The Besnard Lakes - She's an Icicle

 

Somehow, I totally missed that The Besnard Lakes released a three-song EP last year. The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP is one of my favorite missives from the band in some time, and of its three perfect tracks, opener She's an Icicle is, to me, everything I love so much about the band: the swirling morass of guitars fx and keys, Bonham-esque beats and Jace's heavenly voice surrounded by layer upon layer of harmony, all combining to make a dirgey rock and roll ephemera. You can order this directly from the band HERE.

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NCBD:

Short and sweet this week. Here we go:

I love the fact that we still haven't seen all of the fallout from the events of this year's Hellfire Gala. Man! I'm still blown away by that issue. So much changed so fast. Based on this cover, I think we're going to start really feeling things with this issue.

I wasn't going to read this issue the same way I keep saying I'm dropping Ghost Rider's main monthly book, but they keep pulling me back in. The idea that there's a new Weapon X/Weapon Plus program coming, but one that utilizes the stolen powers of Hell just blows my mind. HIGHEST of concepts; let's hope they pull it off. 

 

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Brew:

I stumbled across this on Kickstarter recently (Thanks to an email from Unplugged, the beer tracking app), and I'm pretty tempted to get in on this one:

It's a lot of money, but seems like it would definitely pay for itself at some point. Or, it would just make me drink more. Hmm...

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Read:

I finished Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper yesterday and am happy to report I was blown right the fuck away. Talk about one-upping the original. I'm not saying Reaper is better than Chainsaw, but to be as good, with even more stakes, well, damn. Just damn. Now we just have to wait until March 26, 2024, for the final installment, The Angel of Indian Lake. 

Now, of course, I need something new to read and I just don't know what can follow SGJ. I've had Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls in my Kindle forever, but my friend Jesus sent me a physical copy a few months ago and it's on my nightstand, so I guess that's the winner by default. 

This one comes highly recommended by a lot of people; however, for whatever reason, I've been reluctant. I LOVED Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism back when I read it circa 2017, so much so that I actually bought something like half a dozen copies and sent them to a bunch of friends for their birthdays at the time. That experience left me feeling like I would read anything Hendrix wrote, then a funny thing happened. I watched Satanic Panic, which Hendrix wrote the screenplay for, and hated it so much that it turned me off instantly. If questioned, I no longer even remember what it was I disliked about that flick, and a good friend recently said he saw it and loved it, so I'm thinking if We Sold Our Souls goes over well, I may give that another go, too.

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Playlist:

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow Live at CBGB

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP

††† - Invisible Hand (pre-release single)

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

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Card:

• Ace of Disks

• III The Empress

• Queen of Cups

Ace of Disks always reads as a monetary or 'Earthly' breakthrough, and combined with The Empressthe implied Motherly qualities of The Empress and the Emotional fortitude of the Queen of Cups, I'd say this is directly referring to my folks coming down here this weekend to house hunt. 

 

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The Kills Live From The Basement!!!

 

"Mutha fucka must'a thought it was live music week. It ain't live music week, is it Marty?" 

"Yeah, man. It's live music week." 

Well, Marty and Drexel have spoken. It's live music week. Here's a nice, tight live set from The Kills, originally published on the From The Basement youtube channel, which you should definitely check out and subscribe to HERE.

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NCBD:

My picks for this week's NCBD:

After last week's Hellfire Gala, well, shit. I can't wait to see this. I'll admit, I did not expect the landscape of X to be so completely changed in just one issue. Looking at a lot of the books launching after this, I'm not super interested in how the X Bullpen is choosing to explore this new playing field, however, I maintain my hopes that the core books will continue to turn out awesome entries into this aptly named Fall of X saga on a monthly basis.

The final issue of TMNT's The Last Ronin: Lost Years. In comics, possible future spin-offs are pretty common, and in general, I'd say I'm a fan. That said, there's so much of this kind of story out there, it feels a little overdone these days, and I tend to stay away from them. In TMNT's case, I really feel like they did it right. I don't know if I need a constant line of these Last Ronin stories, but I'd definitely be up to revisit the world again at a future date.

A Thessaly one-shot written by James Tynion? Yeah, sure. I want that. Thessaly's always been a Sandman Universe character that fascinates me. She's brutal and sexy and seemingly has no fear, which always makes her showing up a bit fretful for the characters already in play in any given story. Since this ties into the current Nightmare Country storyline, I'm curious to see whose blood Thessaly spills. Also, curious to see her and The Corinthian interact, as I can't remember off the top of my head if that's ever happened before.

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Read:

I finished my re-read of Stephan Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw yesterday and immediately jumped into this year's sequel, Don't Fear the Reaper. It's funny - last year when Chainsaw came out, I was sick, home from work for a week, and read it in three days. This year, I'm not only working, but hammering out a novel, so I had to read it more piecemeal. Didn't affect the sheer joy the novel inspires in me, but I also wanted to state it out loud, so no one out there reading this thinks Chainsaw is anything but one of the greatest Horror novels since Pet Semetery. 

