From the forthcoming album Signal Fire, out June 12th on Relapse Records. Pre-order HERE.
NCBD:
Here's my NCBD pull for Wednesday, 4/15/26:
Thus far, I love this adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep.
I'm not really sure why we're side-stepping the next issue of Ordained to do a zero-issue one-off for the hitman called in to take out Father Roy, but I dug the first two issues of the regular Ordained series, so by all means, toss in a few one-shots. This feels like it might have been inspired by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher series, the way many of the characters had one-shots or mini-series; it just seems like, after only two issues, this is a bit premature. Either way, I paid to see a Priest kick Mob arse, and I've no complaints so far, so let's deep dive the man that I'm assuming is a total badass.
Another Bad Idea book. There was a preview of this one in Ordained #2, and honestly, seeing David Lapham and Bill Sienkiewicz's names attached, this could be a Rainbow Bright series, and I'd probably pick it up.
A silent Zartan issue? That worked really well back in G.I.Joe ARAH #85, so I can't wait to see what Hama and team do with it here.
Pivoting back to Scarlett and Storm Shadow? This reminds me how much I'm digging this book and don't really need the reliance on "Ninjas" that the original ARAH book did. Still, I feel like, although this book started off lukewarm, it's kind of hit a stride, so I'm cautiously optimistic here.
After reading last month's Batwoman #1 by Greg Rucka and Dani, I picked up the DC Compact edition of the run this new book continues, named Elegy. I didn't love it the way I love some of Rucka's stuff, so I'm hanging onto my sub for this new chapter for a month or two more, hoping it really grabs me
Playlist:
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Mountain Realm - Shadowlorn
Blackbraid - Nocturnal Womb EP
Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
sunn O))) - Domkirke
Metallica - Kill 'Em All
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect the Corpses Rest
Mercy Girl - Closer EP
Card:
First spread since returning home from my trip, I thought since I've been using my mini-Thoth while away, I'd come home and plug back into the legacy deck.
• 4 of Disks: Power
• Prince of Swords
• 10 of Wands: Oppression
Establishing a power base is great, but once done, something has to navigate how you use that power. Will without intellect can go awry, as it is as raw a force as nature offers, only on a human scale. Things go wrong when Will is ruled by Earthly desires. Read: There has to be something bigger.
This cover RIPS! Hot damn, it's nice to hear such a spot-on cover of a song I love by a band I despise, especially since I don't have to have Dave Mustaine sing it, replaced instead by the inimitable Troy Sanders.
Watch:
A friend at work recommended this new HULU flick directed by John Lee.
HULU is a platform I generally don't use all that much; incorrectly or not, I associate them with being a bit more 'family friendly' than aligns with my tastes, despite the fact that they have long been a sponsor of Beyondfest and pull out a lot of stops for Horror come every autumn with their HULUween. Still, with the new seasons of American Horror Story and its brand new spin-off American Horror Stories both moving to the 'FX on HULU' status, as well as their ongoing relationship with Blumhouse - mostly to middling results from what I've seen - they're definitely trying to keep abreast of the genre. And now, holy cow: False Positive is A24!
(Have I mentioned that I'm starting to fear Horror is becoming too mainstream? No? Well, that's a discussion for another time, then).
So yeah, False Positive stars Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, and Pierce Brosnan, and it is creepy A.F. I will say, this isn't the A24 I'm accustomed to, exactly. There's a reductionist quality insofar as it feels more like a Blumhouse "Into the Dark" - which I think of as the calibre for the new "TV movie" format for the streaming age - than it does the A24 we see get theatrical treatment. Still, this is high-quality stuff, and it's definitely up there with the better flicks I've seen so far this year.
Playlist:
The Kills - Midnight Boom
Chairlift - Something
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Tape Waves - Bright
Anthrax - Spreading The Disease
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
King Woman - Doubt EP
Sunken - Livslede
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Perturbator - I Am the Night
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
Silent - Modern Hate
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Card:
Bull in a china shop, that's how I always read this card at first. I'm regrouping my strategy on this Nosleep serial I'll be posting soon (but not today). Don't want to come out of the gates strong and crawl to the finish line.
Wow, I am in a weird headspace this morning. Woke up earlier than needed and went right to looking this album up on Apple Music. I've had hair rock on the mind for the last few days. This goes back to that Recontextualizing the 80s idea I was posting about here a few years ago. Some of this stuff from the Sunset Strip sound of the 80s is definitely best left forgotten, but some of it has a place in history. Or at least in my history, I guess.
I never owned Cinderella's Long Cold Winter, but a friend in the neighborhood did, and I can remember hanging out at his house and popping it into the stereo more than a couple times. Other favorites at the time (off the top of my head) would have included Metallica's ...And Justice for All, ICE T's Power, GnR's Lies, and NWA's Straight Outta Compton. This was really at the start of my getting into music in a 'beyond the radio' way, and this neighbor was loaded and, in the way of a lot of rich folk a bit clueless, so he tended to buy tapes and CDs rather haphazardly (I didn't have a CD player yet, so he was my first exposure to the format).
