My Ten Favorite Albums of 2024

This list isn't to say I don't have more than ten favorite albums in 2024 because this year has been chocked full of great music. Maybe I'm just more in tune or something; I don't know. A couple years ago, I remember doing this list and saying up front that I felt like I spent way more time listening to older music. Not this year; I could barely keep up, and every time I thought I had this list finished, something else came my way and made me rethink everything. Here then, is perhaps the most tentative top-ten list I've done since 2013, when I kind of bitched out and did eleven. 

Note: I did away with the numbering because the order is interchangeable and impossible to commit to. That said, Numbers one and two are definitely my favorite albums of the year.

• Zeal and Ardor - GREIF

The first Zeal and Ardor record written by the band, not just founder Manuel Gagneux, and it's fantastic. Very different from previous albums, but that's the thing that impresses me the most about this band - the evolution. From a mission statement that would have worn out its welcome in the hands of most others, Manuel has shepherded this project to new heights, and there's never a moment I'm not 100% enthralled. 

Buy HERE.

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• Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Another left-hand turn from Ms. Wolfe! There are moments on this record that remind me of mid-90s trip-hop, a la Poe's first record. There are also moments where I feel the dark echo chamber of Chelsea Wolfe's mind, and it continues to draw me into her strange, Stoner-brand Desert Psyche Rock. There's something so expressive about every aspect of the music Ms. Wolfe creates - I'm literally transported into what feels like a very clearly defined psychic space, each album its own specific time and place. Her world only briefly syncs up with the 'real,' which makes listening feel like I am literally catching onto pieces of her consciousness. It feels intimate and a little scary at times, like a lot of the best music does. 

Buy HERE.

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• Shellac - To All Trains

Yeah, like the final Shellac album wasn't going to be on this list. I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the band's previous record, and this one... shit, I've had a lot of internal trouble accepting this record simply because it's release dovetailed with the death of one of the most important persons in modern music. A Chicago native, like myself, and what's more, one of the last bastions of integrity turned up to eleven, Steve Albini. But Shellac's character is something etched into me across the divide since 2000's Thousand Hurts, the first Shellac record I bought and fell deeply in love with. The cynicism, the in-jokes that long-time listeners fall in on simply by having gotten to know these strange men who play jagged, angular analog indie rock with fists... it's all just such a pleasure, and I will miss it for the rest of my days.

Buy HERE.

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• Moon Wizard - Sirens

I love this record! I had never heard of Moon Wizard before Sirens was released somewhere in the first few months of the year, but this one has been a constant companion ever since. This four-piece writes and plays this blissfully melodic sludge that feels extremely well-defined for such a relatively young band. The melodic strains of lead singer Sami Wolf's voice are perfectly matched by  Aaron Brancheau's guitar, whose riffs and arranging go from soaring emotional heights to "bash your fucking head in" even while wielding the spry, haunting melodies strewn across the runtime of this record. Magnolia is a forever song for me, burned into my brain upon contact and perhaps matched only by Luminaire's ghostly ability to snare the very breath from my lungs. 

Buy HERE.

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• The Cure - Songs For A Lost World

Talk about a late entry. As much as I am an eternal fan of The Cure's albums Pornography and Disintegration, I haven't really kept up with anything they've done since the late 90s. Even the other 80s/90s albums stay on the outskirts of my heart. I love Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Head on the Door, et al, but none of them are essential to my being the way the other two are. Then they release Songs For A Lost World, and Whammo! Another complete emotional sledgehammer! This is what I feel The Cure does best. 

Both aforementioned previous albums destroyed me at different stages of my life, shattered me, and eventually put me back together. That's exactly what Songs For A Lost World promises; I'm just too emotionally defensive at the moment to allow it full access. You get it from the album's title, yeah? This fucker's poignant, especially when you consider it was released back in late October, right before... well, you know. 

Upon first listen, every tune, every melody seemed instantly ingrained in me, so that upon each subsequent early listen, I felt I already knew every song by heart. These songs hurt, though. Maybe it's the times, maybe it's the fact that I came out of the first months of 2024 actively acknowledging that we now live in a dystopian future, but this album just feels like what the world needs to, well, go out on.