Only a couple chapters in so far, and I already can feel I am standing at the precipice of a masterpiece. I don't know how I can love the sequel more - and I don't want to jinx it - but the broadening scope Jones starts laying out in Chapter Two: Dark South Mill has me positively giddy with excitement at where the novel will go.

 

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Playlist:

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish

The Kills - Live From the Basement

Arctic Monkeys - The Car (thanks Josh!)

Goblin - 2013 Tour E.P.

Zombi - Shape Shift

Mammon XV - Woes and Winter's Breath

Silent - Modern Hate

Meg Myers - Sorry

Steely Dan - Aja

Calexico - The Black Light

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• IV: The Emperor

• V: The Hierophant

• Page of Cups

Decisiveness in the face of dogma and institutions we adhere to in our daily lives. In other words, decide against the grain of the life I've set up

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Duration:

I've kind of messed up the days I'm doing this report, and this is a week old now, so I'll post the current report tomorrow.

Better. Not great, but better than last week, and I'm making leaps and bounds in the actual mechanics of the ending, which again is known, but not yet written. I've gone back through the entire novel, shoring things up, installing alignments that will hopefully carry me into a successful first draft of that ending.

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New Music from Colter Wall!

 

Really digging this new album from Colter Wall that dropped yesterday. Major props to Jonathan Grimm for turning me onto this guy. You can order Little Songs directly from Colter's website HERE.

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Watch:

 I have had a rough time trying to get into Junji Ito's work. I tried the 2000 adaptation of Uzumkai titled Spiral and didn't get very far. I recently attempted the new Netflix series adapting several of Ito's stories, and hated what I saw of it. So many people I know and respect love Ito's work though, so I keep periodically trying. What I need to do is pick up one of the collections of his Manga, however, I have such a pre-existing and totally unfair prejudice against Manga from my five years at Borders Books that I can never get myself to actually buy any of them. Now, there's a new Adult Swim adaptation of Uzumaki coming out, here's the trailer:  

Just based on this 'trailer' - which is really just a scene from the series - I think this may be my entry point into Ito's work. There's something so stark about this; a friend has talked to me at length about the mystery of Uzumaki, and it always sounds fascinating and urgent, which is kind of the vibe I get here. No release date information yet, but Uzumaki will air on Adult Swim, which is of course one of the "Hubs" on Max. 

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Playlist:

Colter Wall - Little Songs

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Black Mirror: Black Museum OST

Flying Lotus - Yasuke

Rina Mushonga - In A Galaxy

Future Islands - Singles

Godflesh - Purge

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Assembly Line People Program - Eponymous EP

Deadguy - Work Ethic EP

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Drug Church - Hygiene

Aerosmith - Pump

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Wands - The 

• Two of Swords

• Four of Pentacles

I don't have the perspicacity to interpret this today, so I'm just leaving it here for future reference.

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I'd Rather Be...

Just watched the final episode of The Bear Season Two. We've been dragging this out because I love it so much, but after doing episodes 8 and 9 Monday night, there was no way we could not do 10 last night. Emotional wrecking ball - good, bad, ugly... ALL the feels. I don't think I've ever seen a show quite like this, and these 'real-time' episodes just blow me away.

I've always loved Pearl Jam's Animal; Out of the 12 (?) tracks on the original release of Pearl Jam's second album Vs., the opening two tracks, Go and Animal, are among the best the band ever did. The album slides into wishy-washy territory from there for me; I dig about three more songs on it, and while I don't necessarily dislike the rest, none of them are in the "I have to have that available to me for when I need to hear it" territory that Ten and those five or so songs from Vs. are. I wish I could say I connected with anything else Pearl Jam ever did after this, but aside from giving a thumbs up to a few songs from the first album with Matt Cameron on drums (2002's Riot Act, I think), I respect the hell out of them and 100% think they tow their own line, but just never really cared. Still, this was PERFECTLY placed in this episode, and I applaud everyone involved in making this tour de force of a show that is as bite-sized as shows tend to come these days (short episodes, short seasons, nothing missing. Trim the fat, Jeff).

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NCBD:

Small Pull this week, but I'm looking forward to both of these titles quite a bit.

I know I'm still relatively new to Something is Killing the Children, picking up with the series around issue #16, but having this recent hiatus in the middle of the current storyline was difficult, to say the least. I've been waiting for this book to come back with a fervor I don't possess very often these days, so I can't wait to read this one. NOTE: That's a variant cover I posted above; almost no way I'm going to end up with that, but still wanted to post it, because hot damn, that's rad!!!

I LOVE that, so far, the X-Men books are sticking to Magneto's death. It's so funny; I've always disliked the Magneto character, and just when he becomes one of my favorites, he's gone. Thus is life, and thus is good freakin' writing. I'm not foolish enough to think ol' Mags will stay dead, but for now, in the era where none of the mutants ever die for good because resurrection is a plot point, having a meaningful, lasting death of a major character is thrilling. 

Also, I really love the 'team' in X-Men: Red. It's not really a team at all, and feels a bit like a super Sci-Fi version of my favorite era of the book, Claremont's Dissolution and Rebirth, when the team took the Reavers' old base in the abandoned town in the Australian Outback. 

