New Music From Odonis Odonis!!!

From the upcoming self-titled album, due out November 14th on Royal Mountain Records. Pre-order HERE.

Honestly, a lot of what these guys have done since 2016's Post Plague hasn't really stood the test of time with me. Post Plague is just so good that it generated some serious fan inertia. This, however. Wow. I love both tracks the band has released from this forthcoming album, and can't wait to hear the entire thing.

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31 Days of Halloween:

 

I received my copy of Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In Blu-ray this weekend, and quickly set about watching the first of the two features included. I'd seen Joe Lynch's Mayhem once before - when Joe Bob did it during season one of the show - and rewatching it, I loved it even more. I need to procure a copy of the Steve Moore score, too. 

.....

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)

15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)

16) The Black Phone 2

17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray

18) The Exorcist

19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow/// The Taking of Deborah Logan

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Read:

Inspired by the seasonal shift in the weather and my corresponding temperament, last Wednesday night I fired up Type O Negative's October Rust and dug Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn: Lucifer's Halo from my short boxes. 

Originally published in 1997 as a six-issue monthly mini-series through Sirius, at first glance at this book on the shelves, I wrongly assumed this was another in the late 90s spate of T&A books that flooded the shelves of comic book shops. Then, a few months into the run, while hanging out at a friend's house, I saw the series sitting on his coffee table and picked up one of the issues and began to flip through the pages. 

I was floored. 

I sat there and read the first two issues, then drove to the comic shop later that week and grabbed what they had on the shelf. To this day I'm still missing issue #1, but I bought everything Linsner did under the Dawn character after that: Three Tiers, the NY book in '01, Return of the Goddess, etc.  

Dawn is a singular concept. Utilizing religious themes, flourishes of High Fantasy, Horror, and eroticism, this book is visually stunning and intellectually fascinating. There's a tenderness to the romantic elements of the story that really makes me feel for the characters, particularly Darrian Ashoka, who is hopelessly in love with a Goddess and awash in a reality that suddenly includes Angels and Demons of a most violent sort. There's brutality to the violence, and a grandeur to the philosophical elements that really posit Linsner's writing as the product of deep thought and intense introspection, not just directed inward, but outward toward the goal of understanding our rich and tempestuous existence.

And then there's the Art. Nothing I could post here does it justice. Yes, a large part of the art is Dawn herself, but beyond that, JML really breathes life into the Metaphysical realms with a unique and lavish style unlike anything else out there. 

Time to track down that first issue on eBay. 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk version)

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery

My Live with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

Netherlands - Vapors

Asaf Avidan - Live at the Acropolis

Noga Erez - RADAR Reworked 

Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel

John Brennan and the Bigfeet - The Last Drive-In w/ Joe Bob Briggs OST

Various - Return of the Living Dead OST

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

Goblin - Suspiria OST

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Page of Cups

• X: Wheel of Fortune

• XXI: The World

Intuit change and stay ahead of it. That's the only way to survive the world as we know it today.

Again, I know that's pretty generic, but I'm running on fumes at the moment, so I'll be leaving the cards out on my desk to ponder in the morning.

 

More new music from Zeal and Ardor's upcoming new record Greif, out August 23rd. You can pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Joe Bob and Darcy did Joe Lynch's Suitable Flesh yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I had some issues with the flick the first time I watched it, but still gave it a favorable review. This time, I think I understood exactly where Joe Lynch was coming from on this one, and it helped. Kind of an adopt-and-subvert approach to a Skinamax flick, flipping it on its head and injecting it with some real Stuart Gordon-esque Gore/Body Horror.

Afterward, I was stuck in the usual post-Joe Bob funk. I want to watch something, I want to travel back in time and get transgressive, or even just obscure, but I usually just don't know how. I searched around for a while on Shudder, then ended up on YouTube somehow, where I found this:

A total Halloween wanna-be, right down to the music, but it did the trick. I sorted through comics, drank beer and wallowed in the 80s Slasher genre like Jade Daniels would. To invoke the proper mood, I even spun Wild Dogs by The Rods before I started the flick. Needless to say, it was a good Friday night. 

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Read:

I've kind of fallen out of posting Drinking with Comics here, so I should correct that. The new DwC: Drunk on Energon went up yesterday. Mike and I talk about the three latest entries in Robert Kirkman and Skybound's Energon Universe: Scarlett issue 1, Transformers issue 9 and Destro issue 1!

Destro is the treasure here. In one issue, this book is already giving the recently completed Cobra Commander series a run for its money as my favorite of the Energon books.

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Playlist:

Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

The Ravenonettes - Lust Lust Lust

Zombi - Direct Inject

Perturbatotr - Dangerous Days

The Rods - Wild Dogs

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Suitable Prey, Tender Flesh

From the 1988 album Tender Prey. I'm not entirely certain how I wound up here yesterday morning, but other than occasional dalliances, I've been disengaged from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for a while now. Might be time to remedy that. Pure Creative Force contained in this man's records.

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Watch:

As I was compiling my "Best Horror of 2023" list the other day, it occurred to me that I still had not seen Joe Lynch's Suitable Flesh. After Infinity Pool, this was my most-anticipated Horror flick of 2023. It did play at Beyondfest, but the day/time/location conflicted with our three-day When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplain, so I made a hard call. Turns out, I made the right choice because When Evil Lurks is looking like it may end up being one of my favorite Horror films of the decade (yeah, it's a bit early to be saying that, but I can't help it, my reverence knows no bounds.

