Any day we get a new Chelsea Wolfe track is a good day. This one is in conjunction with DC Comics and the Dark Knights: Death Metal series they're doing that I know absolutely nothing about except that I couldn't care less about it. Except, now I love this song. So that's one thing Dark Knights: Death Metal has going for it.
DC is releasing a full soundtrack for the series, which, if you're of a mind, you can pre-order in whatever format you like HERE. Tracklisting below:
Mastodon - Forged by Neron
Chelsea Wolfe - Diana
HEALTH, Tyler Bates - ANTI-LIFE (feat. Chino Moreno) Maria Brink, Tyler Bates - Meet Me In Fire (feat. Andy Biersack)
Grey Daze - Anything, Anything
Rise Against - Broken Dreams, Inc.
Manchester Orchestra - Never Ending
Denzel Curry, PlayThatBoiZay - Bad Luck
Carach
Angren - Skull With a Forked Tongue
Starcrawler - Good Time Girl
GUNSHIP, Tyler Bates - Berserker (feat. Dave Lombardo)
Greg Puciato, Tyler Bates, Gil Sharone - Now You've Really Done It
Show Me
The Body - Stone Cold
Earth
IDLES - Sodium
Soccer Mommy - Kissing in the Rain
That's a pretty interesting lineup, and despite my lack of interest in the comic, the artwork is cool and features heavily in the vinyl release.
Watch:
Planning on watching this over the weekend:
Also, after fighting through 30 or so minutes of Zack "Slo Mo" Snyder's Army of the Dead last week, I may try again. May.
Playlist:
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
Windhand - Split EP
Les Discrets
Lustmord - Heresy
Swans - The Seer
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Card:
Ah, I love a direct pull:
Dealing with an ongoing staffing issue on my team at the biorepository. Always tempted to say things I should not, so this is a great reminder to play it cool.
Violet Cold's album Empire of Love is a bit uneven to me, but that's because it swings BIG, and that's not a bad thing. This track was the first I'd ever heard of them - really a one-man project - when it came up in Apple Music's algorithm. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but it quickly gained favor. Then, yesterday morning, I realized I had this song irrevocably in my head, and as soon as I fired it up on my headphones, it felt like an ice-cold mouthful of water on a hot day.
This is a day late, but my Wednesday proved to be a beast.
This week's NCBD was considerably quieter than I've had in a while, for sure. Which is nice on the wallet, and the stack of books I still haven't read from last week.
This cover art is SICK. I'm thinking this is the issue where all hell breaks loose and I can't wait to see that!
Possibly my favorite comic at the moment, I'm really loving Daniel Warren Johnson's take on this character. This book reminds me of old TSR gaming, 80s style, where it felt like ideas, monsters and weapons from every corner of pop culture were being drawn together into one great, big beautifully pulpy soup. It's Daniel Warren Johnson's aesthetic, and it's enhanced by his art, which is just scratchy enough in the right places to feel like a throwback to the way comics used to look.
Feels like I've been waiting for this one for longer than however long it's been since The Last Ronin #2 came out.
A very solid historical Horror story.
Playlist:
Goatsnake - Breakfast with the King
Silent - Modern Hate
Vreid - Wild North West
Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma
Violet Cold - Empire of Love
Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
CCR - Eponymous
The Replacements - Tim
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
Whenever my good friend Jacob sends me a band to listen to, I know it's going to rule. Silent, however, even tops the best of his previous recommendations. I cannot express how much I LOVE this album; it embodies everything I love about a modern post-punk aesthetic and reminds me A LOT of how much I loved that first Savages album back in what feels like one hundred years ago.
Watch:
I don't really know much about Trese yet, except my DwC cohost Mike Wellman sent me the trailer last week and it's being made by/with people who our friend Karen Kunawicz knows. Mike has a copy of the book it's based on hold for me, so I should be picking that up and reading it soon, so I will leave you with the trailer for now and report back on the book later this week.
Really cool stuff, from the looks of it.