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Back:

My good friend Jonathan Grimm sent me a link to a Kickstarter some friends of his are doing. I backed the instant I read the first paragraph of the recap: 

When Black Sabbath (not the Beatles) became the world’s most famous band, the universe was changed, musically and otherwise. Lost arts, like Alchemy, were made common, schools taught about transfiguration and alternate science, Demons were summoned and some stuck around.

Drumsticks of Doom sounds awesome and these guys are in their last 37 hours and they are oh so close, so if you're even remotely interested, go HERE and throw down!

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Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Jim Willaims - Possessor OST

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Agnes Obel - Aventine

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Seven of Swords

• VI: The Lovers

• Seven of Wands

Two sevens and a six, eh? Numbers alone, this shows steps, consecutive or otherwise. Seven of Swords (Intellect) and Seven of Wands (Will) can work together or against one another. Combined with The Lovers, I'd say it's a harmonious union. 

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Baroness - Beneath the Rose

More new Baroness. New album Stone is out September 15th, pre-order from the band's website HERE. Really cool video for this track, too. Not something I'm prone to complimenting bands on. 

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Watch:

Tubi's Cabin Girl - written by Leslie Beaumont and Rory James Wood and directed by Jon D. Wagner - is FANTASTIC. I posted the trailer a few days ago, so I won't post it here again now, but needless to say, this is a definite contender for my top ten Horror of the year so far. 

Also, despite being on Tubi, there are zero ads. I have a short, spoiler-free review over on Letterbxd HERE. 

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Playlist:

Jogger - This Great Pressure

Baroness - Stone (pre-release singles)

Baroness - Gold and Grey

Tremors - Dark Glasses (single)

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

The Soft Moon - Deeper

Zombi - Shape Shift

Brainiac - Predator Nominate

The Doors - L.A. Woman

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XL The Wheel

• III: The Empress

• Nine of Swords

Struggling against the tides dictated by Gaia will only lead to self-deception and bad dreams. Whoah, Pretty much a direct answer to a direct question about major upheavals in my life at the moment. Moving my parents from the suburbs of Chicago to Clarksville is the way to go despite reservations I've begun to have, because moving them at this point is just working with, not against, the tides of life. The older we get, the more we need the support of loved ones. My folks are in amazing shape for being in their 80s - I know people in their 60s who look and behave older than them, but despite their continued independence, we all know the best course of action is to get them down here, so we have to stop over thinking things.

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Gunship - Monster in Paradise

 

I'm not really big on Gunship, but A) this video is cool A.F. and B) It features a ripping guitar solo that ushers in none other than Tim Cappello on saxophone! Wow, it's almost like Gunship's ScyFy aesthetic is a reality and they were able to go back in time and bring the big, bad sax player straight from The Lost Boys! Hopefully, while they were there, they didn't snag any of Grandpa's Double-Thick Oreos or Root Beers.

Gunship's upcoming album Unicorn drops on September 29th. You can pre-order a copy HERE.

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Watch:

So, I'd heard about Tubi making original material now, but pretty much turned my nose up. Until now:

K watches a lot of youtube folk who buy old houses and convert them into their dream homes, so I've absorbed a lot of that over the last few years. That means this trailer immediately caught our collective attention. This really looks like it could be something great, so I'm checking it out sooner rather than later.

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Playlist:

Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror

Godflesh - Streetcleaner

Pale Dian - Feral Birth

Zombie - 2020

Willie Nelson and the Family Live

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XV: The Devil

• Knight of Pentacles

• Three of Cups

Taking ideas/information from unlikely or uncomfortable places is best accomplished with a thorough application of Will to subjects mired and misaligned by conventional opinion. 

New Music from FEN!

In 2011, my good friend and Horror-Vision co-host Tori gifted me Fen's album Epoch. This, maybe more than any other album, propelled me headlong into Black Metal. I'll never forget the first time I hit play on Epoch; it was pouring rain - uncharacteristic for Southern California - as I drove home to San Pedro from Borders Books in Torrance where both Tori and I worked at the time. 

The rain was perfect; I've maintained ever since that this record sounds like it was recorded in the rain (whatever that means, exactly, I can't really explain). At the time I was also falling in love with John Crowley's Little Big, and that book, the weather and Epoch combined to invoke a nearly hallucinatory couple of days off. I kept up with Fen through the follow-up, 2012's Dustwalker, then kind of dropped off for no reason that had anything to do with the band. Seeing the release of Monuments of Absence last week, I was blown away by the opening track, which is considerably more severe than anything I've heard Fen do, though as I say, I'm behind a few albums. Looking forward to catching up, though.

Monuments to Absence dropped this past Friday, 7/07/23, so you can head over to the Prophecy Productions website and order a copy HERE.