Buy HERE.

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• Amigo The Devil - Yours Until the War Is Over

The album whose title I misquoted the most this year, Amigo the Devil has been increasingly endeared to me for a few years now, and I have my very good friend Mr. Brown to thank for that. The post-modern Singer/Songwriter tradition I fell in love with through Nick Cave and Tom Waits is alive and well in this man, as he balances the delicate and diabolical sides of his own existence against an ever-evolving tableau of scenarios that the most debaucherous of us can only shake out heads and say, "Goddamn, I'd like to buy this man a beer."

Buy HERE.

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• Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Full disclosure, since this record was released in March, Justin has come to be a friend of mine. He's guested on The Horror Vision twice this year; however, before the release of his score for a non-existent Giallo, I only knew him as a person I followed on IG. One I wasn't entirely sure how I discovered in the first place. We were obviously like-minded mutants, but when I saw him begin to post about this album, I knew it was going to be a huge record for me. Coincidentally, I spent the year writing a Giallo novel, and this record immediately slipped into place as a constant soundtrack for those sessions. It colored many key scenes in the book and put me in that very specific Giallo tone, which isn't exactly easy to do for the first time invoking it with prose.

Buy HERE.

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• Oranssi Pazzuzu - Muuntautuja

Oranssi Pazuzu's Muuntautuja is the first record the band has released since I became a fan. I'm still not familiar with their entire body of work to date; it was late last year that the members of Baroness put this band on my radar by way of their "What's in My Bag?" on the Amoeba Music YouTube channel, but the moment I hit play on their Live At Roadburn album from 2017, I was hooked. I suppose their off-kilter approach to psychedelic Black Metal scratches the same itch for me that Blut Aus Nord does; the songs are all cohesive but unlike anything I've ever heard before. This was especially true the first time I hit PLAY on the track "Valotus". It was late; I was buzzed, had headphones on, and didn't quite understand what exactly I was listening to. It was music, yes, but there was such a "Cosmic Occult" element to the sounds and arranging that I wasn't sure how most of what I was hearing was being made or orchestrated. I knew at that exact moment this would be an album that would earn my devotion by confounding me, by pushing the boundaries of what I like and listen to and comprehend about music. 

Buy HERE.

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• Drug Church - Prude

I was only really familiar with Patrick Kindlon's name as one of the two writers on We Can Never Go Home, the comic/graphic novel released by Black Mask Comics back in 2014. After that, I followed him through a few more series, not realizing this band I started hearing about counted him as singer. When my good friend Jacob recommended 2022's Hygiene that year, it slowly became a go-to, and as it did, my research revealed Kindlon's involvement. Which, of course, only made me love Drug Church more. Now, with Prude, I can honestly say Kindlon's lyrics are among my favorites out there at the moment. Lyrics aren't something I adhere to easily; I like a lot of music where I couldn't sing along if I tried. But Prude is sharp and astute from the jump, and every track kicks ass musically, as well. 

Buy HERE.

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• Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES

I don't know how Uncle Al keeps doing it, but Ministry continues to not just be relevant ideologically, but musically as well. Goddamn, if this isn't my favorite album of theirs since 2008's The Last Sucker. The samples are spot-on, the lyrics angry but (mostly) thought-provoking, and the songs blaze a path from track one through to the end, with penultimate track "Cult of Suffering" and its guest vocals by Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz weighing in as my favorite song of the year. 

Buy HERE.

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There you go. Seriously though, I could easily make a second top ten for the year. So many albums this year! Here's to what's coming in 2025!!!

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New Zeal & Ardor album GREIF out today!!!

THIS RECORD IS BLOWING MY F**KING MIND!!!!!!

From the new Zeal & Ardor album GREIF, out today. Order direct from the band HERE.
 

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Watch:

Ed Brubaker is one of the Executive Producers of Amazon's new Caped Crusader cartoon. I was skeptical about this; Batman is OVERDONE, to say the least, and 

I've watched two of these so far, and I really like it. I'm not going to go on my "Fuck commercials on a service I already pay for" rant anymore - the next stage is acceptance, so I'll just pay $2.99 and go commercial-free. The ads are seriously creating way more mental destabilization than you might anticipate. I've boiled that down to them being continuous reminders of the completely corporate world we live in now, but that's a discussion for another time. In the interim, I'm digging this Caped Crusader show a lot, primarily because it's set in the 1940s. That was a stroke of brilliance. 

