Showing posts with label Jerry Cantrell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerry Cantrell. Show all posts

Saturday, October 12, 2024

New Music from Jerry Cantrell!!!

 

The second single from the upcoming album I Want Blood, out next Friday, October 18th. Pre-order HERE.
 


31 Days of Halloween:

Last night, K and I watched Anouk Whissell, RKSS, François Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissell's Summer of 84 for the umpteenth time. This has emerged as one of my favorite films over the last couple years. It hits EVERY TIME. At first, I dismissed this as capitalizing on Stranger Things' popularity; however, it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. In the same way that Twin Peaks adopts the veneer of the TV night-time soap opera to subvert the genre, Summer of 84 does the same to the "kids on bikes" aesthetic popularized by Stranger Things.*


Summer of 84's ending is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in recent memory.

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
7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats
8) V/H/S Beyond
9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10) Terrifier 3
11) Summer of '84


* Yes, technically Kids on Bikes was invented and popularized in the 80s. By NO means am I suggesting ST invented it. I'm 48 - I grew up during the 80s. However, it didn't become an acknowledged "genre" - for better or worse - until later, and not a checklist-ready template until after ST.



Playlist:

Various - My Halloween Spotify Playlist
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Count Gorgann - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead
Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST




Card:

Taking a break from the single card studies for a pull from Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.


What's it say that the first card I lay down has my new friend here on it? 

• IV: The Emperor
• King of Wands
• XIII: Death

Action. Drive. Change. 

Friday, September 6, 2024

New Music from Jerry Cantrell!!!

 

The second single from Jerry Cantrell's upcoming album, I Want Blood, out on October 18th. Pre-order HERE.

Loving this new record so far. Jerry Cantrell is one of those humans who I root for 



Watch:


I am unfamiliar with Patricio Valladares's previous films; however, when I first read about her upcoming Invoking Yell, she instantly caught my attention. A found footage film that follows an all-female Black Metal band in Chile, set in the 90s? Events go awry through their penchant for recording paranormal phenomena for their records? What a fantastic idea. 

 

Invoking Yell hits VOD on September 20th.


Read:

I woke up early this morning and blew through pretty much the entirety of Sandman Volume 2: The Doll's House. I honestly don't know if there is a work of graphic fiction I love more than this one, especially issue #14:

This was instrumental in so much of who I have become. The dialogue, plotting, characters, and the way Gaiman weaves his own brand of dream logic throughout the series, as well as the way a large part of that crescendoes in this volume. We get the resolution for the missing Nightmares Brute and Glob, and how their machinations have affected the world - and the DCU - while Morpheus was indisposed. We are introduced to Lyta and Hector Hall, tying directly into previous Golden Age (?) iterations of 'The Sandman." We get the Corinthian and the Cereal convention, more of those amazing 'confessional' moments that echo back to Volume #1's 24 Hours. Gaiman knows spooky fantasy, but he also knows human nature at its lightest and darkest. Oh yeah, and we meet Hob Gadling, so Gaiman knows his classic English Literature and folklore as well. 




Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - 777 The Desanctification
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy
METZ - Up On Gravity Hill (Thanks, Jacob!!!)




Card:

Today's card for study is IV - The Emperor:


Rules that govern Life. THIS is an important aspect of the card that I tend to gloss over. When this comes up, it's a reminder to adhere to the boundaries of life, i.e., what keeps you alive. There's also the martial aspect, a further reminder of rigor. That said, there's also a flipside that reminds us not to let rationality and, by extension, civilization become a prison. So balance. That's the name of the game, and it's borne out by the image on the card. 

Decisiveness and linear thinking. 

Monday, July 29, 2024

New Music from Jerry Cantrell!!!

 

From the forthcoming album, I Want Blood, out October 18th. You can pre-order a copy HERE.