Playlist:
Led Zeppelin - Coda
Silent - Modern Hate
Mudvayne - Choices (single)
Exhalants - Atonement
Windhand - Split
Deftones - Ohms
Violet Cold - Empire of Love
ZZ Top - Rhythmeen
White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000
QOTSA - Villains
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Lustmord - Heresy
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Leviathan the Fleeing Serpent - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Love for the Dead
Various - Lords of Salem OST
Card:
I can't really go into it here - or more like I don't want to at the moment - but I take this as a direct commentary on a BIG question that has been on both K and my own mind these last few days.
Probably the second Led Zeppelin song I ever heard, and possibly the first one I heard while seeking out the band's music (oh so long ago now), I still have a huge crush on "Ozone Baby". I feel a huge Zep binge coming on and I welcome it with open arms.
Watch:
While I won't be watching Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead tonight - it's Joe Bob night, of course - I will be checking this out at some point this weekend. I'm hoping for big, dumb fun but not really expecting to get even that. I really hope I'm wrong.
Speaking of Netflix, here's a teaser the streaming giant just dropped for an upcoming flick that has me very intrigued. I hardly go to Netflix anymore for anything, however, that sometimes works against me. I have to try and remind myself that despite the ginormous size of the company and somewhat banal output, they did bring us flicks like Cam, Hold the Dark and even Stranger Things. So they are capable of really hitting the nail on the head.
Love that red!
Playlist:
Les Discrets - Prédateurs
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
White Lung - Eponymous
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Jackie Wilson - Higher
Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild
Faith No More - The Real Thing
David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & London Sinfonietta - Gorecki: Symphony No. 3
Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - Coda
Card:
And now for something completely different...
I hung out with my good friend Keller yesterday (we're both vaxxed), and at the crux of our evening, he pulled a spread for me with his Marseille Deck. My question pertained to K and I looking for a house, and his answer was extremely helpful, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear.
This track popped up in Rose Glass's Saint Maud - which we review and discuss on the newest episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, and it made me immediately pull out Down and pop it into rotation. Of the classic Lizard triptych of essential records - Goat, Down and Liar - Down usually comes in third for me. That said, it's still among the greatest albums of the 90s in my opinion, and it's always a good feeling to reconnect with their music, especially after encountering it in a modern movie.
NCBD:
I'm LOVING that Marvel is taking so much of my money every month for Amazing Spider-Man. Nick Spencer's run has me hooked, and as of this issue, it looks like Bagley is back on the art!
The Autumnal is one of those rare, truly unnerving stories that feels like it could very easily be picked up and turned into an A24-ish movie. Let's hope that happens eventually, but in the meantime, issue 6 left us in a place that suggests this week's #7 will be crazy!
This series is riding at about a 65% approval rating with me at the moment, but I've apparently locked back into Marvel fan-boy gear for the first time since the MCU's Civil War broke it, so I'm enjoying the hell out of that 65%. Also, Dane's anthropomorphic black goat-headed butler is named Phillip. I can't love that enough.
This series. Whoah. Timely; a much-needed window into what other people go through to get into this country.
I HAVE to have this cover. Love Stray Dogs, and issue #3's cliffhanger has had me on edge at the mere mention of the series since last month.
Another book I also wanted to mention is Osaka Mime. I was lucky enough to have Behemoth Comics reach out to my podcast A Most Horrible Library a while back and send us an advance of Andy Leavy and Hugo Araujo's Osaka Mime graphic novel. I really dug this book and seeing its release slated for this week, suggest people pick it up.
A black and white Urban Horror story set in Japan, here's the solicitation:
"When a couple are found brutally murdered in the Dotonbori District in Osaka, Japan, two detectives from the Supernatural Unit of the Osaka PD must hunt down and apprehend a dangerous and murderous Mime, a shadowy shape-shifter which can take the form of the last person it ate. How do you catch something so dangerous, that can hide in plain sight?"
Watch:
This one snuck in under my radar, but looks fabulous! Featuring Raised by Wolves' Niamh Algar, the idea of setting a Horror story in the video nasty area already has me hooked, however, toss in the missing sister seen-in-a-movie bit that Ed Brubaker just played with in Friend of the Devil, and I'm super psyched for this one to drop on VOD June 18th!
Playlist:
The Jesus Lizard - Down
Soundgarden - Down On The Upside
Neverly Brothers - Dark Side of Everything
Ghost - Meliora
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
The Doors - LA Woman
Card:
A good omen considering we have officially begun to settle back into a genuine sense of normalcy. K's birthday Dinner at Lazy Dog Cafe on the patio last night was the first time we'd eaten a meal in a restaurant in over a year. It felt nice to celebrate my Empress with such a marked occasion that signifies a return to life as we knew it B.C.