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Play:

Whoah. Might be time for me to pick up an Xbox or PS:

 

I'm not sure if that would be a total waste of time, as the amount of time I allocate to gaming now is minuscule, and I don't really want to raise it by much. But this... breathtaking.

 

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Playlist:

Uniform - American Standard (pre-release singles)

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Thee Oh Sees - SORCS 80

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Godflesh - Hymns

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

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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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Waste

 

Seeing Zeal and Ardor tonight with some friends at the Echoplex!!!

 

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NCBD:

Still going to be another week before I return to Tennessee and grab my books, but here's this week's pull:

New book written by Stephen Grahman Jones! 

I've actually really missed this book in its brief furlough. Can't wait to see what madness Cotes gets Bruce and his big, green spaceship into this time.

Another new book I know very little about.

Kinda hell waiting to buy my books, especially when I intend on stopping by The Comic Bug at some point, and Mike from Atomic Basement is doing a Pop-up shop in Long Beach.

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Playlist:

David Bowie - Earthling

Anthrax - Worship Music

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

Drum - Gold Class

The Ocean - Heliocentric

NIN - The Slip

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

Zeal and Ardor - Run

 

The new Zeal and Ardor album is out and after three listens this morning, it's already on my shortlist for album of the year. I am perpetually blown the f**k away by how this man's sound evolves. It would be so easy for a band with this DNA to tread water, but that is most definitely NOT the case.

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Read:

This isn't the edition I have, but I love this cover

I realized recently that, for all the fiction by H.P. Lovecraft I've read over the last thirty-odd years, I don't think I'd ever read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I'm about halfway through the novella at this point, and two observations:

1) This one definitely sates the thirst for Lovecraft imagery and overall style/tone, however, it is not a very good story, and does not feel all that different than quite a few of his other stories.

2) This is easily the most racist of HPL's work that I've read.

The racism, coupled with the redundant prose, has made this one a bit of a chore. However, I intend on trudging on until completion. As I have gotten older and been exposed to more and more Weird Fiction and Horror, Lovecraft becomes more about the concepts and less about the writing. He just wasn't that good. 

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Watch:

The season finale of The Book of Boba Fett was everything I could ever want from a Star Wars story. 

Now, we'll all just have to wait until the third season of The Mandalorian premieres.

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Playlist:

Burial - Antidawn

Zombi - Digitalis

Abby Sage - Fears of Yours and Mine EP

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Orville Peck - Pony

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New Zeal and Ardor!

 

I was debating on even posting this, as I won't be watching/listening to anything else from the upcoming eponymous sophomore album from Zeal and Ardor, out February 11th (pre-order HERE). In the end, this is one of my favorite current bands, so there's no way I can't post it here for posterity's sake. Can't wait for this record!!!

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Read:

I'm really finding myself backlogged with stuff to read these past few months. A lot of this is due to a surge in great comics. And a lot of that is my being pulled kicking and screaming (at first) back into Marvel's X-Books. I'm not reading that many of them, but here's what I'm reading and what I think about them.

I guess I'm going to talk this one to death, but that's kinda what I do with comics/movies/books/music I love. This collection of Jonathan Hickman's TOTAL conversion of the X-Books into something so "All-New, All-Different" took me by complete surprise. In my worldview, there's Claremont, there's Morrison, and now there's Hickman. The House of X/Powers of X revamp eschews zero previous continuity but finds the most bafflingly fantastic ways to give all that tired old stuff an exciting new spin. Characters I've always hated like Xavier and Magneto I'm suddenly fascinated by, and the overall schematic at work here is unlike anything you've ever seen in an X title before. 

No, seriously.

If the cover of that collection I've posted above looks extremely Sci-Fi, that's because the X-Books left the superhero genre behind on this revamp, and have moved into full-blown, epic Science Fiction, with elements of Game of Thrones, Space Opera and pretty much anything else you can think of thrown into the mix. There are very few fisticuffs here - the storylines feel heightened and intriguing because they're all about different characters and their agendas. Plotting, treachery, secret plans and manipulations - seemingly from everybody. All those annoying X-Men altruisms? Pretty much gone.

