Human Impact - Lost All Trust

 

The final song on Human Impact's new album Gone Dark, which dropped this past Friday, October 4th. Fantastic record and the final two tracks really seal the deal. I knew this was former Unsane guitarist/vocalist Chris Spencer's band. However, I did not realize that the other members hail from equally awesome groups, with Cop Shoot Cop's Jim Coleman on Electronics, Daughters' drummer Jon Syverson and Eric Cooper from Made Out of Babies. Syverson and Cooper replaced Drummer Phil Puleo and bassist Chris Pravdica, both of whom previously played with Swans.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Holy cow. What. A. Fucking. BANGER!

I don't know what to say other than what I always say: I went in 100% blind, you should too!!!

1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

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Read:

I pulled out some of my old issues of Craig Miller and John Thorne's Wrapped in Plastic to prep for a new episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror, where we're going to deep-dive David Lynch's Lost Highway. 

If you don't know, Wrapped in Plastic was a bi-monthly magazine published by Win-Mill Productions, which also published Spectrum magazine. WIP was published for 13 years, from 1992 - 2005. I came into it around issue 17 in 1995. This was pre-internet for me, and I no longer even remember how I became aware of the publication, although smart money is on Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics - still my Chicagoland shop of choice - as I remember them having it on their shelves, and '95 would have been about the time I began frequenting A-F every week. Issues 28 and 29 hit hot on the heels of Lost Highway's theatrical release, and I probably read these issues half a dozen times each. My idea in pulling them out was to supplement this next viewing with some outside analysis, and I have to say, it added a lot.

Incidentally, WIP went digital a few years ago, and you can now buy a digital bundle on their website HERE.

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Playlist:

Moon Wizard - Sirens 

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

The Mystery Lights - Purgatory

Human Impact - Gone Dark

Double Life - Indifferent Stars

Ministry - Hopium for the Masses

System Of A Down - Eponymous

The Mysterines - Afraid of Tomorrows

Various - Lost Highway OST

Wilco - A Ghost is Born

Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City

Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

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Card:

My card today for exploration today is 7 of Cups - Debauch:

I think I've found a better way to do these research entries. I've been treating them like a Pull, in other words random. Here now, though, I think grouping them from here out might be better. I didn't pull this card from the deck today, I specifically chose it to follow the 7 of Swords.

From Crowly's Book of Thoth: "The Seven of Cups... its mode is poison, its goal madness. It represents the delusion of Delirium Tremems and drug addiction." False pleasure.

New Music from Human Impact!!!

 

The second single the band has released from the upcoming album Gone Dark, out October 4th on Ipecac Records. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Being that I'm a huge fan of both Black Christmas and Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, I'd been meaning to catch Bob Clark's Death Dream - AKA Dead of Night - for a number of years now. When it landed on Shudder a month or two back, I immediately added it to my list, but it wasn't until a few nights ago when I woke in the middle of the night and found I could not fall back asleep, that I  stumbled on it playing from the beginning on Shudder TV. 

Not nearly as grand as Clark's other two aforementioned forays into the Horror genre, however, Death Dream did not disappoint, and it's no surprise that William Lustig's Blue Underground restored this one and put it out on disc. Death Dream is pure 70s Cult Cinema, and taken in the mood for such things, I enjoyed it immensely. Even restored there is a palpable darkness the camera and lighting add to the story that almost makes you feel like you're watching it at a Grind House Drive-In circa 1974.

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Playlist:

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

Melvins - Nude With Boots

Opeth - Deliverance

Charles Bradley - Victim of Love

Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss

Thou - Umbilical

Zombi - Shape Shift

The Knife - Silent Shout

Blue Meanies - Full Throttle

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

Mike and the Mevlins - Three Men and a Baby

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Dr. John - Things Happen That Way

James Brown - Funky People Vol. 3

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, starting today for the next 30, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.

• IV: The Emperor

• Two of Cups

• Page of Cups

Another late night photo of Grimm's marvelous Hand of Doom Deck. This time, the cards seem to be telling me to, oh gee, lookit that. Finish the book.

New music from Human Impact!!!

 

New music from Human Impact! This band's debut hit right around the time the pandemic began, and I remember it quickly became a fairly regular and significant piece of music for me. However, in the last few years, they kind of slipped from my radar. Now, their sophomore album Gone Dark drops October 4th on Ipecac; pre-order HERE.

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The Human Impact of Jakob's Wife

 

A new Human Impact EP dropped last Friday and I totally missed it. Last year's eponymous album from these guys was kind of the soundtrack to the apocalypse, so this comes with mixed feelings. Either way, if shit goes pear-shaped again, at least it'll have another great OST.