This came on in the car last night as K and I were driving back from our time at the track, and despite hearing the song in its entirety, I immediately came home and threw Zeppelin IV on the old record player just to hear the song the way it was meant to be heard.
Glorious!
Is When the Levy Breaks the greatest rock song of all time? Well, a claim like that is an impossibility anyway. There is no 'greatest rock song.' Also, it would be hard to back up that claim when you think about all the other great songs just from the era of this album, alone, let alone before or after. That said, it's also a claim I would not contest if made in my presence. Because if Levy isn't the greatest, it's certainly one of them.
Watch:
The fact that Parmount dropped a GI JOE trailer this week is serendipitous because last week I actually bought a digital copy of GIJOE: Retaliation. I had not seen it since the theatre, and to quote a tweet I dropped during my re-watch:
#gijoeretaliation is a hot mess that has just enough fan service to make me not hate it, but enough contrivance to make me want to.
This was K's first GIJOE anything, and she liked it about as much as I do. Anyway, the fact that Retaliation came closer to making me happy than Cobra Rises did felt like a good sign at the time the film came out, and I held out hope that a part three might continue that trend. However, cinematic tie-in properties and shared universes have come a long way since then, and here we are with a reboot.
I suppose I should explain that GI JOE is hallowed ground to me. Or at least Larry Hama's 80s comic continuity is. Despite the usual dalliance with comics in my very earliest days - from which all I remember is Thor and Uncle Scrooge - Hama's GI JOE was the book that made me a comics kid. I still remember issue 49, published July 1986.
I wrote about this somewhere before, but I bought a tattered copy of this issue on the schoolyard from a total dick who actually charged me $0.25 over the cover price (!) while taking a summer school algebra class between 4th and 5th grade. I still have that copy. I must have read that comic 100 times, and when #50 came out, I began having my parents take me to the local comic shop every month so I could buy keep up. Then I began raiding back issue bins. My collection of what I'd consider Hama's essential run of Joe (issues 1-126, although by then the title was waning under the stress of Hasbro's demands that Hama help them save a sinking property) has never been complete, and I don't revisit them often. That said, because of all this, yeah, I want someone to adapt the book into a movie as good as Marvel has done with theirs.
Hopeless? Maybe, but despite my love of Hama's work, the version of Joe I think would adapt the best to the big screen is the understated reboot that Mike Costa and Christopher N. Gage did in the 00s for IDW, specifically the Cobra book. There has been talk of that series getting the TV show treatment, but in the meantime, we're left with what you see above. Which looks like it might be a better big-budget take on Joe than what we got with the previous two films. I mean, I'm not sure how you kick off a franchise with a single-character origin film, but regardless, this will put my ass in a seat.
Yo Joe!
Playlist:
The Jesus Lizard - Down
Balthazar - Fever
David Bowie - The Next Day
Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
There's a reason Sunn O))) named a song after Earth founder Dylan Carlson.
I'm largely unfamiliar with Earth except for this album, which I picked up shortly after its release in 2014, and which became ingrained in my psyche in 2015 as I listened to it over the course of a year where my life imploded and then put itself back together (better). This song, in particular, and Rabia Shaheen Qazi's lyrics and delivery really resonated with me at that time.
Watch:
Well look what finally found its way to a platform where most people can actually see it:
I've had a lot of misgivings about this flick and the interminably long build-up to its release. First, A24 makes great stuff, however, I've developed a growing awareness of the films they release that seems to have the express intent of being 'the next Hereditary.' Seeing the Saint Maud trailer for the first time a little over a year ago marked the beginning of this suspicion and the feeling has only escalated since.
Next, to have bypassed the usual VOD platforms where the everyman fan can pay to rent the film, A24 instead made a deal with West Coast cable channel Epix, where the film has remained exclusive for the last several months.
Really? Being that no one I know that doesn't live in California has ever even heard of epix, I don't know where - if anywhere - this film was available elsewhere in the country, but I consider this a frustrating manuever on A24's part. I mean, all is forgiven if this helped put the film and its writer/director Rose Glass in a good place in a world where movie releases have become increasingly uncertain and unprofitable.