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Watch:

Bloody Disgusting did an exclusive premiere of the trailer for the new company Neon Noir's first film, That's A Wrap:

Beautiful colors abound, so they definitely nailed that element of the classic Giallo aesthetic. I watched enough of this trailer to know I will be checking it out when it releases August 25. You can read Bloody Disgusting's full article about That's A Wrap HERE.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Stay (single)

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Godflesh - Pure

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Fen - Monuments to Absence

Fen - Epoch

Drab Majesty - Careless

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Final Light - Eponymous

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Forhist - Eponymous

Type O Negative - October Rust

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Cocksure - Be Rich

INXS - Kick

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

It's been a minute since I handled the Bound deck, so I tapped into it for this morning's Pull:

• Knight of Pentacles - The Will as applied to Matter; Fire/Earth

• Knight of Wands - The Will as applied to Will; Fire/Fire 

• Page or Princess of Wands - Matter applied to Will; Earth/Fire

That's a lot of wink-wink about my Will, eh? I read this as a reminder to be present and apply patience, lest my Will, pulled taut, snap and leave me rudderless for a while. Long story short, I need a reset in order to carry on.

 

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Godflesh - Army of Non

 

The mighty Godflesh has returned at last! I have a friend visiting from LalLaLand and as such, completely forgot that the new album Purge was released this week. Friday night as we left one of the three breweries we take all our visitors to, this popped up in my Apple feed and, after waiting for the conversation at hand to run its course while sitting in the parking lot, I warned everyone they were about to experience the new record at a rather loud volume while driving home. Wonderful; that's the only word here. We made it through about half, and with further conversating and what not once home, I refrained from playing the rest until I could do a nice, immersive listen on headphones, so that will be later today, and the vinyl I pre-ordered months ago doesn't ship until early July, so until all that happens, "Army of Non" is my current favorite track on the record.

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Watch:

Holy F*&K! Ted Geoghegan's new film Brooklyn 45 is fantastic! This one defied all my expectations

            

I don't want to say too much about this one; it's not as though there's a twist or anything, however, Brooklyn 45 really impressed me with the ambitious, and frankly unexpected dramatics that make up the meat of the film. Sure, there's a lot of Horror Fun to be had, but this one is more akin to Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth than it is Evil Dead (although there are moments...). This one dropped on Shudder last week and is WELL worth Your time, especially if you liked Geoghegan's 2015 film We Are Still Here as much as I did. Companion pieces in a way.
           

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Playlist:

Weird Studies - On Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" and "Hellbound Heart"

Colton Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

David Bowie - The Next Day

Ganser - Odd Talk

Iggy Pop - The Idiot

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I

Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

CCR - Eponymous

Godflesh - Purge

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship (Without a Sail)

The Flamingos - The Best of the Flamingos

Jenny Lewis - Joy'All

 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Four of Pentacles - completion of a job: I have set a goal for the first draft of the novel I'm currently writing, and it is next Tuesday.

• Ace of Swords - Breakthrough: Not sure if this is confirming success or a nod that setting this goal was the 'breakthrough.'

• Five of Wands - Marshall the forces of Will, 'cuz it's going to be a struggle. A worthy struggle, though.
 

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New Music From PJ Harvey!

 

PJ Harvey released the second advance track from her upcoming record I Inside the Old Year Dying a few days ago, and after listening to that and first single "A Child's Question, August" a few times these last few days, I have gained quite the anticipation to hear the entire record. So far, this one strikes me as having as much not to do with her previous albums as it does incorporate a kind of sum-total of her entire oeuvre. Yeah, that's kind of a c-u-next-tuesday word for a music or film blogger to use; don't care. When you talk about Ms. Harvey, you gotta class the place up a bit. Pre-order the new album directly from the artist HERE.

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Watch:

The full trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos's new film Poor Things dropped earlier today, and despite my swearing off trailers, once I saw the still, I had to watch it (part of this decision was based on the fact that I find it doubtful the trailer for one of Lanthimos's films could ever betray its intentions. Judge for yourself, if you dare!

 

What the hell, right? A cast stacked with impeccable actors for a twisted twist on the Frankenstein story? I'm finding it difficult to formulate any opinion on what we see here, other than it will no doubt be as unique and engrossing as this director's other films. I now know where I will be on September 8th.

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Playlist:

Low - Trust

Slowspin - Talisman

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying (pre-release singles)

Ike and Tina Turner - Live? The World of Ike & Tina

Colter Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Gila Monster/Dragon (pre-release singles)

Bria - Cuntry Covers Volumes 1 & 2

White Lung - Paradise

Soft Play - Are You Satisfied

Steve Moore - Christmas, Bloody Christmas OST

The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

My first Pull since returning from my Chicago trip, and it's almost identical to one my good friend Missi asked me to help her read the day before. How's that for awesome?

•  On the Tree of Life, The Empress is the first Trump to connect two pillars, from Chokman to Binah, the act of transforming Knowledge into Understanding. Not always easy. This is a card that, while it does not touch the superstate of Kether - the white hot room, as Grant Morrison would say - does represent a process of making the intangible tangible, collating and processing information to produce a result. 

• Ace of Wands - Willfull Breakthrough

• Seven of Pentacles - Earthly victory; accomplishment. Completion and the exhale that follows.

When I string all this together, I see a message that suggests hard work, but not necessarily of the physical kind. In my own terms, this is telling me I have to do more conceptual work, more mental hammering of narrative logistics. This will produce results. 