I'm not going to go into all the plot details here, but if you follow THIS there's a ten-point list that will give you the idea. The list is in descending order, from ten to one. I recommend just scrolling down to number two and starting there. It gives you what you need to know.

Also in these books, there's this running idea of Mutant Technology - not technology as we think of it, but one that consists of multiple mutants using their powers in tandem to form 'Circuits' and garner results not possible as individuals. This is the kind of thing I always complained about in crossovers - the dire straights until the eleventh hour and then, "Quick, use your power with mine and PRESTO - the apocalypse is thwarted every time. Hickman is clearly aware of this trope - who isn't - and addresses it in the same manner he addresses the constant recapitulation of the dead (see number 3 on that list linked above). 

At some point, Wolvie and Colossus' famous Fastball Special is mentioned as the earliest example of this 'technology.'

The Grant Morrison-created Stepford Cuckoos being the first advancement of this in recent years, where five mutants harmonize as one. Five is apparently an important number in this technology, and I'm curious to see how many more examples of this develop in the issues to come.

S.W.O.R.D. is all about the space opera side of this new X-landscape, and although I'm not one for that particular subgenre in prose, in a comic like this, the flavor really hits the spot. As you'll see with all these books, this one is also centered around agendas and machinations, so much so that every issue so far has had pages of classified dossiers included, as we begin to see what an altruistic (maybe) viper Abigail Brand really is. If you don't know who that is, don't worry - I didn't either when I started this book. They catch you up quick.

Also, look at the cast here - there was no way I wasn't going to dig this book, as we have a couple forgotten characters from my favorite era of X-Books included, namely Gateway and Whiz Kid, or Takashi as I last knew him when he was running around with Artie and Leech in the original Inferno.

Spinning out of Hickman's sandbox comes Gerry Duggan's helming the 'Super Hero' genre book "X-Men" that launched at the end of this past summer. The idea is, while the event books deal with the agendas of what's going on with these characters, Mutantdom handpicks a classic "rescue and response" team to help safeguard the planet - you know, since most of the mutants' concerns have gone cosmic. This small team is given a headquarters in NYC from which they can respond to the kind of standard threats we're used to seeing populate all superhero books. Except, even here the book doesn't squander the premise of the larger picture with regular ol' super villains. And besides - all the mutants now coexist on Krakoa, they're no longer fighting one another. So, if Apocalypse, Magneto, Mr. Sinister, et al are all in the family now, who does this new team of X-Men fight? 

So far? A lot of monsters. 

The books have been great, giving us a pretty gnarly planetary threat in the first couple of issues, bringing in one of my favs, the High Evolutionary in another, and setting up someone called Dr. Stasis who is being slowly introduced in a very Chris Claremont plant-the-seeds-slowly-and-make-the-readers-wonder way. 

I started buying this book just for the #1, and five issues later I'm re-reading the issues multiple times. That's true of all these titles - there's so much woven into and between them, it takes a lot of attention to piece it all together. 

When I first saw these ads for the Inferno event, I hadn't read House of X/Powers of X yet. In fact, it was reading the first issue of Inferno 2021 that prompted me to go back and read Hickman's opening salvo. So looking at these ads initially, I was irritated - they used the title of my favorite X-Event from the 80s, and then even made the propaganda modeled after those old Inferno 88 ads. 

 

Well, I don't know that there's any thematic connection between the two series, but I have to say, my favorite X-Event will still always be Madeline, S'ym and N'astirh's attempts to sacrifice 12 babies and open the gates of Limbo for full-blown Hell-on-Earth, this new Inferno is quickly climbing up to sit at number two on that list. Admittedly, I don't even think there would be five entries on it, as most of the crossover events afterward are lackluster at best. Still, Inferno 2021 is fantastic because it's all about more and more revelations as to just what dirty little fuckers Charles and Magneto are. 

