New Music From A Place To Bury Strangers

 

From Synthesizer, out digitally this Friday, 10/04, with the vinyl to follow on 10/27. You can pre-order the standard album HERE or the insane edition that has a build-your-own synthesizer as the cover direct from Oliver Ackerman's Death By Audio HERE. They even have a test video demonstrating the synthesizer.

   

I'm probably not springing for this, but hot damn, I am tempted.

 

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NCBD:

Really cool pull this week. 

Issue three. This one is taking a bit to get rolling, but tension is beginning to build. 

My money's on an insane body count for the final issue of Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows' Get Fury. Look at that cover!

One more issue after this one. Better to leave us wanting more than to over stay your welcome, but man, it's going to suck seeing this one go.

Something new from Brian Azzarello and Vanesa R. Del Rey. I'm looking forward to giving this one a shot. From the solicitation by way of League of Comic Geeks:

"In nature there are gods older than the devil... Nothing can prepare you for what's coming in this violent, electrifying descent into this bloody, black metal-infused revenge saga. Val, an American metalhead attending a festival in Oslo, begins her penumbrous pilgrimage into the vast depths of vengeance. After her victimization at the hands of a charismatically vile local band, the Old Gods of Norse Mythology guide her along her path in the name of women everywhere."

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31 Days of Halloween:

Regal has partnered with A24 during the month of October for "Eerie Series," a weekly program of A24 films that pair nicely with the season. Last night, I caught Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of A Sacred Deer. This was my second time seeing the film, first time on a big screen. 

I haven't seen all this man's films, but I can pretty much guarantee this is always going to be my favorite. It has such a tense, unyielding eye. The camera moves almost all the time; shots start close and slowly zoom out or start afield and slowly crop in. There's such an ominous feeling of dread, and everyone acts slightly out of whack. It all adds up to an offputting, sometimes hysterical experience in trauma voyeurism, and I love it. 

1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies EP

Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous

Misfits - Static Age

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Flipper - Album - Generic Flipper

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Beastmilk - Climax

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Card:

Today's card is the 5 of Disks - Worry in the Thoth deck:

Fives represent complications or imbalance; the perfection of the fours shivers with an added element - change is constant, nothing coasts for very long. This creates worry in some, however, this is down to how we look at change. Fives tell us to be ready, roll with the punches, adapt and thrive. Applied to Disks, the change we can expect is usually in terms of monetary or Earthly matters. 

New Music from A Place to Bury Strangers!

 

From the forthcoming album Synthesizer, out October 4th on Dedstrange. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

Throwing a couple of last-minute titles on the list this week. Here we go:

How can I pass up a facsimile edition of the first appearance of Swamp Thing in The House of Secrets #93 when I just finished reading all six volumes of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing? The short answer is, I can't.

This new Werewolf By Night series is apparently the first "Red Band" Marvel book, so I have to check it out. Okay Marvel, Thrill me.

More Shockwave. More! More! That's still not enough Shockwave! MORE!!!

This series is seriously unnerving me. Reminds me a lot of Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, which I read earlier this year. Call it the junction point where Cosmic Horror meets Body Horror. Science Horror? Any way you call it, I'm digging Into the Unbeing.

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Playlist:

Final Light - Eponypous

Shellac - To All Trains

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Assembly Line People Program - Eponymous EP

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That

Dead Milkmen - Quaker City Quiet Pills

T. Rex - The Slider

Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the War is Over

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up for five more days. Check it out HERE.

• XIV: Temperance (aka ART)

• Knight of Wands

• Four of Cups

 Elements previously thought divisive begin to fall into a cooperative allure, creating stability previously overlooked or unfounded.

New Music and a DIY Synthesizer from A Place to Bury Strangers!!!

From A Place to Bury Strangers' upcoming album Synthesizer, out October 4th on Death by Audio. Pre-order HERE.

The INSANE thing about this pre-order is there's a version of the album that comes with the electrical component to turn the album sleeve into a DIY synthesizer! How awesome is that?

 

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NCBD:

My biggest NCBD Pull in a while. Let's dig right the f**k in!

What a salacious cover! Haha, this book has taken a really "off the rails" turn as of the last issue, and I'm here for it. Loving this cross-country journey with JC and his 'friends,' especially with all the weirdoes they meet along the way. Issue 6 really backed up my Shade The Changing Man: The American Scream comparison, and I'm happy to see where it goes from there.

Okay, going by the cover, we have A) Destro, B) the "Crimson Twins," and B) a metric sh*t ton of B.A.T.S. I can't think of a better formula for a Destro comic. After reading the second issue of Scarlett, I'm still not loving that book - but will definitely stick with it - but I am 100% ALL IN on Destro!

The final issue of Jeff Lemire's weird fiction opus to childhood, giant bug-men and, ah, crime. 

Again, this cover just sells the F*CK out of this one. Am I the only one getting a visual homage to old-school issue #73 here? That issue was the kick-off to the original "Cobra Civil War," and this issue's solicitation on League of Comic Geeks begins, "WAR WITH SERPENTOR!" Good things await. 

The final issue of what has turned out to be a very excellent mini-series that has me kind of rethinking my ideas about jumping off TMNT. I think I will be picking up Jason Aaron's new number one next week. 