 

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New Music From The Mysterines!

 

 

The Mysterines dropped a new single yesterday, and I'm hoping it's the herald for a new album! 2022's Reeling easily made it into my ten favorite albums of that year, and as that was my jumping on point with the band, I'm anxious for more. In the meantime, hit their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Last night K and I had the extreme pleasure of watching Jon Wright's latest film, Unwelcome. Here's the trailer:

I'd only seen the director's 2012 film Grabbers, which is a riot, so I had no idea what to expect with Unwelcome. Well, this one shot to the top tier of my favorite flicks released so far in 2023. The characters are instantly likable and relatable - very important. Also, the effects are fantastic and the storyline really draws you in. Reminded me a bit of The Hallow, what with the rural Irish setting and use of Celtic Folklore. Unwelcome is a $3.99 rental on Amazon at the moment, and absolutely worth spending the dough on - highly recommended.

 

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Playlist:

Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman (pre-release singles) 

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest 

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Gila Monster (single) 

Ganser - Odd Talk 

High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine 

High on Fire - Death Is This Communion 

Spotlights - Seance EP 

Spotlights - Love & Decay

Joan Jett - Album

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

•Ten of Swords - Completion of challenge

• Ace of Pentacles - Breakthrough in Earthly matters

• Ace of Wands - Breakthrough of Will or through Will, which is the case here, I think.

More cosmic writing advice, which is paying off. I went to my coffee shop to ice out the world and focus. I've begun writing at home quite a bit, but being I was stagnant for several days (almost a week), I needed to jump-start the old attention span. It worked, but only too well. 4.25 hours of sleep last night; I'd gotten used to close to 8 for the last few weeks. Thus, Breakthrough of Will.

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Tastes Like Candy

For reasons that will be obvious to anyone who watched the Yellowjackets season two finale this past Friday. I've already posted The Horror Vision's discussion on youtube and all streaming platforms. Crazy good and this song was a perfect choice to end the episode and season. 

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Watch:

I finally watched Huesera: The Bone Woman the other day. Pretty solid flick. I ended up wanting a bit more in the story department, however, filmmakers rarely go wrong giving us less instead of more. This is the slowest of the slow burns but is peppered with some genuinely freaky moments and images, chief among them the giant Mary statue at the start of the film (you see a bit of it in the teaser below, but that doesn't quite do the scene justice).

 

Directed by Michelle Garza Cervera, Huesera: The Bone Woman is streaming on Shudder and well worth your time, when you're in the mood for a film that settles in and slowly turns up the heat. 

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Read:

Last week, I finished Chuck Palahniuk's The Invention of Sound. I would recommend this one to any old-school Palahniuk fan or new reader interested in his work. This is classic form Palahniuk - The Invention of Sound reads exactly the way I remember Choke, Lullaby, Diary reading when I first started seeking the author's work out in the late 90s/early 00s. That might be a bad thing if you've just recently read a bunch of his work, however, if you're like me and haven't read anything he's written in a while, this will remind you of what you loved about his older books. 

I've always thought the key to Palahniuk is not reading a bunch of his books in a row. Not an easy thing to do when they move so quick and have such propulsive style and ideas. However, there seems to be a law of diminishing returns if you binge his stuff, or at least there is for me and quite a few other fans I've spoken to about this over the years. Anyway, none of that should be taken as criticism; I love the man's work and I love this book.

After finishing that, I was set to go into a re-read of Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw as prep to then read the recently released sequel, Don't Fear the Reaper, however, something drew me to a novel my good friend Jesus had sent me quite some time ago, Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy.

This book is fantastic! A slasher novel that revolves around a group of incoming Senior girls at a Texas High School who get picked off one-by-one in an closed carnival. I blew through Tastes Like Candy in four days, and it really only took me that long because I had friends in from out of town for the holiday weekend. My Goodreads review is HERE, however, suffice it to say here that this fit right in with all the other well-known authors I've been reading this year. Great stuff! The author's website is HERE if you want to check out her work.

         

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Playlist:

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Dir En Grey - The Marrow of a Bone

Queens of the Stone Age - Emotion Sickness (pre-release single)

Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

The Effigies - Remains Unknowable

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

X - Los Angeles

Blut Aud Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses

Druids - Shadow Work

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age

Trombone Shorty - For True

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Knight of Cups - Controlling Emotion with Will

• Two of Pentacles - Earthly Partnership

• Three of Swords - Growth of conflict or complex relationship

As always, keep in mind the interpretations I lay down for individual cards are a combination of grimoire research strained through personal circumstance. That said, I'm fairly certain this is reminding me of my current project (again), which has been on the backburner over the long weekend while friends were in. I have a fairly complex legal/business relationship in the novel, and I really need to work that out before proceeding.

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New Music from Swans

 

More new music from the upcoming album The Beggar, out June 23rd on Young God Records/Mute. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

RIP Tina Turner. Here's a fun little clip of her on Letterman back in the day. The song is one from the era where she kind of followed Bowie and a lot of other aging 70s icons into a brief dalliance with what I'd call new age adult contemporary - not really my thing, but I'm not really posting it for that reason. Stick around to the end and watch Letterman go absolutely Ga-Ga for her before asking her to demonstrate how she taught Mick Jagger to dance.