I still have no idea why or how he chose to pick up a Cinderella album in the first place, this really wasn't his sound, but it was that anomaly factor that made me first pluck it from a pile of CDs and put it in the more than ample stereo. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Long Cold Winter became a go-to when hanging out at his house and listening to music, but that friendship dissolved shortly thereafter and he was lost to the waves of time. I haven't heard the album since.
Once you get past Tom Keifer's throat-singing, this record has a pretty cool sound. The title track still stands as a damn good example of that 80s rock/blues sound that, in my opinion, was perfected on Gary Moore's Still Got the Blues for You, and it's this quality, as well as the ripping slide guitar sprinkled here and there, that elevates Long Cold Winter above your standard 80s Hair Rock sound, although Cinderella does that to varying degrees of palatability throughout the rest of the record, as well.
Watch:
Joe Bob Briggs gave us the best of his Holiday specials he's done in some time last Friday with the Joe Bob Put a Spell on you, where he paired the Gore-cut of Tammy and the T-Rex with Anna Biller's The Love Witch.
I was fortunate enough to catch the premiere of Vinegar Syndrome's release of the long-lost Gore-cut of Tammy at Beyondfest 2019 - the film actually followed an in-person presentation of Joe Bob doing his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood lecture. Both were fantastic, and it was cool to see the two together again.
The Love Witch is one of the first movies K and I actively waited on the VOD premiere for back in the early phase of our relationship, due to a great LA Weekly article that talked about the absolute care and detail Ms. Biller put into making the film.
Playlist:
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone
Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissem - The Mystery of Heaven
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST
Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid
Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction
Teenage Wrist - Earth is a Black Hole
Helmet - Meantime
John Carpenter - Lost Themes III Alive After Death
Zombi - 2020
The Bangles - Different Light
Card:
Coincidentally, as I draw from my Thoth Deck, I reflect on the fact that one of the things I most love about The Love Witch is there is a room in the film painted with the colors of the deck.
Hammering away with increased gusto but an edge of carelessness that can bring the whole damn thing down around your ears. Ease back and keep a keen eye. This is totally a nod that I'm overworking myself and need to take tonight to chill out. Science and Will must be strategic (to a degree), and still possessed of mindfullness.
And then this! This is so close! I only just found out about this forthcoming documentary on the band Brainiac last month, but it feels like I've now been waiting for it forever.
Playlist from 1/19:
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death
Thou - Summit
Playlist from 1/20:
Calexico - Even My Sure Things Fall Through
Gordon Lightfoot - Gord's Gold
Card of the day:
The Airy aspect of Air, so the intellect of intellect, in a manner of speaking. Not sure how to apply this. The book is finished, and I've already read the first act to K. It feels GOOD. Little rough spots here and there, but nothing that can't be shored up as we go through it. I'll have to figure out if this card pertains to that, or the new project I've begun to brainstorm.
The new album Careful drops February 1st, 2019 on Nude Club Records.
Had a really nice night just reading in bed for an hour or so last night. The next DwC is tomorrow, and I've a gaggle of stuff to catch up on. First and foremost, as I've already talked yesterday about Blackbird, let me tell you the other new book I'm really hot for right now is Dead Rabbit:
Gerry Duggan and John McCrea. A retired criminal/vigilante thief finds he has to reinstate his life of crime to pay his wife's medical bills. Shit goes wrong. It's great.
Playlist from 11/07:
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Metallica - ... And Justice For All
Deafheaven - From the Kettle Onto the Coil
Briqueville - II
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Card of the day:
This card always speaks of things gone out of control to me. It also reminds me a bit of Ash being taken down by the three mini-Ashes in Army of Darkness. And believe it or not, that seems a pretty good place to start, because a lot of times I understand things better if I run them through a familiar lens, and film is a very familiar lens to me. So, in Army of Darkness, Ash fucks up, tries to play it off and ignore his mistake, and it ends up coming back to haunt him as these three mini-doppelgangers that bite and chew at him. Nothing important. But it's his lack of taking these little nuisances seriously that ends up leading to full-on Evil Ash, who is a Huge threat to him. So, what's the card saying? Take care of the little stuff - don't let it build up, or it will come back three times the size and way more serious. I think that's a health cue for me, specifically pointing to the two problems that persist - my sarcoidosis and my still-not-right left hamstring. I've made serious inroads to finally get back to taking care of both of these, but it's going to take a serious chunk of my already limited time. That's okay. This is a reminder that it's worth it.
Playlist from 8/14:
Fugazi - 13 Songs
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Sunbather
John Carpenter/Alan Howarth - Big Trouble in Little China OST
Card of the day:
And interestingly enough, the card on top of the other side of the split was the 6 of Wands Victory again. Which yes, I still need to hear.
