Napalm Death is Caught in a Dream

 

Big decision to make today. Am I going to jump work 30 minutes early and drive up to Eastside Bowl in Nashville to see Deadguy and Napalm Death at my favorite local venue? I'll report back tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a track from the latter's 1987 album Scum. 

I'll admit I'm fairly new to Napalm Death fandom. Not that I've ever had anything against them, but my exposure over the years has been minimal at best, and it wasn't until their recent collaboration with Melvins became available from Ipecac earlier this year that I became intrigued at what I'd missed. So far, while the albums I was faintly aware of and slightly exposed to back in the day - 1990's Harmony Corruption and 1987's Scum - are about what I've always thought they were and albums I would not have 'got' back in the day but fair much better now that I've grown into a bit over the years and absorbed influences and offshoots Crass and Godflesh, some of their newer stuff really strikes a chord with me. In particular, 2022's Resentment Is Always Seismic (A Final Throw of Throes) has made quite the impression on me in only a handful of listens. 

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NCBD:

Super excited for today's pull. Let's get into it:

The cover says it all: Shockwave is back! Hell yes! Can't wait to see what's been happening on Cybertron since Alita One took over as Prime, leaving Optimus de-primed a few issues back. Kirkman is killing it in this series!

One more issue of Simon Birks and Willi Roberts' adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep, and so far, for a story that's received a fair amount of attention in the last few years, this is probably my favorite interpretation. Birks keeps it true to the story but also streamlines things, and Roberts' art is fantastic. Especially his knack for showing us the evil intentions of some of the characters. 

 

With the giant, magic Kaiju running around at the end of last issue, this one can't get into my peepers soon enough. Gene Luen Yang, Fero Peniche and Freddie E. Williams II have really found a way to keep this book evolving, not easy to do after Jason Aaron's run and all its reamapping of the cast. 

Creeping closer and closer to issue 50 and I'm pretty sure some pretty major events for SIKTC. 

From the solicitation blurb on League of Comic Geeks:

"THE SECRET OF SNAKE-EYES REVEALED? As Dawn infiltrates the Terror Drome, she learns a shocking secret about Snake-Eyes from their time in Springfield...one that could doom their future!"

Wait, what now? Holy cow, I didn't realize something like this was even on the horizon! Also, look at that cover art! Wow!

I'll confess, the Dawn Moreno character has never really intrigued me, but this? Based on the fact that the current Snake Eyes is a clone of the original (who died at some point when I was not reading this series), I'd say this could be a pretty huge development. Can't wait to find out more!

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Watch:

K and I saw Mortal Kombat 2 last night, and I am here to tell you this 

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Playlist:

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

The Monks - Black Monk Time

Steeve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Drug Church - Prude

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Double Life - Indifferent Stars EP

Napalm Death - Scum

Napalm Death - Resentment Is Always Seismic (A Final Throw of Throes)

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Low Cut Connie - Tough Cookies: The Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts

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Card:

My first pull with Jonathan Grimm's Eldritch Lace Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Wands

• IV: The Emperor

• Nine of Wands

It takes strength to overcome the rules that thwart our growth.

A lot of what I'm interpreting as work pulls lately. 

Slide 2 Me

I saw Drug Church at Nashville's Basement East this past Saturday. Fabulous show! I'd been to this venue once before, back in 2023, and I forgot it's one of the easier Nashville locations to get to, so I'm going to stop being so gunshy about hitting shows there. 

The driving here is really prohibitive. There's so many exchanges to get to some locations, and traffic is as bad or worse than LA (believe it!), so there have been a few events I purchased tickets to in the last year that I ended up not going to, simply because, on a week night after a day's work, the thought of doing these drives is daunting, to say the least. Good to know The Basement East is pretty painless. 

Anyway, great show, great crowd. I watched a bunch of younger dudes doing full-on stage-dive cartwheels from the stage back into the crowd, and it was amazing. At a high-energy show like this, I miss the pit, but I especially miss surfing. I learned quite some time back, though, that the ramifications to those activities now can be pretty substantial. At 50? Maybe I'm buying my own pity story, but it's best to err on the side of caution, lest I remove myself from the flow of my daily life with crutches or a cast. 

"What a drag it is, getting old."

Yeah, but also, I'm mostly okay with it. I mean, I did all that shit when I was younger (never stage dove - it's far more acceptable today. Back in the Aragon Brawlroom days, bouncers would throw your ass out of the show for that shit), and it's cool to see the younger gen do it while I sit back, bang my head and drink my beer.