There's a joy to Lettermen when he's in the presence of performers he really admires, and it shines here. Also, very cool to hear Tina Turner talk about her relationship with the Stones.            

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Read:

Kind of a NCBD addendum picked up a book I'd not expected to this past Wednesday, Damian Connelly's Blood, Love, Ghosts, and a Deadly Spell:

A very cool softcover collection of B&W Horror that puts me in mind of old Vertigo and Negative Burn comics. The first story in this, Helena, was my favorite, and it definitely has me interested in picking up Connelly's other books, You Promised Me Darkness and Follow Me Into Darkness. 

Blood, Love, Ghosts, and a Deadly Spell is published by Fairsquare Comics and Alien Books. If you can't find it in a shop, you can order from Fairsquare HERE. 

          

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Yeruselem - The Sublime

The Sword - Warp Riders

The Ocean - Heliocentric

Ganser - Odd Talk

The Ravenonettes - Raven in the Grave

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I

High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine

The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Beach House - Become EP

Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

CCR - Eponymous

Sleep - The Sciences

Ghost - Phantomime EP

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Druids - Shadow Work

Soft Play - Sockets (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Page of Cups - Princess in Thoth, this is the physical aspect of emotion

• Seven of Swords - Completion of Will, or perhaps more commonly, of conflict

• Six of Swords - Here, I think, Balance of conflict

This is one of the more difficult Pulls to read in quite some time. I definitely think this has to do with my current project, but I'm unclear how, exactly, so I'll do what I always do in situations such as this: leave the cards up on my desk where I can see them all day. Sometimes that's enough to trigger understanding.

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Druids - Shadow Work

 

 From Druids' 2022 Shadow Work, an album I just discovered and which is blowing me away. Released via The Ocean's Pelagic Records, these guys fit that aesthetic like a glove, although I'd say they're a bit closer in sound to super stoner group Shrinebuilder than the Post-Metal of The Ocean. Either way, this entire record is fabulous, so it was tough to choose a track to post. Luckily, Pelagic has a full stream up. You can order this one direct from the label's website HERE.

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NCBD:

Another short but sweet NCBD. Here are my picks:

Black Tape's fourth and final issue! I still haven't read three, so sometime soon I'll sit down and burn through the entire arc. Love that Shout At the Devil homage cover!

Still one of my favorite reads every month now that the status quo has resumed, Boss and Rosenberg's What's the Furthest Place From Here has to be the single most intriguing 'world' I've come across in a comic in a long time. 

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Play:

Here's a hilarious little commercial Puppet Combo made for their summer sale, which began yesterday!

 

I can't play any of this stuff on my computer, otherwise, the "Buy All" for $25 would be a total no-brainer! The direct link to the sale on Puppet Combo/Torture Star's website is HERE.

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Playlist:

The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead

Druids - Spirit Compass (single)

Druids - Shadow Work

Final Light - Eponymous

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Ganser - Just Look At That Sky

Ganser live Audiotree Session

          

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Eight of Pentacles (Disks) - Transformation of Earthly materials/goals

• 14 Temperance - Art in Thoth, this often denotes a mixing of two or more different ethos to create the desired result. In this case, I'd read it as branching out from a safe routine/style.

• 17 The Star - Totality and fulfillment. 

I think this is a direct reference to something I just started working on. I'm taking an old collaborative project from 2018 and stripping it of the ideas that were created jointly with someone else, trying to extract the prose and rework it into a High School Giallo I've been thinking about for at least as long. There's a lot of good prose that I wrote in this - the other party was involved conceptually and with story, but not with any of the actual writing. There's a good 100k words - a lot of it was the product of what I since learned was overzealous 'word stuffing,' but a lot of it is good. So why waste it? Why not transform that Art into a lucrative project?

 

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Deftones - Bloody Cape

 

Deftones's self-titled turn 20 this year. Not my favorite of theirs by any means. In fact, with its predecessor White Pony being my introduction to the band, the self-titled caused me to ascribe them a one-and-done status until friends sat me down and played me Saturday Night Wrist. From there, every album has only gotten better - well, nothing beat Koi No Yokan, but Gore and Ohms are fantastic in their own right - and I always thought I'd eventually go back and discover I'd misjudged the Eponymous, but that's never really happened. Anyway, even my least favorite Deftones records are standing on the shoulders of giants, so it's not as though I don't like them. I will be skipping the anniversary colored vinyl, however, if you go HERE you can order it!

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Watch:

Saturday night I showed K Brian De Palma's 1993 masterpiece Carlito's Way for the first time. I've loved this movie since I first saw it circa 1995, however, it's been at least a decade since the last time I revisited it. Surprise - it's even better than I remembered!   

Normally, I'd post a trailer, but the trailers I find give too much away. Here's a scene that I'm reticent to take out of context because, at first glance, it might invite the viewer to dismiss this film as another Gangster film. While it is that, on one level, my take has always been this is a love story first, and a tragic one at that. 