Anyway, regardless of these misgivings, I watched Saint Maud yesterday. My reaction?
Wow.
When religious lunacy replaces addiction, bad things happen. That's all I'll say, other than I really dug Saint Maud, and although I don't really feel as though the way A24 handled its release was warranted, the film is definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the more psychological take A24 tends to curate for their release.
Playlist:
Earth - Primitive and Deadly
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Windhand - Eternal Return
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Federale - No Justice
Madeleine Peyroux - Careless Love (single)
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
The Dandy Warhols - Playlist
Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died in Your Arms
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Corniglia - Eponymous
Card:
Yes. Perfect pull, as the paradigm of the past year died yesterday when, for the first time since early March, 2020, I walked to my coffee shop writing spot and put in a solid writing session. It felt awesome, and I'm going back today!
More Type O from their final album, and if this isn't a case of the best goddamn final song for a band's career, I don't know what is. I still get chills every time I listen to it, and I've been listening to it a lot.
Watch:
I feel like I may be the only person I know that didn't give very much of a toss about the teaser for David Lowery's The Green Knight that A24 released last year. Earlier this week the full trailer dropped and I have to say, I still don't know that the glimpses of the story that peek through are catching me, however, visually it looks as though we may finally have a companion to the ergot-infused witchery of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army:
There's something so sublime about the imagery here and the narrative it suggests. I'm reminded of Ben Wheatley and John Boorman simultaneously. This may be a reason to head back into a theatre.
Maybe.
Playlist:
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Sampa the Great - The Return
Viet Cong - Eponymous
The Police - Outlandos d'Amour
Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers + Queers
Card:
When you have all the bloody pieces but just can't get things to work out quite right, that is when Ruin threatens. Which feels more than a little accurate in terms of money and potential residences to be purchased.
Anything Declan Shalvey has a hand in I will read. I'm stoked that the artist of one of my favorite series (Injection) is also a kick-ass writer!
Thus far, this alternate "What If?" book has my attention. I adore the OG spidey black costume, even before it became Venom, so this is cool to see.
YES! Summer camp slasher - 'nuff said!
I almost forgot about this series; I feel like its release has been a touch sporadic. No matter, three issues left after this one. Aquatic Horror never felt so good.
This series is gorgeous. Really digging it, and if I can get my hands on this variant cover, all the better.
Loved issue #1, let's see how #2 is.
Marvel is really monetizing Spider-man these days, but I've become a sucker for Nick Spencer's take on the book, even if it is jam-packed with more plot than you can shoot a web at.
Playlist:
Prédateurs - Les Discrets
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
I missed posting for the anniversary of Peter Steele's death back last month, but the Drab Four have been on my mind.
It's funny, over the last few years I've fallen into the habit of almost exclusively listening to Type O in the Autumn. Which is weird, because if I was forced to name a 'favorite band' it would probably be them (or Ozzy-era Sabbath). The reason for this weird confinement of their music is something I have been aware of, but not really analyzed.
Until yesterday.
In listening to Type O's final album, 2007's Dead Again, I realized the reason I largely reserve their music for Autumn is that out here in California, we do not have any of the recognizable features of my favorite season. October feels a lot like August, feels a lot like April, etc. After living the first thirty years of you life in the Midwest, the seasons become ingrained in you, in your thought processes and emotions and all kinds of other inner-working, hard-wired stuff. When I moved to the west coast about a year before Dead Again was released, I had to get used to the lack of burning leaves, thunderstorms, and a general sense of what I'll rather dramatically call 'the dying time.' Thus, I established early on a sort of "Internal Autumn" ideal, almost a mantra for my favorite time of year. This usually kicks in during the start of September and lasts through the first week of November. It's how I convince myself that I'm living in Autumn when I'm really not, an homage to the way I lived the years of my life that shaped me. This works, however, I think the inner autumn thing has become more difficult to sustain the longer I'm out here, that much further away from the experience of a real Autumn. Thus, I came up with this idea that if I reserved Type O - still the most Autumn band for my money - exclusively for that time of year, it would help sell this whole charade.