Now, sadly, the one weak link of what I've read in these books is the current "Trial of Magneto" series. Not nearly the same caliber, and hopefully an exception and not an indicator of what is to come once Hickman makes his exit after Inferno #4.

 

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Playlist:

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

Fleetwood Mac - Tango in the Night

Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Boy Harsher - Careful

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

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New Zeal and Ardor!!!

 

Another new Zeal and Ardor track dropped last week. From the forth-coming, self-titled new album out February 11, 2022, I've successfully avoided listening to this one so far. Too many singles off an upcoming album can be like watching an extra-long movie trailer that tells you too much. I don't like hearing the songs without the context of the larger work of which they are a part. That said, I'm about to break down and jam this one, because, well, because Zeal and Ardor, you know? Pre-order the album from the band's store HERE.

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NCBD:

UPDATE: I originally posted the books hitting shelves on 10/27 here for 10/20. This is the corrected list.

Last month, I grabbed the first issue of this series on a lark. Really dug it, and I couldn't pass up this cover on issue 2!

Super into where this book is going again after issue 121. How can they sustain such a fantastic title for this long? I guess with the momentum of nearly four decades behind the characters, it makes sense. Or does it? No other book lasts this long and is good the entire way through. Maybe Claremont's Uncanny X-Men or Peter David's Incredible Hulk. This iteration of the Turtles began in 2012, so that's nearly ten years! Wow.

And lastly, the new Brubaker Phillips Reckless GN! Rejoice! These have become among my favorite things in life. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

10) A Nightmare on Elm Street '84

11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

13) Satan Hates You

14) Night of the Demons

15) Lamb

16) The Company of Wolves

17) There's Someone in the House

18) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

19) Titane

20) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

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Playlist:

The Final Cut - Consumed

Dennis Michael Tenney - The Beast Inside (single)

Various - Apple 80s Hard Rock Essentials

Skid Row - Eponymous

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

Pretty Maids - Red, Hot and Heavy (terrible album title)

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

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Card:

A new, solid foundation for moving forward. 

New Zeal and Ardor!

How long do we have to wait until this new Zeal and Ardor album drops? The correct answer is too f*&king long! 

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READ:

This has been a strange year, because over halfway through, and I've read very few actual novels. Instead, all my reading time is spent reading comics. Not a bad thing, and this certainly isn't the first time this has happened, but between starting the A Most Horrible Library podcast, and the brief resurrection of Drinking with Comics, I've fallen back in love with the medium in a way I haven't felt in years, specifically Marvel Comics, which I thought I'd left behind me after the 2015 Secret Wars event tapped us old-timer Marvel Zombies on the shoulders and whispered, "The old continuity you cling to is gone. Rest easy, this is for a younger generation now."

I've been digging in back issue bins for the first time in at least 15 years. I've also been seeking stuff out on eBay, both in attempts to fill in long-forgotten gaps in series I'd thought I'd given up on. It's made me realize I've come to regret giving away or selling back so many comics over the years. And I've been re-reading a bunch of old-school series as I acquire these missing pieces.

I remember seeing a full-page ad for this book back when I was a kid and thinking it looked troubling. A mutant kid killing one of his friends/teammates? Wow. I only read New Mutants here and there as a kid, so a lot of the character development was lost on me when I did pick up the book, and I never quite understood how Fallen Angels fit into the overall continuity of the ongoing Mutant Books, most penned by my beloved Chris Claremont still at that time. Now I know.

Fallen Angels was a New Mutants spin-off mini-series that ran back in 1987. A couple years ago I found issues 5-8 somewhere and picked them up, but it wasn't until two weeks ago I tracked down 1-4, and now completed, I've finally been reading this weird little adventure that features Roberta DaCosta AKA Sunspot and Warlock - always a character that made me go "WTF?" when I was a kid. Like a lot of comics from this era, this is a bit over-written, however, once you adjust to the difference in style, it's pretty fun.

This is a more recent title. A five-issue series by Jason Latour, Robbie Rodriguez and colorist Rico Renzi. Robbie and Rico are the visual team responsible for the short-lived but fantastic Vertigo series FBP, aka Collider. I fell in love with their style on that book, and when they came up with the initial design for Spider-Gwen - a character I shouldn't have really cared about at all at the time based on my reading habits - I gushed. 