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Watch:

After 8 years, I canceled Shudder. It wasn't easy, because I've really been a huge supporter of them since I signed up back in the spring of 2018. But they had it coming after canceling The Last Drive-In. Ultimately, I understand that Shudder and the folks that run it aren't to blame, that it's the parent company AMC. I also understand that by canceling that and taking the $30 AMC+ deal for a full year, I basically just made the opposite statement I wanted to make. 

Here's the deal, though: I've known for a few years that AMC is shitty to Shudder. I mean, you can pay for Shudder, or you can pay for AMC+, which includes Shudder. Not only that, but the Shudder portal on AMC+ actually has more Shudder material than Shudder does. 

That's just messed up.

 This has been stuck in my craw for a while now. I want to watch a particular movie with Joe Bob, it's not on Shudder, but it is on AMC+'s Shudder. WTF? I held off as long as I could, but by doing that, I've already made my statement. Now, I'm looking at my pocketbook. So it's backward, but it's what I need to do at the moment. 

And the first movie I watched on AMC+'s Shudder portal? Nothing I couldn't see on Shudder, but still... Oily Maniac had been on my list for a while, so I dialed up this batshit crazy Shaw Brothers Horror flick and fell down a rabbit hole of whatthefuck.

So really, not much has changed, except I saved myself $69. I would have rather not canceled Shudder, but this is where we are.

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Read:

I blew through Brian McAuley's latest novel, Breath In, Bleed Out, over the weekend and loved every twist and turn!

Equal parts a Slasher and a Mystery, this book had me guessing and wincing almost all the way through. The writing is crisp and lean - no fat here, so the plot pulls you right through. The characters, too, who are fantastic, are a great mix of folks you root for and folks who, well, maybe deserve the awful deaths they get. And the deaths? Breathe In, Bleed Out has some diabolical kills. One in particular, which I'll just say involves heat and a rattlesnake, really impressed - and disgusted - me.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

High on Fire - Electric Messiah

Converge - The Dusk in Us

Converge - Love Is Not Enough

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Drug Church - Hygiene

Drug Church - Prude

Adam Egypt Mortimer - The Obelisk

Drug Church - Paul Walker

Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury - Drokk

Vitalic - OK Cowboy

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Card:

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

• Three of Swords

• Five of Cups

• Five of Pentacles

Not gonna lie, I'm a little freaked out by this pull. We'll see.

New Music From Loathe

I'm on the fence on this one. While I love Loathe's 2020, I Let It in, and It Took Everything, the album cuts its Nü Metal elements with enough atmospherics and melody that I don't really notice them. This on the other hand, while being insanely heavy, feels a little more outside my Nü tolerance. 

We'll see. As usual, it's never a good idea to make a decision about a single without the context of the full album informing that decision.

That said, I just realized that this is actually the second track released from the upcoming album, A Stranger to You, out July 17th. You can pre-order the album HERE, and the previously released track, "Gifted Every Strength," is actually a lot more promising in my opinion. So the verdict is still out. 

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Watch:

You know, there are more and more shark movies every year, and although they terrify me, I guess I'm the guy who just has trouble taking any shark movie seriously other than Jaws. That's not entirely true, but it's not entirely untrue either. Giant squid, though? 

Holy f*cking nightmare fuel!!!

I really hope this hits a theatre near me. I think seeing this great big honkin' Kraken (CG, yes, but that's fine in this case, as I'd hate to think of the animal wranglers or, for that matter, actors having to deal with an actual giant squid.

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Low Cut Connie - Tough Cookies: Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts

Low Cut Connie - Livin in the USA (pre-release singles)

Primus - Tales from the Punchbowl

Various - The New (playlist from Jacob)

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞ 

Bryce Miller - City Depths

Living Nudes - My World Exploded

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

Drug Church - Prude

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Them Are Us Too - Part Time Punks Session

MadLove - White With Foam

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

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Card:

One card from my Thoth deck:

A reminder that the only good reason to do most things has a root cause analysis of Love. 

New Music From Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats!!!

No word on the new album yet, but this track is rad!

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NCBD:

Big week. Let's get into it.

Perfect timing! I usually hang on to these Savage Sword issues until I have a chance to really sit down and enjoy them, and I just did that last weekend with issue 13 and was left wanting more. 

This pretty much speaks for itself if you're a SIKTC fan. Looks like this is a three-issue mini-series that will no doubt help spin off big changes coming up in issue 50 of SIKTC, and as much as I've enjoyed these last few "young Erica" storylines in the flagship book, I'm pretty anxious to see how the whole thing is going to evolve. Thinking that starts here.

I know nothing about this new number one for Excommunicated, other than it's on Vault, and I miss Vault! Here's the solicitation blurb:

"When a faithful nun and a festering demon are each excommunicated from the church — and from hell — because of a botched exorcism, they must work together to uncover a sinister plot that endangers their lives and the world."