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Watch:

April 16th can't get here fast enough. Why?

I'll see anything even remotely associated with Larry Fessenden regardless, but it's always great when he spends more time on screen. Here, he's leading man opposite Barbara Crampton? In what looks like a fantastic modern vampire movie, no less.  Count me in.

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Playlist:

Pilotpriest - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Godflesh - Pure

Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark

Suburban Living - How to be Human

Pigface - Live 2019 (vinyl, 231 of 1000)

Huey Lewis and the News - Weather

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Card:

 

I read this as "letting go," which is especially pertinent to my day job at the moment. Being made salary means I'm taking a pay cut if I continue to work the extra hours I am essentially taking a pay cut, so I have to learn to let certain things go. I have a good team that works for me, and what this ultimately means is I will have a lot more time to write. Win Win, as long as I can let go.

Human Impact - Genetic

 
Somehow, I either missed or forgot that Human Impact released a single in September of last year. "Genetic" is a terse little fist to the throat, wrapped up tight in Human Impact's trademark, snarling severity. Hopefully, this is a sign of more new music to come.

 

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READ:

I did a lot of catching up on current comics over my brief sabbatical from work earlier in the week. Here's what I read and my take:

I didn't realize The Boys: Dear Becky was ending with issue #8 until I read issue #7. Now that the whole thing is out, I re-read it all from the beginning and enjoyed it quite a bit. The Boys is a really uneven epic in my eyes, with moments of emotional brilliance surrounded by what I've come to think of as Garth Ennis just being Garth Ennis. It worked the best in Preacher, but as with the regular Boys series, Dear Becky tends to step back up into the sublime just as you start to feel jaded about the ridiculousness. Overall, if you only know the show, you probably don't need to go back to the source material - The Boys is possibly the best example of an adaptation-for-screen that has completely trumped its source material - however, if you know and dig the original comic series, Dear Becky will scratch the itch.

Having only just read Laura Marks and Kelley Jones's Daphne Byrne a few months ago, our Deep Dive into Hill House Comics on a recent episode of A Most Horrible Library made me want to revisit this stunning Gaslamp-era New York. It's soooo good. Kelley Jones really just brings the creep factor up to eleven here, and it makes for a really fun, pleasing story with all the fixings - widows betrothed to the Devil, ghastly visions, malevolent visitations, and surly, Hackney con artists using peoples' grief and the rise of spiritualism to take advantage of them. 

This one came out in October, but I just read it, then kept it hanging around in the stack so I could read the short story and other backmatter stuff that rounds out every enormous issue of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus, an economy based dystopian world that I have become more and more convinced maybe the closest thing to what the world is going to look like by the end of my lifetime. Equal parts thrilling and intriguing, there's espionage, military strategy, human drama, and action. 

I'm using the image for the upcoming HC collection of Hellblazer: Rise and Fall, but if you can find the single issues, that's the way to read this one. The Black Label, Magazine format is perfect for this story, possibly the first new Hellblazer story in years I've actually really liked. This is the 'softer' JC we've seen in recent years, without that trademark Vertigo edge, however, there's still edge to be had, there's homage to previous creators all over the place, and maybe I just really wanted to like A) a new JC story and B) really wanted to like one of these Black Label books, because I dug this one. Three issues, doesn't overstay its welcome, is pretty humorous at times, and still captures some of the Black Magick Heart of the character. 

 

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Playlist:

Genghis Tron - Cloak of Love

Human Impact - Genetic (single)

The Soft Moon - Criminal

Helmet - Meantime

P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss

Small Black - Duplex (single)

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon (pre-release single)

Small Black - Best Blues

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Arctic Monkeys - AM

16 - Dream Squasher

Calexico - The Black Light 

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Card:

Stop abruptly and switch gears. 

Human Impact - E605

Loving this new project from former Unsane frontman. The album drops March 13th on Ipecac Records; you can pre-order it HERE.

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Last night, K and I returned to the theatre for a second viewing of Underwater, and this time we brought a couple of the other fiends from The Horror Vision. The second viewing was almost better than the first, and afterward we recorded a short episode - a spoiler heavy discussion. Also, THV is now available on Stitcher, as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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Playlist:

Butthole Surfers - Psychi... Powerless... Another's Man's Sac

Godflesh - Hymns

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

Card:

Ah yes, that Breakthrough. A well-timed reminder to get my ass out the door and to my writing spot, instead of starting a movie or continuing to sit here reading.