  

 When this flick comes up, I always mention how it leaves me teary-eyed. Saturday, though, it fucking leveled me emotionally. I'm talking full-on sobs. There are elements at play I'd never noticed before, most specifically that De Palma shot a lot of this film to look like classic Hollywood. There's Bogie and Bacall and a whole host of other visual references I'm not versed enough in 30s and 40s Hollywood to be able to accurately put a name to. But they're there: the scene with Charlie and Gail in the coffee shop, when she stands to leave and he hugs her in the middle of the room - the camera briefly encircles them and you get a taste of a love that surrounds every aspect of these two people's lives. All the alleyway scenes, the sets and the way they're created and shot - especially when in the rain. We've seen these before in other, legendary films even if we haven't seen those films. This stuff informs the business - or at least it did before technology changed the overall look of the industry (probably starting with The Matrix). 

Anyway, if you've never seen Carlito's Way, I can't recommend a film more. I have pretty low mileage for the Gangster genre, and like I said, this transcends it. If hard-pressed though, it's this and Goodfellas - I can leave everything else on the shelf.

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Read:

I finished Alan Campbell's God of Clocks and thus his Deepgate Codex series. I would be lying if I didn't say I felt the ending was a bit rushed, but I don't care - I loved it anyway. I've already revisited Book One Scar Night at least four times since it came out in 2007, and Book Two Iron Angel Twice now. I'll definitely come back to this series again at some point further down the tracks.

Next up - Chuck Palahniuk's newest novel, The Invention of Sound, which I have a nice signed hardcover copy of thanks to my friend and A Most Horrible Library cohost Chris Saunders!

I know nothing about this novel, and I'm only about thirty-five pages in so far, so there's not much I have to report about the plot except that it already feels very Palahniuk (not all his novels do), and I'm excited to take that 'ride' again - it's been quite some time since I read anything new by the man, with 2009's Pygmy probably being the last novel by him I read upon the time of release. Everything between that and this I've missed. 

One thing I noticed right off the bat about The Invention of Sound, though, is Palahniuk seems to be writing in a purposely strange, almost 'wrong' way when it comes to the actual syntax of some of his sentences. Here's an example:

"As if she a prizefighter was, and she'd pasted him a roundhouse punch to his glass jaw."

What the hell? I mean, that sentence is all kinds of awkward. That, of course, is no doubt the point - there have already been quite a few moments like this in the prose, and I'm curious if his earlier books have elements of this, too, and I just wasn't a practiced enough writer to notice them before. Or, I imagine it is extremely possible, he's trying to use a similar and considerably less overt method as he did in Pygmy, which is written in such a strange, Pidgeon English that it was near impossible to acclimate to for the first couple tries, then, once my brain rewired itself, became increasingly disorienting in the best possible way.

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Playlist:

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

Boris & Merzbow - 2R0I2P0

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Etta James - Second Time Around

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

Ghost - Phantomime

Windhand - Eponymous

Steely Dan - Aja

Paul J. Zaza - My Blood Valentine OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Eight Pentacles - Transformation of Earthly Resources

• Ace of Pentacles - Breakthrough

• Seven of Cups - Completion 

To transform my situation, I need to finish what I'm working on. A bit of a no-brainer, but then Tarot readings usually are. The cards can't really tell you anything you don't already know, they just clarify and bring to the forefront what you otherwise might be ignoring/unable to see. I'm foggy on the specifics of this Pull, but I'll figure it out. 
 

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Spelljammer - Bellwether

 

Thursday morning and I happened to stumble upon this video for Spelljammer's "Bellwether." I'd not heard of these guys before, however, Riding Easy Records has a pretty gnarly track record when it comes to Doom/Stoner metal. So of course, it comes as no surprise that this track instantly put the band on my radar. From the album Abyssal Trip, available to order HERE.

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Watch:

Ted Geoghegan's We Are Still Here is one of my favorite flicks of the 10s. As such, I was pretty excited to see all the news surrounding the release of his new film, Brooklyn 45, June 9th on Shudder. Here's the trailer:

 

In keeping with my recent philosophy of avoiding trailers, I watched about 30 seconds of this and turned it off. I mean, Larry Fessenden's in it, what more do I need to know? 

Nothing. 100% sold on this. 

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Playlist:

Spotlights - Seance EP

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

Blut Aus Nord - Thematic Emanations of Archetypal Multiplicity EP

Estrasphere - It's Understood

R.I.P. - Street Reaper

The Sword - Warp Riders

Lustmord - Berlin

Ghost - Phantomime EP (pre-release singles)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

Still sick and I just do not have the energy for anything, hence why this is posting so late. Anyway, let's see if I have it in me to do a quick breakdown:

• Ace of Swords - Breakthough. I read this as Will honed to the point of perfection, obliterating an obstacle. Not sure what that applies to here, but maybe that will become clear as I go.

• Nine of Swords - Accomplishment

• Judgement - "Aeon" in Crowley and Harris's Thoth, this card indicates a pivotal point in the sequence. 

