The first track off Testament's upcoming fourteenth studio album, Para Bellum, is out October 10th on Nuclear Blast Records. You can pre-order a copy HERE.
Fourteen albums? That just blows me away. I've dodged in and out of keeping tabs on these guys. Most of their records still sound fantastic to me, and if this first track is any indication, Para Bellum will be no different.
Watch:
Last night I saw Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's 2016 Shin Godzilla on the big screen for the second time in three days.
Read:
I'm halfway through Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and to complement it as research for Shadow Play Book Two, I've also procured a $10 Kindle copy of Richard Ellmann's celebrated biography of Wilde, Oscar Wilde:
This is often shown titled as Oscar Wilde: Pulitzer Prize Winner; however, I find that adding the book's accolade to the title is a bit churlish, to say the least.
I've pretty much accepted that despite the literal tower of books on my 'to-read' pile, the remainder of my 2025 reading will most likely be reserved specifically for research. Two exceptions are the Nathan Ballingrud and Laird Barron novellas due next month. Other than that, I'm all in on researching both Victorian and Elizabethan England, which have winnowed their way into my novel as main characters of the second act.
Playlist:
Windhand - Eternal Return
Sleep - Dopesmoker
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Testament - Infanticide AI (single)
Mastodon - Leviathan
Testament - The Gathering
Portishead - Third
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Hall & Oats - Rock 'N' Soul, Part 1
Deftones - private music
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVII: The Star
• XX: Adjustment
• Eight of Swords
Struggling interrupts the path to enlightenment.
That's a pretty vague interpretation, but I'm picking up what I'm putting down. This is a work-oriented Pull, letting me know that the theoretical middle finger roadblocks I'm throwing in certain folks' direction are perhaps counterproductive. I would argue that corporate backstabbing and rigamarole are also counterproductive, but that's just it - stop pointing that out and try to work past it.