And as is often the case in psychoanalyzing yourself, now that I've picked this apartment, it feels freeing, because I WANT TO LISTEN TO TYPE O NEGATIVE ALL DAMN YEAR LONG.
So let's start here with Profit of Doom, the third - and possibly weirdest - track from Dead Again.
Damn, Pete. We fucking miss you.
Watch:
One of the movies I've been waiting for this year is Maximiliano Contenti's Red Screening, AKA The Last Matinee. I don't know a lot about this one, but check out this bee-oootiful trailer:
I've become quite a sucker for Neo-Giallo, and Horror flicks that take place in movie theatres always work good for me, so I'm jazzed for this one, which will be in theatres on August 6th and VOD August 24th.
Playlist:
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Lantlôs - Lake Fantasy (pre-release single)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Anthrax - Among the Living
Card:
The 8 of Wands always feels like it's a premonition of good things to come, creatively. I need that right now; things have been slow and syrupy and I need to get myself moving again. The idea is in another week or so, since I am now fully vaxxed, I'll begin walking to my writing spot again. This should help me get back on track, so hopefully the card is a good omen.
A new show by the creators of Dark? I'd heard about this last year, but completely forgot about it.
READ:
You may know C. Robert Cargill's name best as the co-writer of 2012's brilliant Horror movie Sinister. He's also a novelist, and although I'm unfamiliar with most of his work, I began his new novel Sea of Rust recently and can tell you it is fantastic.
The novel takes place in a world devoid of humanity. It's our world after the AI war that wipes us out, after AI factions off into super mainframe intelligence - there are two and the denizens of the novel refer to them as OWIs, or One World Intelligences - and rogue robots who fight for the freedom not to succumb to the edict of trading their selfhood for the ease of becoming part of the hivemind. There are so many analogs to our world here that it's crazy; from the Corporatization of everything to individuality in the age of our own accelerated (social media), that the book has an uncanny ability to feel in harmony with our lives even during the, frankly, pretty damn well-written action sequences. I'm really digging this one, and am moving Mr. Cargill to my 'pay attention to everything he does' list.
Playlist:
Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City
Myrkur - Folkesange
DJ Muggs the Black Goat - Dies Occidendum
Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine
Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork Issue #1 OST
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
Card:
Ah, restraint. Thank you for the reminder. Here's the mantra for when I'm scouring ebay for things I do not need: I WANT A HOUSE.
Goddamnit, does it feel like forever since Stranger Things Season 3? It sure does to me. The good news is, when Season 4 gets closer, K and I have a full rewatch of the entire series planned.
Started the day yesterday with some Effigies. Been a minute, almost forgot how much I love these guys. Old school Chicago punk rock - still hits as hard as it does now as it did when I first heard it in the early 90s.
Read:
Everyone in my house had their second shot yesterday, and just like the first one three weeks ago, it's rendered me nearly immobile. That's a bit of an overstatement, however, I took a nap afterward and woke up feeling like chewed-up dog biscuits, so I'm off work again today. The morning marine layer is pretty intense outside, so the air is cool and charged with the Ocean. Windows are open, I'm breathing fresh air, and from somewhere nearby Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is playing. If I felt up to going to get some eggs and corned beef hash this would be a perfect morning.
While sitting in bed this morning, I'm doing some reading, going back and reading the afterward sections on two graphic novels I've read in the last month and absolutely loved:
Eibon Press's Bottomfeeder is a heartfelt work of sleazy Grindhouse Horror and I could not have loved it more. There are moments I can only call, "Stark raving terror" that are unlike anything I've seen in a comic (or a film) before. That said, it's also a class act; this is exploitation for exploitation's sake, however, it's clear to me that Stephano Romano, Shawn Lewis, Patrick Carbajal and everyone involved weren't just out to fill the pages with hateful dissonance, but to tell a fucking awesome story, as well. There's a lot of love for late actor Joe Pilato, who was originally attached when this was a screenplay, and who gave his blessings for the use of his likeness as the main character, Detective Joe Angell. You read this gnarly romp through tits, blood, and guts and then turn to those final pages and read Lewis and Romano extolling their love of Pilato as a friend and mentor and you get a little teary-eyed. Because Bottomfeeder is something unlike anything else, and that uniqueness makes for a special experience when you consume it. The Horror is real, meaningful, and executed masterfully.