But what about Suitable Flesh?

Now a $4.99 rental on Prime and hitting Shudder on January 26th, I finally watch Joe Lynch's modernized adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. It's great; easily one of the best modernizations of HPL, with fantastic performances, a wicked score and some amazing gore FX by Richard Jason Miller; I absolutely loved this flick. At this point, not sure it's ending up in my top ten (have one more rewatch to confirm or deny another film's placement), but it's still in the upper tier of 2023, which has been a fantastic year for Horror.

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Playlist:

Massive Attack - Protection

Various - Spotify Haunted Playlist

Massive Attack - Heligoland

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Tender Prey

Negative Blast - Echo Planet

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings

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Card:

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

• Ten of Wands

• Ace of Cups

• Nine of Wands

A cataclysmic act of Will brings an emotional Breakthrough and a full the means to finish a project. 

Suitable Psychos Howling in the Wind

 

Mr. Brown clued me into the fact that Jenny Lewis dropped a new record last week. Totally not on my radar at the moment. I've given Joy'All a few spins - if you dig Jenny Lewis in general, this is for you. I have to say, I'm not taking to this one as easily as I have with her older stuff. Last night I revisited her 2006 collaboration with the Watson Twins (who also, it turns out, have a new album dropping next week!) Rabbit Fur Coat and it reminded me just how much I love Lewis's work. Her voice, lyrics, and arranging.  All that's there on the new album, however, those qualities feel somehow muted. It may just need more listens, which I will surely give it over the upcoming summer evenings. That said, starting with 2014's Voyager - which I adore - I feel like Lewis found a 'sound' and has not veered too far outside it. That's cool. But I miss the days when she mixed things up a bit more. Either way, new Jenny Lewis is still an event to be happy about. You can order the record HERE.

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Watch:

Fangoria posted a teaser for Joe Lynch's new film Suitable Flesh; I've been chomping at the bit for this one, so despite my recent tendency to avoid trailers, I watched this. 

 

It's perfect - gives nothing away, floods us with fantastically menacing images, and then disappears. Not unlike a Lovecraft entity, really. That's it for me, though; I won't be watching any subsequent trailers. No word on exact release dates yet, but if this goes wide, I'll be there day one.

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Read:

I received and blew through Laird Barron's new Isaiah Coleridge novel, The Wind Began to Howl. Outstanding, as always. I'm amazed at Barron's ability to crank out insanely readable iterations of this character that are primarily stand-alone, modern detective stories, but also have begun to develop not only a big picture but a bridge into the Barron mythos we know from his short story collections and previous novel/novellas.  In my memory at least, back at the outset of Book One: Blood Standard, there was little to no direct sign of his strange, dark 'Outer'. It's here in spades now, although introduced and perpetuated in a way that doesn't fully immerse Coleridge in that world. Yet.

 

The Wind Began to Howl is published by Bad Hand Books and is available wherever books are sold!

 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Colter Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

Bria - Cuntry Covers Volumes 1 &2

Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber II EP

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - The Endless Multitude (pre-release single)

Godflesh - Purge

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

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Card:

I'm feeling a pull back to the Thoth Deck in a way I haven't in quite some time. It's good to be back; I love this deck. First one I owned and really, the only one for nearly twenty years. Missi's homemade Raven Deck and Grimm's Bound are the only other Tarot I own. There are thousands of gorgeous or intriguing decks out there, but I collect enough stuff.

Anyway:

• 7 of Swords: Futility - a conflict reaches a natural pause.

• Knight of Swords - Probably from exhaustion at fighting

• 9 of Cups - an understanding, peace or elation is achieved. 

There are a couple open loops in my life at the moment; none directly affect me, but all affect folks I'm close to. Not entirely sure what this Pull is referencing. 

I dabbled in the first act of Blood Magick I've tried in a long time last night. This was to help a friend, and I should say upfront, I use my own blood; I don't hurt other living things. I don't know that this Pull is referencing that. Full disclosure: I never 'ask the cards a question' before I draw. I just draw and read and usually, the result makes its subject known instantly. But this... I'm not sure how to read yet.

Interesting note: Blood begets blood. I had dark, bloody A.F. dreams all night. Two relatively close friends - no one I have ever mentioned in these pages - died of a knife puncture to the throat. This happened in the old practice spot my bands had in the 90s, the studio apartment above my parents' detached garage. The scenario began with one friend, and the dream jumbles events so I'm not sure if it was a suicide or somehow I was the killer. After the agonizing event of the death, we (no idea who the 'we' were, but it was definitely more than just me) placed the body in the bathtub with ice, then fretted over contacting the person's spouse. This was the worst part of the dream, because it seemed even dream me was unsure if I was responsible for the death. Then, in true dream logic, the body became that of someone else entirely.

This did nothing to abate the horror.

The dream flit in and out of several iterations of waking, so that by the time I awoke this morning, I was unsure if the chronology of torment it imposed on my psyche was from last night, or if the dream has been recurring for several nights and I just haven't remembered it until now. As of typing this, I feel relatively certain this only occurred last night. 

Disturbing, yes. However, like bad drug experiences, I dig nightmares. I'm always able to crack a piece of my consciousness off and have it observe from a third-party perspective, even while the rest of me shrieks in horror. 

 

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