I love this character's design. 

At the time of the series, and when it came out, I bought issues 1 and 2 and then stopped. Recently, I found 3-5 in the bins at The Comic Bug and started reading through it. Pretty cool alternate universe set-up, where Peter Parker is dead, Gwen was bitten by the radioactive spider, and Frank Castle is a cop! Also, MJ and Gwen play in a band called, what else? The Mary Janes, and have a hit song called "Face it, Tiger."

I don't know that I'll go back and read anything after this small series, but these five issues are bringing me great joy at the moment, so who knows?

With my recently reestablished love of Spider-Man, I've been going back in and just snatching rando issues from the three 80s series I would read off and on, and which I'm realizing I am missing so many issues I once had. In particular, I've been finding quite a few issues of Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, most issues in the 130s and 140s. Here's a recent acquisition that ties together several other disparate issues I had, so I can now read a short little stint. Remember: back in the 80s and before, trade collections were next to non-existent, so the editorial edict for these books wasn't for the creators to do 5-issue arcs. What we'd get is one-offs, larger threads that played out amidst the monthly stand-alones, and, in Spidey's case, arcs that ran across all three of his titles at the time (Web, Spectacular, and of course, Amazing). 

The good news is, almost all of these books run between $2.99 and $3.99, so it's not like I'm breaking the bank. And sifting through the back issue bins has been a strangely calming routine. I can get all stressed out at work, stop by the bug and spend 30 minutes flipping through issues, and all that bad shit is gone when I walk out the door.

Also, motivated by the "Book Club" section on the latest episode of the Marvel's Pull List podcast, I decided it was finally time to re-read Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, so I dusted off the first of my three hardcovers and blew through the first arc E is for Extinction, as well as the 2001 annual that introduced Xorn. Oh, reading this is making me remember just how much I love Morrison's take on the X-Men.

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Playlist:

Anthrax - Among the Living

Dio - Holy Diver

Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4 (single)

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)

Jethro Tull - Benefit

Ministry - Animositisomina

Godflesh - New Flesh in Dub Vol 1

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Mastodon - Crack the Skye 

 

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Card:

I'm back on the journey into Shadow Play, Book Two, and for the first time since last year about this time, I am IN! The book is occupying a lot of my thoughts and time, and what's more, I finally found the voice for a new element I'm adding. Also, there is way more written than I thought, and it's way better than I remembered. So while I'm still letting a new nosleep series idea percolate, my main focus has finally shifted back to where I need it to be!

New Zeal and Ardor!!!

FUCK YES! I'm a little late with this one, as I've been so preoccupied with the new Perturbator that I forgot Z&A dropped a new track and announced an album coming out sometime in early 2022. I think; I swear I saw a February date when I first went to this song, but I can't find that any longer, so maybe I'm wrong and we'll get the album sooner. That would be fantastic!

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INTERVIEW:

Super psyched that my cohost on A Most Horrible Library, Chris Saunders and I got to interview comics legend Glenn Fabry this past week. Check out the episode on Spotify, Apple Music, any other pod-platform, or just right here on youtube:

If you're unfamiliar with Glenn, he's best known as the man who did every single cover for Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion's Preacher, still my all-time favorite comic. To say this was an honor would be an understatement indeed.

While talking to Glenn, we found out he has a Big Cartel shop, and I had to throw up a link. Glenn doesn't make royalties on almost anything he did cover-wise, so he's not exactly sitting on top of the world like Mr. Ennis is (deservedly so, but still). I picked up a couple awesome prints from Glenn's shop, and wanted to spread the word. 

Glenn's Big Cartel is HERE, and his Creature From the Black Lagoon is NO JOKE.

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NCBD:

Seriously, I think there was like a week this month without a Spider-man book and I felt the void! What has become of me?

And I guess because we had a week off, two spidey books this week!

Wrapping up what has been a fantastic series that truly is unlike anything else I've ever read. The solicitation logline, "Breaking Bad meets The Sandman" isn't exactly right, but it gets you in the ballpark, and I'd never take issue with such an over-the-top comparison because it did its job - it convinced me to take a chance that I do not regret.