Pun intended.
You can hear Chris Saunders and I interview Jay Fotos about his fantastic Rising Rebels graphic novel over on the A Most Horrible Library podcast. I read the book three weeks ago, after my first dose of the vaccine, but I had yet to go back to finish reading the extensive afterward section. There are author's notes that trace everything from the original impetus for Rising Rebels to the monster designing process but there's also a collection of Danny Marianino's 80s Once Upon A Time column, which is among the finest retrospective romps through the era of my childhood I've read.
My opinion is any diehard Horror fan would love both of these books, so if that's you, you can pick up Bottomfeeder over on Eibon Press's website HERE, and Rising Rebels is probably most readily available from Jay Fotos's eBay Store HERE.
Playlist:
The Effigies - Remains Nonviewable
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
Neurosis - Given to the Rising
SURVIVE - Mnq026
Genesis - Invisible Touch
Ice-T - Power
Card:
Exactly what I will need to get through the next two days and hit the ground running on Monday. My mantra: Keep your eyes on the prize: two weeks from yesterday I will be sitting on the patio at a local brewhouse drinking a pint of beer.
This one's been in my head since I broke out Ice-T's sophomore record Power a few days ago. Interesting how something that, technologically speaking, sounds so archaic, could be so catchy. Is there hope for those old-school 80s sounds yet? You know, the ones that came preloaded on consumer-grade Casio keyboards by the time we hit the mid-90s? The Night Court bass, Pan Pipes and the like? Maybe. I believe that's what a contingent of artists that hovered around the moniker Hypnogogic Pop attempted in the 00s, but in many cases, that attempt failed. IMO. Hearing this track now though, perhaps the time is ripe for someone new to come along and reclaim some of these weird 80s textures.
Watch:
Having read the two comic series as they came out, the first in 2014, the second a year or two ago, I enjoyed Cullen Bunn's The Empty Man, so when I saw there was a movie, I became both excited and hesitant. Then I saw Lustmord did the OST, and I knew I had to watch it.
I dug this one. The ending fell a bit flat for me, but overall, Director David Prior really conveys a heavy sense of forbidding that was a blast to experience. There's a great sense of dread - made palpable at times by Lustmord's brand of creepy cosmic textures. The funny thing is, in watching this, I don't believe it felt so much like an adaptation of the material from the comic, as much as it did the comic if it had been a novel by Laird Barron.
Playlist:
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST
ILSA - Preyer
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Card:
I'll be paying special attention to Big Ideas today.
I stumbled across the record by the band Vreid two days ago and quickly went from being impressed by their ability to conjure and own a lot of old school metal tropes to completely blowing my mind by moving through a network of decidedly non-metal elements to flesh their sound out into a pretty unique beast. Listen to the track above, then go on and hit play on this.
I kept thinking the Apple Music algorithm had moved me onto another band. The album does that, slowly incorporating other, decidedly non-metal ideas into its progression in a way that makes it a journey, which is very cool, and apparently exactly what I needed.
NCBD:
Okay, so I actually went and bought every back issue The Comic Bug had on the shelf for this newest Amazing Spider-man series, which means I have now read issues 49-64. I say this, because despite the storyline feeling a bit weighed down by plot threads - I mean, there are a f*&king LOT of them - I've kind of fallen for this book. There's a very Uncanny-Xmen-Chris-Claremont feeling at how writer Nick Spencer sets up future plots/reveals via one and two-page asides. This creates some serious Gottasees that build over the course of, in some cases, a lot of issues. Case in point, who was the extra corpse that Carli Cooper found among the bodies Kindred exhumed? They drop this with a two-page scene in issue 57, and we still don't know, going on 8 issues later! It's stuff like this, and a mounting idea that Spencer seems like he might be setting up to undo the "Brand New Day" stuff from back in 2008 that pushed all the old-school, Peter-and-Mary-Jane stuff aside in favor of streamlining Spidey for younger readers. Either way, I'm super intrigued at where this is all going.
One issue left after this. Love this series, and love its covers, especially this one.
The first two issues were so much fun, how can I not come back for more? I'm still not jumping on the Carnage train, however, the stories in the second issue of the titular symbiote's Black, White & Blood book felt like horror films, which is super cool to see a major "Fan Favorite" like this treated that way.