Jerry Cantrell kind of blows me away these days. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of his first two solo records - though I do like them, despite their somewhat uneven listening experience - and although I'm all for Alice in Chains continuing with James Duval, it doesn't always work for me. But between AIC's Rainier Fog, Cantrell's previous solo album Brighten (how has it been three years?), and now this 11th-hour announcement of I Want Blood, I feel the man is unpredictable in the best possible way. Aging musicians from bands that lost a key member over twenty years ago just don't act like this, and I LOVE it!!!




Watch:

Yesterday, K and I finally started Evil's long-awaited fourth and final season.


A) This might be the best show ever (minus Twin Peaks), and B) the writers have definitely been reading Laird Barron. The first episode of Season Four deals with strange happenings at a particle accelerator on the East Coast, and the second has a robot guard dog attacking innocent people. In a way, both of those are right out of Barren's third Isiah Coleridge, Worse Angels, although in the book, it's a robot sentry that attacks Coleridge while he's exploring an abandoned particle accelerator in upstate New York, but the influence is there.

And that's not to say all Evil's charms are limited to homage. This show has been a wild ride, a totally new take on a procedural crossed with X-Files, a demon-of-the-week that strictly adheres to a larger arc. The characters are among my favorites ever in a show like this, and the actual production... the lighting! This is THE BEST television lighting EVER. No joke. It works hand in hand with the set design to create this extremely relatable yet also liminal space the characters live and move within. And the practical FX! Also, Katja Herbers, Mike Colter and Ben Shakir are just fabulous. 




Playlist:

Big Black - Lungs
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
Jeff Grace - The House of the Devil OST
Cocksure - TVMALSV
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker
Mörmaid - Pearlescent Dark
Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent
The Church - Starfish
Mr. Bungle - Eponymous
Suicidal Tendencies - Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit... Déjá-vu
Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
Loathe - The Things They Believe
Mirar - Mare E.P.
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies E.P.
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity





Card:

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


• Ten of Cups
• Eight of Swords
• Ten of Wands

Earthly completion, a profound use of intellect (problem-solving) and completion of that which thou has Willed.

Okay, first, funky 70s lighting courtesy of a late-night photo in my office. Might play around with different lighting for these photos down the road. The aesthetic fits Grimm's Hand of Doom Deck. Which, by the way, there's a coffee table art book Kickstarter starting tomorrow. I'll post here.

As for this morning's cards, it's another nod toward finishing both the free Vol. 4 collection that should drop tomorrow (I think; I still have to iron out some last-minute copyright stuff today) and Black Gloves & Broken Hearts, which I wrote the final sentence of yesterday. I've had the ending for months, I just had to finesse the final chapters to get there. That appears to be where I am now, and I should just need to sort out the epilogue and then go through for a reading edit on two fronts - me and my constant beta reader, Missi. 




Tuesday, December 28, 2021

My Top Albums of 2021

2021 was a weird year for music. I spent A LOT of time on albums that came out in previous years. So much so, I wasn't entirely certain I could pick ten records that had a huge impact on me. Some of these have ended up here despite my having not fully ingested them yet. That's okay, I always know the special ones the moment I hear them (for the most part).

Here then, are my ten favorite records released this year:


Jerry Cantrell - Brighten: This is the album I've been waiting for Jerry Cantrell to make for years, and its arrival serves as the beginning of a new role for him in relation to popular music. Cantrell has always been a sage, but previously he's been reluctant about it. Brighten shows him aging into this new position in a way so as to best take advantage of the role as a songwriter and musician. Brighten is big and filled with living reflections, a man looking behind him to better inform his path into the future. The songs hit hard, because, despite a decade between us, I can completely relate. Aging is rough, but you have to take what you can from it, use your mistakes and triumphs to make the future better. 

Also, bringing Greg Puciato into the fold earns JC enormous goodwill in my book. 
 

Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs: Spare Ribs hit at exactly the right time, in my opinion, to make it both extremely poignant socially and serve as the most idealized presentation of Sleaford Mods' sound to date (I say that at the risk of having Williamson dismiss my assessment as 'cuntish'). These guys have a social perspective that previously made their minimalist approach to songwriting feel a lot bigger than it might have seemed at first glance. With Spare Ribs, the music has caught up. 


