L.A. Witch - I Hunt You Prey

I completely missed L.A. Witch's album DOGGOD, released earlier this year. Another dark, hazy 2:00 AM corridor into desert landscapes and haunted urban derelicts, "I Hunt You Prey" is probably my favorite track (so far) and a great example of what I love about this band.

You can check L.A. Witch out on their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Just a note that my Top Ten Favorite Albums of 2025 is dropping tomorrow. I figured I'd give a heads up since I have moved to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule. We're also recording our Top Five Horror for The Horror Vision this week, so that will go up next Monday, January 5th. And because I don't want to just add some adverts here without giving something of substance in the 'now,' let me tell you that my favorite movie of the year - by far - was Ari Aster's Eddington. 

This one is just a powerhouse, a well-deserved magnifying glass for Western Society that was equally frightening, cringe-inducing and hysterical. Even the first of my two theatrical viewings was my most interesting theatrical experience this year, as my nonstop laughter at how stupid most of the people in the movie are was apparently briefly misconstrued as being at the expense of the concept, "Black Lives Matter." Things stood on the head of a pin in the theatre briefly that night, but eventually the other person recognized that I was actually laughing at how stupid some white people are when faced with questions of race, and they subsequently added their own laughter to augment mine.  

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Read:

Mirrors fascinate me. Specifically, the occult connotations, associations and mythology behind them. So it was with little hesitation that I ordered a copy of Hellebore Magazine's issue #14, The Mirror Issue:

This is great because it's both a pleasure read and continued research while I continue hammering away at Shadow Play Book Two, which, if you have read Book One, you know is steeped in Mirror Magick.

Of particular note in this issue are Elizabeth Dearnley's essay on Dark Doubles and Sam George's The Vampire's Lost Reflection, the latter dealing with the "no-shadow" "no-reflection" particulars of Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula and the eerie similar mechanisms it shares with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey, published 7 years before. 

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

L.A. Witch - Eponymous

Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound

L.A. Witch - DOGGOD

The Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses

Dreamkid - Daggers

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

The Fixx - Reach the Beach

Ghost - Impera

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem

Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

INXS - Kick

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - Give the People What They Want

Isaac Hayes - The Isaac Hayes Movement

The Boys Choir of Vienna - Voices & Bells of Christmas Around the World

Robert Rheims - Merry Christmas in Carols

Phil Collins - Face Value

Ella Fitzgerald - The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol. II

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert 50

Drug Church - Prude

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Card:

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

• XV: The Devil

• Ten of Cups

• XI: Justice

One of the elements Grimm's Devil card gives me in this deck is influence. C'mon - a stoner chick with a vest sewn up with patches? What's that if not influence? The music I love - especially what I love enough to put on a jacket - is one of the major influences of my life. Combine that with the Ten's base of Malkuth - Earth, our primary realm - applied to the emotional pull of Cups I'm picking up a context of working from a strong emotional base (music). XI: Justice - known in the Thoth Deck as Lust - suggests yearning, but also, a nod toward cause and effect. If you call upon it, be prepared for it to answer. Whatever that "it" might be. 

Failure - Heliotropic

 

From their 1996 album Fantastic Planet, which is really pretty new to me here, thirty years after its release. Failure was never really on my radar in 1996. About twelve years ago, I remember reading something Heaven Is An Incubator wrote about them and wondering how I'd missed them. I gave Fantastic Planet a spin back then, but it didn't leave an impression. Also, that would have been before the advent of Apple Music, so I'm unsure how I listened. Regardless, I would not have had the ability to relisten as often as I can now.

I played Fantastic Planet through once this past Friday morning because Mr. Brown and I decided to hit next year's Space Echo concert and see Baroness, Spotlights, and, with Failure headlining, I figured it would be a good time to take another dip in their sound. 

On my first go-through, I instantly understood why/how I had missed these guys. I actually think I was aware of them to some degree in the early to mid-90s, but here's the thing - I was DONE with this sound by 1996. Just done with it. By the time Nirvana's In Utero came out, I was pretty finished with anything that shared DNA with their sound, be it in songwriting, production or both. 

I'm not saying Failure is a copycat band. Not at all. However, the production on this album definitely owes something to the zeitgeist sound of the day, which is all based on Nirvana's sound. "Alternative" radio beat that shit to death in 1994-97, and just that through-line would have been enough for me to turn my nose up at this back then.

Back to the present, by the end of that first listen last Friday, I found I wanted more, so I played FP through a second time. By the end of that, I was hooked (album opener "Saturday Savior" has been in my head all day as I write this on Saturday).  It's nice to go back and find something from that era to look at with fresh eyes, so to speak, because the only bands from the "grunge/alternative" watershed that I followed were Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The two that, in my opinion, have the most distinct sound. Now that we're thirty years away from this sound, though, I can hear this album for what it is. Pretty fucking great.

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Watch:

We continued the Noirvember celebration this past Friday with a double feature of two Noir classics: one from the original era of the genre and one of the Neo-Noir persuasion. First up, Joan Crawford and Jack Carson in Mildred Pierce. I adore this film, and recently picked up the Criterion Blu-ray as part of the current Criterion sale. 

I love this film even more now that I've realized the actor who plays Monte is also the screenwriting cop in Arsenic and Old Lace. I guess I'd never watched these two films close enough together before to pick up on that. So many classic Noir elements, from the covetous nature of many of the characters to the lighting, which has stayed with me since K first showed me this one when we began dating.

Next up, Rian Johnson's debut, Brick. 

I'd not watched this one in some time, and was thrilled to see how well it holds up. A very clever approach to updating the Neo Noir formula and applying it to the Southern California High School vibe, not unlike Rob Thomas' Veronica Mars, of which I am also a pretty big fan. Here, though, Johnson makes the choice to have his teenage characters talk in a quasi-Mickey Spillane dialogue; this could have gone way wrong, like that one guy's Romeo and Juliet movie from the '90s. Instead, it just really works, principally because the performances are so strong. Joseph Gordon Leavit stopped being the kid from that shitty sitcom about aliens, and Nora Zehetner, Luke Haas, Noah Fleiss, Noah Segan and Matt O'Leary all knock it out of the park. 

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Read:

Last December, I stumbled on Hellbore Magazine. A fantastic Occult/Folklore/Folk Horror magazine with articles on everything from Haunted Sites to Nigel Kneale. My primary contact with Hellbore was twitter, which I denounced earlier this year, and it wasn't until recently I found them on IG. Glad I did. Check out this offering they have up on their site at the moment:

How could I not procure a copy of this for my overfilled bookshelves? You can check this out and order it on Hellebore's site HERE. 

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Playlist:

Orville Peck - Appaloosa

Failure - Fantastic Planet

Failure - Comfort

Odonis Odonis - Eponymous

The Velvet Underground - Sister Ray

The Velvet Underground & Nico - Eponymous

Slow Crush - Thirst

Sylvaine - Nova

Willie Nelson - Oh What A Beautiful World

The Volume Settings Folder - Negotiating Obstacles EP

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Dean Hurley - Analog Resource Vol. II: The Philosophy of Beyond

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius

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Card:

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

• Queen of Cups

• Nine of Swords

• Five of Cups

Lots of emotion undercut with anxiety.