Somehow I missed issue three of Dead Dog's Bite, so I'll be holding off reading this until I can pick that up, too.

YES! Issue 45 was my favorite comic of the year so far, so I can't wait to see what else the 90s has in store for Marcus and crew.

Cool series, but another one that I hiccuped and missed a few issues of. I'll remedy that by next week though. So glad to be reading some Larry Hama again.

This book continues to impress me, despite its over-the-top, almost classic Image feel.

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma

Silent - Modern Hate

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Tinderbox 

Zeal and Ardor - Run (Single)

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

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Card:

 

Super appropriate - Opportunites revolving past me in several areas, leaving me dizzy, uncertain and confused. Fighting to stand atop my decision and look at it all with a meticulous and discerning eye.

My Top Ten Albums of 2020

 While the world around us went to Hell, I used a constant influx of awesome music to stay sane. There were A LOT of great records this year, here are my favorite ten.

Manuel Gagneux has proven he's not going anywhere, and on Wake of a Nation - an EP with a more robust run-time than some albums - he's begun to shift his work from clever Alt-History to a poignant contemplation on current global events to chilling, heart-pound results.

I've never cared too much about RTJ's other albums - none of it's bad, but none of it is irreplaceable to me - but THIS! Partially because of when it dropped, partially because of how it dropped, partially because they refuse to participate in all the Hip Hop tropes that make me skeptical of the genre, and especially because it's just that good. Killer Mike and El-P can both rhyme like madmen - a lost art if you do a quick who's who of the 'name brands' of rap at the moment - and on top of it, they can actually do so eloquently on pretty much every urgent topic of the day.

Two years ago, when I fell in love with Ms. Rundle's music, it never would have dawned on me how well it would mesh with Thou's. Imagine my pleasant surprise then when the first track from this album dropped. To Thou is one of those "Beautifully brutal" bands that transcend any genre or classification for me, and something about their stoic sonic textures meshes perfectly with Emma Ruth Rundle's dark, contemplative musings.

The most 'balls out' record I heard this year. Infinitely repeatable and perfectly balanced between hooking you and punching you in the goddamn face.

I can't even believe the range on display here. One might have thought Greg Puciato's first solo record would have come out sounding a bit like Black Queen and DEP in a blender.

One would be perfectly incorrect. This is... an evolution not many metal frontmen could ever pull off. I remember the days when I could see Mike Patton's influence on Greg Puciato. Now I only see his own personal creative resilience. 

Recontextualizing so many different sounds from Heavy Music's last twenty-five years: I hear Alice in Chains, I hear Fear Factory, I hear Bungle, I hear Slipknot. Only, that's not all I hear. I also hear a template for a band that sounds like none of those things exactly and nothing like anything I've heard before. And I want more.

The first Bungle album in twenty years is a redux of their demo - which I never gave a shit about listening to even at my most rabid Bungle fan stage - and it's being re-worked and performed with Thrash Icons Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian? There was simply no way this one didn't make it onto the list. Also the best concert of the year, although of course, there haven't been any concerts since about three weeks after I saw them, so that may be slightly skewed.

This band reminds me so much of the kind of bands I couldn't get enough of in the late 90s. I loved the first Exhalants record, then they went and deepened their sound into this and I had to do a double-take. These guys are for fucking real and I will follow them to the ends of the Earth. Which, incidentally, might not be that long to follow them for, but still. 

Another band that just can't do anything wrong. The Deftones continue to push the edges of their sound in unexpected directions, and while there's no mistaking this for anything but a Deftones record, ain't nothing wrong with that at all.

And actually, as my friend Jacob pointed out, there is at least one passage that could easily lead one to believe the tracks had unexpectedly rotated over to a Vangelis song.

I guess I needed some beauty in my life this year, and Fleet Foxes Shore definitely qualifies as the most beautiful new album I heard in 2020. 

It was a weird year, and some of these records I didn't even listen to as much as you would think for them to make such an impression on me. But I've begun spending a good deal of time on narrative podcasts and audiobooks, as well as a fixation on a lot of music that predates 2020. Maybe then, the less-listened to entries on this list won their spot by making such a large impression in so few listens?