Another final issue to what also turned out to be a total sleeper for me. Loved the tone of this whole series: the stakes are high, but there's a touch of comedy in the lining. Well-played Mr. Riser!

The end of another arc for What's the Furthest Place From Here? Thinking of re-reading this again from the beginning, but I guess that would be better suited before it comes back in a few months. I haven't seen any solicitations for its return, but there's no way this is the end. 

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Watch:

This looks like it might be this year's equivalent to Titane. Seeing this trailer twice now, 

I'm really excited about both the movie and the fact that, suddenly, Autuer Horror directors and the companies that distribute their films appear to be taking a much less revealing approach to cutting trailers.

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Playlist:

Tones on Tail - Everything!

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires: Live in London

Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation E.P.

T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Various - Mulholland Drive OST

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

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Card:

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

• Two of Wands

• X: Wheel of Fortune

• Page of Swords

Partnership or duplicity? You can't struggle against the grain and hope to find out; you have to physically use your intellect—i.e., put it into action outside of your head—to root out potential deception.

Great. Another work pull. I hate that I've been absorbed into an uncomfortably corporate environment again, where everyone's actions are suspect. 

Isolation: Day 173

 

A couple weeks ago, my good friend Jacob sent me a link to a band called Skywave's album killerrockandroll on Apple Music. It took me until late last week to get around to it, and when I did, my first reaction was apprehension. I liked Skywave quite a bit, but they sounded an awful lot much like A Place to Bury Strangers, and because of that I had mixed feelings. I mean, it even sounded like Oliver Ackermann singing. A lot. I did some quick research and learned there was a good reason the two bands sounded so much alike: Skywave was Ackermann's precursor to APTBS, disbanding around 2003.

As a sound, killerrockandroll definitely scratches the APTBS itch, which is great, because ever since Exploding Head, I've been less than impressed with most of what Strangers release, so now I have a new place to go when I wear Head out and feel like something more.

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Watch:

Last week was fairly unproductive, writing-wise. I had a major breakthrough early one morning on my way to work, but after that, the days just took too much out of me. I have developed some kind of chronic, insanely painful back pain that manifests as sharp, horrible spasms when I do things like, well, move. It's not constant, but walking on eggshells and the fact that this hasn't gone away in almost a month has me more than a little afraid and totally exhausted mentally. Every day last week I came home, stared longingly at the spot at the kitchen table where I write during the afternoon, and then collapsed onto the sectional instead. As is my habit on afternoons such as this, I threw on a few movies, mostly conking out before they even began. Most were utterly forgettable. One was great, one good. 

First, the great one: Director George Popov's The Droving. I loved it.

This one fits into a subgenre I've kind of created in my head, "British Occult," and shares that tag with films like Colm McCarthy's Outcast, Julian Richards' Darklands, and Ben Wheatley's Kill List. The Droving follows Martin, an ex-military interrogator, home from the desert and looking for his sister, who has disappeared. I have a brief review up on my Horror Amino profile, as well as on my Letterbxd page. Needless to say, I really dug this film, and plan on going back and watching Popov's first film Hex, which stars much of the same cast as this one, and is currently included with Amazon Prime.

Next, the good one was Director Dan Bush's The Dark Red. Here's the trailer:

This one took a while to win me over. Being distributed by Dark Sky Films I should have given it the benefit of the doubt from the start, but I found it on Prime and, honestly, the movie algorithm they use has started to make their 'Recommends' list look like the ass end of the Horror Section you'd see at Hollywood video back in the early 2000s, when a ton of cheaply made crap horror flix began to fill out the shelves of the Horror section (Dark Night of the Scarecrow anyone? How about Alien vs. Hunter?). Anway, The Dark Red is pretty solid. The tone switches in the third act, and even though it's a bit jarring, that final act really turns everything that came before on its head. Which turns out to be both good for the viewer and the excitement factor in the flick, a little bad if you're really paying attention. Full disclosure, I nodded off a bit, so my issues may be mine, and I can't help wonder if I'd seen this under better circumstances, if it would have totally wowed me. One thing is for sure, the actor Bernard Setaro Clark blew me away with his supporting performance, and I'd definitely like to see more of him.

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Playlist:

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

Santogold - Eponymous

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Ancestral Recall (pre-release single)

Thou - Heathen

Rezz - Mass Manipulation

(Lone) Wolf and Cub -  May You See Only Sky

Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien

Skywave - Killerrockandroll

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Card: 

 

Success in artistic endeavors. I'll take it!

PLaNETS - Scared Coyote

The day after I left for Chicago my wife went to Silver Lake's The Satellite (formerly Spaceland, where we saw one of the best shows ever in A Place to Bury Strangers) to see a band from LA that we love named Battle Tapes. As she tells it, she arrived before the first band went on, took a table on the floor and ordered a GlenLivet on the rocks and proceeded to be blown away by each band (Chastity Belt & Megafauna also played). PLaNETS however, stole the show, and again, based on how much I love the album and what she's told me about the performance, I can't wait to see this group live.

A Place to Bury Strangers - In Your Heart

I've probably posted this before, but it's so good it's worth posting again (and again and again).