Another penultimate issue for a mini-series that I'm currently following. Short and sweet, and even if we don't hear from Pendermills, this and 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank have cemented Tyler Boss as someone whose work I will follow.
If you didn't know Larry Hama is writing an Iron Fist comic, don't feel bad, neither did I. I'm new to the character, however, I jumped at the chance to pick up a new, finite Hama project and so far, so good.
This book definitely skews a little more "classic Image" than I normally like. That said, I'm digging it and will follow it for the time being.
Playlist:
Deftones - Ohms
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Vreid - Wild North West
Boy Harsher - Careful
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Card:
Death is just the beginning, right? It's funny, yesterday my interpretation of the Queen of Disks was so on the nose that I'd used the words "Responsibility" and "Culpability" in discussion probably five times by 9:00 AM. I'm curious if my standard reading for Death as Change or Metamophasis will be as on the nose.
Sampa the Great is new to me (see below), but I am digging on this entire record.
Watch:
A couple weeks ago my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Wellman sent me this interview with Mike Patton. Fantastic discussion, but of special interest here is his mention of Sampa the Great, who I'd never heard of before and whose 2019, award-winning record The Return is currently blowing my mind. Here's my favorite track (so far) on an album where there are a lot of tracks and all of them are good.
What I love best here is the fact that, if you go to the All-Music entry on The Return and check the credits, almost all of the instrumentation is real, very little in the way of samples. Plus, all of it hits that 70s Soul/ R&B sweet spot I love so much. You know, back before people considered crap like beyonce R&B.
Playlist:
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Perturbator - Excess (Single)
Perturbator/Author & Punisher - Excess n (Single Remix)
Vreid - Wild North West
Sampa the Great - The Return
Deftones - Ohms
Ice-T - Power
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The Queen of Disks always feels like a bit of an indictment to me. Kind of the spiritual or theoretical equivalent of Dante's change experiment in Clerks (yeah, I know that's an odd reference to tie into Tarot). While your better self (or Star self as I always imagine Crowley called it and didn't) is looking the other way, are you participating in something you shouldn't? The goat up front staring at us, essentially breaking the fourth wall, is a reminder you should always be aware, because others are whether you realize it or not.
There's a reminder of culpability here that I like, and whenever I see it, I try and run a mental checklist to see if all my ducks are indeed in a row. Interestingly, I feel like there's an element of that in The Return, as the record is peppered with dialogue snippets - mostly third party phone messages by Sampa's friends - that seem bent on making her understand something the world around her expects of her, but that she herself has left behind. And that's part of culpability, too, making sure that just because the world expects something of you, if it doesn't align with who you actually are inside, you're not falling in line. Keep your ducks in a row, not theirs.
After discovering Death Valley Girls late last year via (I think) the Henry Rollins radio show on LA NPR WKRC and having a brief moment with their then-new album Under the Spell of Joy, I kinda forgot about them again. However, the album popped back up on my radar last week during my black-out period here (BUSY!), and I've been listening to it ever since. Excellent album, which you can pick up from Suicide Squeeze Records HERE.
Watch:
I watched quite a few movies over the last five days or so since the last time I posted, however, Donald Cammell's White of the Eye may have left the biggest impression on me from those films I didn't already know. My co-host Tori talked about this one on the most recent episode of The Horror Vision, and our fellow cohost Anthony hit it square on the head when he described the film as a "Southwestern American Giallo."
You're going to have to be in the mood for 80s tropes, i.e. gratuitous guitar over sweaty sex scenes, and mullets like you may have never seen before, but if you can put you're head there and imagine you're watching this one late at night on a local affiliate at around 1:00 AM on a Saturday, you'll do just fine. Stand out performance by David Keith, who kind of transcends his "poor-mans Kurt Russell" thing and really does something cool with his role.
Playlist:
I'm not even going to try and log everything I've listened to, because I on a good day I usually mess that up. Here's what I remember:
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Gram Rabbit - Music to Start a Cult To
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility
CCR - Bayou Country
Deftones - Ohms
Lustmord - Hobart
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My second shot of the Pfizer Vaccine is coming up this Thursday, so let's see if it knocks me out as hard as the first one did.