Ministry: Moral Hygiene: I'm not entirely sure when the last time a Ministry album made it onto one of my year-end lists. Maybe 2007's The Last Sucker, because, while I've liked most of the band's releases, I haven't loved any since Sucker. Moral Hygiene, however, is a return to form for Uncle Al and his cohorts. This makes perfect sense, as who else could you expect to chronicle the shitstorm of the last two years into pulse-pounding, cynical Industrial Metal that perfectly represents where we are in relation to our planet and technology? 


Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments: How so many fans turned their backs on James Kent for this album blows my mind because to me, Lustful Sacraments is an evolution for him as an artist that makes 100% perfect sense. It's deep, layered with nuance and knows when to take huge swings - all of which land. Incorporating more traditional "band" elements is no doubt a turn-off to some old-school fans who want another Dangerous Days. For myself, I'm happy to go wherever Kent's artistic wanderlust takes him.


Mastodon - Hushed and Grim: Double albums almost never work, yet they remain a rite of passage for bands. Hushed and Grim is probably the most solid of the like to come out in three decades. There's no excess here, nothing is superfluous. Each of the songs helps to expand Mastodon's sound, while as an overall cycle, all fifteen tracks form a solid, coherent whole. Not a feat easily mastered, but then, Mastodon has become one of the best bands around. 


Odonis Odonis - Spectrums: After 2016's Post Plague ranked as my number one album that year, I've not even really liked anything Odonis Odonis has done since. Spectrums is a return to form for the group, running the line between industrial and electro in a way that feels unique to this particular band, thrilling and a little crazy.


Adam Egypt Mortimer - The Obelisk: Filmmaker Adam Egypt Mortimer conjures another dimension with The Obelisk. This is unlike anything else I've ever heard, and for that reason alone, it garners my praise. But moving beyond the stunning adventure of the album's occult soundscapes, everything about the textures AEM uses to construct this fit into my favorite types of music. Sparse beats, analog synth, brooding overtones and flitting, ghostly flourishes of voices and who knows what the hell else. This is another one of those records that opens a door I feel as though I've been waiting my entire life to step through.


Eldovar: A Story of Darkness and Light: I stumbled across this record by the combined talents of Elder and Kadavar with no previous knowledge of either band's work. I think I may have listened to an Elder album at some point, but I remember nothing about that previous engagement with them. This then was a complete surprise. From the opening notes of the record, an immediate comparison to Led Zeppelin came to me. Not because of the sound of the music, per se, but because of the timeless aesthetic applied here. I believe this is what some folks took to calling "Proto Metal" back in the 2010s, and despite a certain lack of clarity in that as a descriptor, I get it. There's also a healthy dose of Acid Rock. But the emphasis on melody, specifically intertwining vocal melodies, gives this one an ephemeral quality that is not nearly as important to rock musicians today as it was in the afterglow of the 60s. Eldovar seems to have learned the lesson of that far-gone era and transported it to the present day with this album.


King Woman - Celestial Blues: King Woman has always been about balancing Doom aesthetics with a certain Post-Metal reserve, and on Celestial Blues, they perfect it. As brutal as it is reflective, this one drones, beats, cuts, and soars in a way that I defy anyone to put a definitive genre tag on. The haunting overtures that ebb and flow throughout the course of the album's nine tracks show songwriting on a level that bodes great things from this band in the future.


Nun Gun - Mondo Decay: A last-minute HOLY FUCK moment thanks to Heaven is an Incubator's 2021 list, it makes perfect sense this would hit me as hard as it did seeing as Algiers owned both my 2015 and 2017 with their first two albums. Mondo Decay is a strange, sick record that's filled with sonic homage while still playing as an extremely new, unique sound. When I listen to this, I feel like I'm honing in on it from between white noise transmissions, like Harlan and Maxx finding the pirate transmissions in Video Drome. This is clandestine and important, and a little scary in the best possible ways.