Definitely sounds like a 'me' book, so I'm giving it a shot!

I loved the setup of the first issue of Estuary: A Ghost Story, so I'm back for more. Nothing like an underwater ghost story.

As I mentioned, I wasn't able to score the free one last week for FCBD because I don't go anywhere near a comic shop on FCBD. Looking forward to this enough that I have no problem paying for it.

This is the issue we've been building to, and funny how it kind of dovetails with the current season of Daredevil: Born Again, which wrapped up last night (but which I haven't watched yet at the time I'm writing this). 

I love this Fraction and Jimenez Batman series, and I love that they're playing the GCPD against them. 

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Watch:

llimage/textsddj I'm putting this new Evil Dead Burn trailer here for posterity's sake, but I won't be watching it of my own volition.

 

Most likely, I'll see this a number of times at the theatre, but I'm really going to attempt to minimize exposure to the film before it's release, lest what happened with Evil Dead Rise happen here. As of now, I am very excited for this film! So excited, in fact, that I started re-watching Ash vs. Evil Dead from the beginning the other night. I know this is a completely different side to the Evil Dead Universe than anything with Ash (as it should be), but I never did get around to Ash vs Evil Dead season three, so now's the time.

 

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Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

sunn O))) - Loser

Art Brut - Brilliant! Tragic!

Killing Joke - Eponymous

Blood Mother - Eponymous (pre-release singles)

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Mind Control

Type O Negative - October Rust

Tyler Bates & Chelsea Wolfe - X OST

Flying Lotus - 1983

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Cage & Aviary - Migration

Vitalic - OK Cowboy

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Card:

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

• Queen of Pentacles

• VIII: Strength

• Page of Swords

HOKUM

I realized recently that I never posted anything from Gylt's latest album, In 1000 Agonies I Exist. You can grab this over on the band's Bandcamp page. Both this and 2024's I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem are fantastic records that infiltrated my regular rotation last year after my trip back home to L.A., when friends first played these guys for me. I would very much like to see Gylt live at some point. 

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Watch:

I caught the late show for Damian McCarthy's Hokum last Thursday night. I've been all but salivating for this one. Here's the 'final' trailer, released last week. 

So how was it? Did I get what I wanted? Oh my god, yes!

Hokum is an excellent ghost story, and it's about haunted people as much as it is about a haunted place. The locations, as with all McCarthy's films, are gorgeous beyond compare. There are some legitimately frightening sequences here. One in particular, involving a circle around a four-poster bed, was the first example of a filmmaker creating a sustained sequence of fear in years. 

That's my favorite, and it is rare. It's just really difficult to scare an adult with a ghost or monster movie when just living in this world means we operate with a low-grade level of sustained fear 24/7. But McCarthy pulls it off beautifully.

There are also some really great jump scares here. One in particular really got me. 

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Playlist:

John Cale - Fear

John Cale - Slow Dazzle

The Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses

Portishead - Third

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

The Soft Moon - Criminal

The Misfits - Walk Among Us

Electric Youth and Pilot Priest - Come True OST

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God/Baad Man

Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road for the Hit

Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Beach House - Bloom

Ghost - Ceremony and Devotion

NIN - The Slip

Gylt - I Will Commit a Holy Crime: Tandem

Slow Crush - Thirst

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Card:

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

• XV: The Devil

• Eight of Cups

• King of Wands

Adhering to your own dogma will drain your vitality, so have the presence of mind to recognize your own bullshit and subvert it. 

Direct reference to a new project I've dubbed Film50.

New Music from The Veils!!!

Not gonna lie, I'm missing the weird Veils I fell in love with on Total Depravity. These last few releases have been so... heavy. And yet... damn. These guys have so much emotional gravitas in each song... it's always breathtaking. The comparisons to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are unavoidable, but also, those comparisons most definitely sell The Veils short. 

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Watch:

I don't know very much about Resident Evil, so I am uninvested. I saw a handful of the previous cinematic adaptations and liked them as popcorn Action/Horror flicks. This is Zach Cregger's take, and, although the trailer starts with a deja vu moment to Barbarian, it has me. 

I appreciate that those invested in the games and their lore might not appreciate his self-professed 'different' take on the material. I'm just hoping for a good flick. I was originally bummed that he made two outstanding original films and then got quickly co-opted to do a pre-existing IP. This trailer is making me feel better about that.

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Read:

I took a brief detour from my Dark Tower reread to burn through an advance copy of Jessica Lacy's (i.e., the author formerly known as Ivy Tholen) newest novel, Fatally Yours, this week. This is the new version of Mother Dear, and I can say, while Jessica didn't change much, she definitely tightened this one, and I cruised through in just a couple of days, laughing and wincing all the way.

