album Mr. Brown gifted me and that I played continuously last autumn. Then yesterday I had a taste for Joy Division. So, having a new Howls' record for Halloween 2025 will be a welcome event.

---

---

---

NCBD:

Another easy week, but everything here is something I can't wait to read! Let's go:

The penultimate issue of Daniel Warren Johnson's run, which ends next month with Transformers issue 24! The cover says it all - I really dig what they've been doing with ol' Ultra Magnus, and in general, the Autobots are in such dire straits, I can't wait to see how this all plays out.  

I LOVED issue one of the first Epitaphs from the Abyss spin-off mini series, Blood Type, and am looking forward to more. 

Hands down the best regularly produced Batman book I've read since Morrison's run almost twenty years ago now. I know this ends in a few issues, but I'll enjoy Dark Patterns while I can. Dan Watters and Hayden Sherman are really operating at peak performance on this one. 

---

---

---

Watch:

I found this trailer for Matt Stuertz's new feature, Human, via Bloody Disgusting, which had a headline comparing it to Greg Araki meets Evil Dead 2. I see the Araki for sure, not 100% certain I see the Raimi. Regardless, for what looks like a super small budget, I am intrigued and won't hold a Howie Mandel cameo against the film.

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

Windhand - Eternal Return

John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Witchthroat Serpent - Trove of Oddities at the Devil's Driveway

Sleep - Dopesmoker

QOTSA - Rated R

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Joy Division - Substance

Ritual Howls - Follow the Sun (single)

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Ritual Howls - A Safe Haven From the Sun (single)

Cryo Chamber - Echoes of the Hollow Earth

Young Widows - Power Sucker

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Cups

• V: The Hierophant

• Seven of Wands

Emotional breakthrough leads beyond accepted dogma/practices to a victory of Will. 

First, let's take a moment to marvel at the artistic merit of these three particular cards. My god  - I'm blown away every time I stop to examine Grimm's art in this deck. Not just the actual art, but the concepts and pulling together of so many similar attributes - stoner rock, Weedian folklore, Occult influences, 70s Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Breathtaking, I tell you.

Okay, so what the hell is this pull saying? I've finally knuckled down and have been writing very nearly every day, and it's paying off. The book I'm working on - Shadow Play Two - is extremely difficult to write. I have a timeline that dates back to Elizabeathan England and draws in a lot of minor historical figures. I'm having trouble shaping the second act of the book - which I'm back to thinking will take place in both Elizabeathan and Victorian England, and a lot of my work is slow going. 

Bruit ≤

I discovered Bruit ≤ last week via the always wonderful KEXP YouTube channel, and just fell in love with them. 

From the new album Age of Ephemerality, which you can order HERE.

---

---

---

Watch:

While Zach Cregger's Weapons was the huge release last week, another Horror film also hit my local theatre. Strange Harvest is one I had not heard of until my cohosts on The Horror Vision mentioned it, and now that I have my first Weapons screening out of the way (number two is coming soon enough), I very much want to check this one out, too:

I should add that I know nothing about this film, and as usual, while I'm posting this trailer here, I have not watched it. I love going in blind! This is from Stuart Ortiz, whose 2011 film Grave Encounters I've seen at some foggy point in the past, but remember next to nothing about. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Zombi - 2020

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius (pre-release singles)

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

Ghost Bath - Rose Thorn Necklace

David Bowie - Outside

Arctic Monkeys - AM

Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES

Crystal Castles - II

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• IX: The Hermit

• Seven of Cups

• Six of Swords

Turn inward and experience an Earthly victory derived from Science.

Basically, meditation - which I had a wonderful experience with at a full moon sound bath this past Saturday - creates the opportunity to 'hack' some Earthbound area of concern and triumph over it in a lasting, emotionally satisfying way.

So while I have part of this locked solid in interpretation, I'm not entirely sure what the meditation is going to affect. I have to sit and think back over the ebbings of my mind during that session - there may be a clue contained within.