All this seems to add up to say a touch-up on my application of Willpower should provide a breakthrough in a project. I think the Will is going to come into play getting back into writing daily - I haven't been doing much more than working and watching movies while I've been sick. 

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Poor Things - Your Arse is on Fire

 

Looks like Mr. Bungle encored with "My Ass is on Fire" two nights ago in Pomona, CA. I don't have tickets for any of these shows (obviously; my best chance of seeing Bungle now is if they add a Chicago date), but I'm psyched to hear they pulled this one out of the toy box. I got to see them play it on the Disco Volante tour at the Chicago Metro back in, gasp, 1995! By the time they came around for the two California tours, they had a new, 'remixed' version I didn't particularly care for. Still, good to see them pulling out something from the first album, and hopefully the new lineup might be working up to a few more surprises down the road.

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Watch:

I have, to date, only seen one film by Yorgos Lanthimos, and that's Killing of a Sacred Deer. That film blew me away, and I really need to get on seeing the others. In the meantime, while I've been sitting on my hands as a potential fan, Mr. Lanthimos has constructed a new film:

 

Frankenstein? Well, obviously to some degree, but I'd wager there's a lot more going on here. Interesting to see the fantastic imagery here; almost reminds me of an LSD-laced version of Wes Anderson. 

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Read:

After seeing a friend post about it on social media, I went ahead and grabbed the first issue of Dan Watters and Sebastián Cabrol's The Seasons Have Teeth. Here's the photo my friend posted that convinced me:

Yeah, that's all I needed, too. The logline here is what if the Seasons manifested as beasts. This right here is Spring, and it's where we start our story, through the lens of a news photographer whose grief has him ready to risk his life to get the pictures that will show the world the Seasons' faces.

Dan Watters has really floored me over the last few years. Between Homesick Pilots and The Picture of Everything Else - which finally finishes with the release of issues 4 and 5 nxt month - I've now seen his name on an upcoming Marvel title or two. Let's celebrate his success by hoping he has enough time to continue to make these wonderful Creator-owned books, too.

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Playlist:

QOTSA - Emotion Sickness (pre-release single)

QOTSA - Villains

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

White Lung - Paradise

White Lung - Premonition

White Lung - It's the Evil

White Lung - Full Performance KEXP

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

Trombone Shorty - Too True

Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux

           

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

I feel like I see the Seven of Swords a lot lately. Taken here with the Ten of Cups and The Moon, I'd say there's something hidden or obscured that's preventing me from achieving victory in regard to a monetary issue. 

 

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Live Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs!

 

KEXP dropped a live session with British Sludge Punks Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs a few days ago, and I'm here to tell you it kicks some serious arse! Check it out and if you dig, head on over to their Bandcamp HERE and grab the new record Land of Sleeper! 

Mr. Brown was the one who turned me onto these lads when the album dropped, and I've been spinning both the new one and 2020's Viscerals - both fantastic albums of grimy, heavy slabs of Slunk (see what I did there?) 

I hear so many different influences in these guys: The Wipers, Sabbath, Melvins, and Idles all spring immediately to mind. That said, this is a 100% original sound, which is difficult to do in the sludge world. 

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NCBD:

Once again, here are my picks for #NCBD!

As of issue 13 I realized that my theory that Danny Ketch was now a product of the Weapon Plus Program was off; instead we have some weird corporation developing weapons with aspects of Hell in their DNA? Super weird, and I'm curious to see where this goes.

I confess - I was not blown away by Nightmare Country's return last month with Glass House #1. Also, so the full title now is The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country: The Glass House? That's a lot of sub-titles. Regardless of naming aesthetics, James Tynion IV has my complete trust. Also, what a cover!!!

I love the simplicity of this story so far. I also love the mechanics of the two worlds in juxtaposition to one another.

Saga!

First X-Men: Red since coming back from Sins of Sinister, and we're looking at a cover of Storm amidst a pile of dead Xaviers. The mind reels at what insane cosmic blasphemies Al Ewing and Jacopo Camagni have in store for us now that Arakko is back

 

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Watch:

A new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer dropped earlier in the week.

At some point, despite loving every one of Nolan's films up to and including (especially!) The Dark Knight Rises. For my money, Nolan's Batman is the only cinematic Batman. That said, I always loved his non-IP films better, with The Prestige ranking as one of my favorites of that decade. Yet, I missed Interstellar in the theatres then sat on my hands when it lived on Prime for the better part of 2016, skipped Dunkirk entirely, and even mismanaged my fervor for Tenant due to not being able to see it in a theatre during its COVID-era release. After seeing this trailer for Oppenheimer, I'm not letting this one get away.

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Playlist:

Chamber of Screams, Clement Panchout & Mxxn - Murder House Original Puppet Combo Soundtrack

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Soundgarden - Super Unknown

Tamaryn - The Waves

DIR EN GREY - The Marrow of a Bone

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Doubling up on Swords suggestions Conflict, however, cut with the Page (Princess in Thoth) of Cups, I'd say this refers to news of the quiet dissolution of multiple social and business problems this morning.

 

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