The thing I find so interesting about what Jessica does is, she takes 'chick lit' or 'chick flicks' and subverts the genre by splicing in Slasher DNA. And, as Stephen Graham Jones famously said about Tastes Like Candy, she doesn't go light on the gore."

There are images in Jessica's books that stand a head above anything I've seen in a Slasher flick in 20 years. Sure, there's also a lot of wedding stuff and fashion stuff in Fatally Yours that I either had to shrug off or look up (I kind of wish I could wear Louboutin combat boots), but that's also part of the fun. 

I'll recommend this one to anyone who loves a great slasher, or anyone who loves a great laugh, or anyone who wants to see what Father of the Bride* would look like if it were remade by Damien Leone.

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* I've never seen Father of the Bride, but I'd definitely watch a remake of it if helmed by Mr. Leone. Just saying. 

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Flying Lotus - Yasuke

Dreamkid - Daggers

Electric Youth and Pilot Priest - Come True OST

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

Beach House - Bloom

The Soft Moon - Exister

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Card:

I felt a pull to my Thoth again, but remember, you can grab Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot HERE.

• I: The Magus

• 7 of Disks: Debauch

• 6 of Disks: Success

This new idea might seem like it falters, but stick with it and something will come of it. Words of encouragement as I continue a fairly productive stint of days working on Shadow Play Book 2. 

To Bring You My Backrooms

From her 1994 masterpiece, To Bring You My Love. 

I've felt drawn back to several 90s female artists recently, and PJ Harvey is a big one. I don't remember when I first heard To Bring You My Love, but I know it was an instant "all-timer" for me. That said, it's also one that takes me to a very specific inner place, a place I don't often necessarily find myself drawn to these days. Lately, though, I'm all about it.

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NCBD:

Another fabulous Wednesday pull from Rick's Comic City in Clarksville. Let's take a gander at what will be waiting for me after work:

For whatever reason, it feels like it's been months since the last issue of Thundarr. Excited to get back into this, as there's potentially some really interesting stuff going on in this book. 

Here's a surprise - the unreleased "Swamp Thing meets Jesus" by Rick Veitch and Michael Zulli finally sees the light of day as a four-issue series starting this week and published monthly for the next three months. Reminds me a bit of when Vertigo made a big deal about finally releasing that Constantine story that caused Warren Ellis to bail on the book after only two thin trades worth of what could have been a long and completely brilliant run. For as groundbreaking as they wanted to be perceived as back in the late 80s, I don't think DC had fully acquiesced to Karen Berger's autonomy until after Sandman proved the brand. 

We come to the end of the Sssilent Missions event with a Firefly issue. No better way to end things, in my opinion. Like Copperhead, another of my all-time favorite characters. 

Another facsimile edition for Larry Hama's original ARAH series, this time issue 14, which I believe is the first appearance of Laird Destro!

One thing I learned years ago is to stay the hell out of comic shops on Free Comic Book Day, which is this coming Saturday. So I'm not sure I'll actually be able to walk away with this, or if I should just wait for the not-free version that drops next Wednesday. 

J.G. Jones and Phil Bram's dustbowl epic Dust to Dust finally comes to a conclusion with issue 8, and I'll be jumping in and rereading this one from the start sooner rather than later. I reread the first half a few months ago, but have held off on the subsequent issues due to publishing delays. I want a full-on, one-sitting reread on this one. 

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Watch:

While I now approach all YouTuber-turned-Filmmaker Horror movies with a certain degree of trepidation, I finally saw the trailer for Kane "Pixels" Parsons' Backrooms from A24, and I have to say, I'm excited and hopeful. This looks fantastic. I've expressed my fascination for the YouTube version of Backrooms here previously, and this film looks like the consolidation the admittedly sprawling episodic series needs to really lock in its power. Also, the inclusion of such a top-tier actor like Chiwetel Ejiofor adds significance, as does having Mark Duplass on board. 

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Playlist:

Weird Studies - The Only Possible End: On Donna Tartt's The Secret History

Weird Studies - Lost and Never Found: On the Blair Witch Project

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Poe - Hello

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

D'Nell - First Magic

Steve Moore - VFW OST

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

Deafheaen - Lonely People With Power

The Cure - Pornography

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

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Card:

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

• IV: The Emperor

• Two of Pentacles

• VIII: Strength

Structure, collaboration on a project, and instinct. 

I have lingering questions about a particular collaboration, and I think I just got my answer. Well, the cards don't answer questions; they just point you to the answer you already know.