Monday, August 2, 2021

Jerry Cantrell - Atone

The youtube algorithm surprised me Saturday night by throwing the new Jerry Cantrell single my way. I had no idea this album was on the horizon, and despite my hot/cold relationship with Mr. Cantrell's other solo albums - all of which I like, but none that have really stuck with me like, say, the previous AIC album did - I really liked this song. What's more, and this is extremely rare, the video really helped drive home how I felt about the song. I feel like Cantrell is aging both as a human and a songwriter in a very elegant manner, and that brings great joy to my heart. Alice in Chains was, after all, birthed in a pretty severe amount of trauma.

The album, Brighten, drops on December 17. You can pre-order it HERE, though all the vinyl appears to be sold out at this point.




Watch:

Rewatched a couple of movies this past week that I'd been wanting to for quite some time. First, I finally picked up a copy of Dan O'Bannon's 1984 classic Return of the Living Dead on Blu-Ray. Despite my posting the Scream Factory trailer here, the version I purchased was the MGM release, simply because I didn't want to shell out $35 for it.

 

This film is a rarity to me: despite the comedic elements, RoTLD remains one of the most disturbing and frightening flicks I know. There's something to the starkness of the sets that creates an isolated feeling that permeates and really adds to the siege elements. Also, the entire idea that the dead are compelled to feast on the brains of the living because, as the torso-zombie lady says, "The pain of being dead," really disturbs me. Especially after Freddie dies and begins to repeatedly scream, "It hurts! It hurts!" 


Next, a few months back when Severin announced they would be remastering and releasing Gabriel Bartalos's Skinned Deep, I pre-ordered it. This is one my friend Dennis gave me back in the day, part of the original Fangoria's "Gore Zone" three-pack that also included the Irish zombie film Dead Meat, and The Last Horror Movie. I sold most of these back when my life was imploding in 2014 and had pretty much assumed Skinned Deep was something I had to consign to the aethers of the post-physical media world.

Enter Severin.


This is an extremely bizarre take on the backwoods slasher film that transports the crazy family of killers to the plains of the Southwest (I think). Watching it Saturday night, there's a really unique, really heightened 'You're where you don't belong" feeling to the flick, to the point that, combined with the over-the-top characters, I felt an almost dream logic over the entire story. I ended up conking out near the end, so I have to go back this week and watch it again.




Playlist:

Metal Church - Blessing in Disguise
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
The Replacements - Tim
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun
Peter Gabriel - So
The Maness Brothers - Tammie Jean (single)
Cloud Cruiser - I: Capacity 




Card:

 

This card always tells me to stay stream-lined, keep my head down in the fray, and refuse to relinquish what I've set my sights on.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

New Alice in Chains



I'm posting this without even listening to it as I'm at work and the computer I'm on does not have speakers. After Black Gives Way to Blue though, Jerry Cantrell and crew have (yet again) earned the benefit of the doubt.

Whereas with a lot of folks my age (36) Nirvana was their important new band during high school in the nineties, mine was AIC. Not to say I didn't like Nirvana - I did and still do. To a point. But the first time I heard Dirt - specifically the track Junkhead - it was like Layne, Jerry and the boys were speaking directly to me, summating my experience (minus the heroin) and presenting me with music the likes of which I'd never heard before (and really still haven't since) while doing it. When Cantrell began touring again under the name Alice in Chains I was skeptical but hey - it's not his fault Layne died. I made peace with it. Then when I heard they were releasing an album I was a little taken aback.

But then I heard it.

Several old school bands have released new or 'comeback' albums in the last ten years that somehow seems to pick up EXACTLY where they left off. Bauhaus's Go Away White and now Soundgarden's King Animal spring immediately to mind. But how Cantrell did it w/out one half of the main songwriters is beyond belief.

In an interview I read recently he talked about how with this upcoming album he was in the unique experience of feeling sophomore jitters for the second time in his band's career. I don't know how well album sales and their tours are doing for the guys in Alice but I hope it's keeping them living a good life.

They deserve it for all of the wonderfully innovative rock they've made over the years and I for one will be buying this new album DAY IT COMES OUT just to help show support to a band from the past that STILL has not disappointed me to date.