Top Albums I Discovered in 2020 Not Released in 2020

Here then is the list of my favorite records released before 2020 that I discovered this past year.

• Mol - Penumbra: 

Melodic, heavy, and mysterious. I love Mol's Penumbra record. 

• Iress - Prey

One of those great Bandcamp discoveries, Los Angeles's Iress have crafted a perfect balance between metal and 'grunge' with 2015's Prey. And in locating a picture of this one's album art, I realized Iress released a record this past September that's bound to be one of those that would have made this year's list had I heard it in time. This year, there's been quite a few of those, so I may do a 'booster' next week of those 2020 records that should have made the Top Ten but just barely missed out.

• The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

Thanks to Bret Easton Ellis, Valley Girl (OG), and Cameron on Halt and Catch Fire for all simultaneously introducing me to this fabulous 80s LA band.

• La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again:

A band I discovered through Henry Rollins's KCRW radioshow, La Hell Gang are kind of a more low-key Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Great album though, one that drifts through sandy, sudsy rock n roll atmosphere.

• Mannequin Pussy - Patience:

What can I say about Mannequin Pussy? I came for the name, stayed for the unbelievable songs. Kind of like if Hole had a talented songwriter who I didn't find too obnoxious to even look at, there's the spirit of the 90s here, but it's tempered with the same kind of time and distance that bands like M83 and Cut Copy did for the 80s.

---

---

---

Thus begins the section for my MVPs. My list of 2020's favs from last week can't even hold a candle for what these three records did for me this year:

• White Lung - Paradise:

Fucking perfect from start to finish and impossible to turn off after only three full-run throughs, White Lung have never recorded a song I don't love, but this record, from start to finish, is above and beyond even that. 

• Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

A late entry, Michael Kiwanuka's KIWANUKA is an album I have been unable to turn off for the past two weeks, and my rabid love of its 14 songs shows no sign of abating, much like my love of this year's Number One record:

• Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey:

Mr. Brown must have told me to check these guys out a thousand fucking times. I get caught up in my own little scene - especially when I'm knee-deep in writing something utilizing specific musical muses - but I always get around to stuff eventually. Usually, I happen upon these records when I need them most, and boy howdy, if that isn't true of Low Cut Connie's Hi Honey, then I don't know what is. I feel like it's only a slight embellishment to say this record more than any other saved me from 2020 - I put on The Royal Screw or Danny's Outta Money and I immediately feel great. Thus is the power of Soul. Destined to be one of my favorite records ever.

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou, Part Two!

And I thought I really liked the lead release off May Our Chambers Be Full! This is killer, and I can't wait for the EP, which can be pre-ordered from Sacred Bones Records HERE. 

---

---

---

Watch:

I'm really getting back into this Marvel thing: 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Maxwell - Now

Les Discrets - Septembre et ses derniéres pensées

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took  Everything

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone

David Bowie - The Next Day

David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

RIP Sean Malone

 

What the hell? Back in January, we lost former Cynic drummer Sean Reinert, now at the polar opposite end of the year, we lose bassist Sean Malone? Good lord. Here's the close-out track from Cynic's last full-length album, 2014's Kindly Bent to Free Us. It's fucking gorgeous. Rest in Peace Sean Malone. 

---

---

---

Watch:

All this awesome Spiderman news has me in the mood to, well, to finally watch the MCU Spiderman flicks, none of which I've seen! But it's also got me in the mood for some Marvel, and this show right here is numero uno on my, "I can't wait give it to me right damn now" list.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free us

Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Warsazawa (from Stage, disc 1)

Sir Neville Marriner and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Amadeus OST

David Bowie - Earthling

White Lung - Paradise

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

---

---

---

Card:

Ah, my old friend, the Queen of Swords. 

I keep getting this when I veer back on track. From my October 10th post, where I drew this card:

"...clear insights and the fresh perspective of adopting the perspective of another and cutting your own head off long enough to truly experience that other perspective..."

A violent reaffirmation of rulership over your emotions and intellect. I associate 'violence' in this respect, as my turning back on the deep dive function for writing. I pulled a major three hours yesterday, and made fantastic progress. 

Jehnny Beth - I'm The Man

 

I have a very push/pull with this video. Two days ago my good friend Jacob sent me a link to Jehnny Beth's debut record, To Love is to Live. You may remember her from Savages, whose 2013 debut Silence Yourself still resounds as one of my favorite records of the previous decade. Savages' follow-up Adore Life came out in 2016 and just kind of left me flat. I go back to it every now and again, but the 'a-ha' moment has never come. Still, I hold out hope that one day it might. 

So too, my first couple of attempts at listening to To Love is to Live were completely unsuccessful. I put the record away, went about my business, and came back to it later for a fresh perspective. This time, I perused the track listing before jumping in from the beginning, as I am most often wont to do, and decided to start with the fifth track on the record, "A Place Above", simply because the listing said featuring Cillian Murphy, and I was curious what that would sound like. You can actually hear that track in the video above for track six, "I'm The Man", as it serves as something of a prologue to the song. I'm happy to report, from this track on, the album opened to me in a way that very much made me appreciate Ms. Beth in a way I don't think I have before. The video above, directed by Anthony Byrne, is gorgeously shot and lit, even if the theatrics themselves that comprise the narrative of the video's run time leave me a little harumphed. 

---

---

---

Watch:

If you've listened to any of the recent episodes of The Horror Vision - we've been weekly for a month or two now - you'll have heard me talk about Eibon Press's four-issue comics expansion/adaptation of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I loved the book, and immediately ordered the trade paperback collection The Gates of Hell, which does for Fulci's City of the Living Dead what the aforementioned comic did for The Beyond. There's a big picture here, and it excites the F*CK out of me. One of the things that converted me to such a huge fan of Fulci's Gates of Hell Trilogy is the mythos, the larger picture that can be glimpsed beneath the films. It reminds me of HP Lovecraft's mythos, and I think Eibon Press is breaking serious ground by going in and fleshing it out. 

After talking about this on our show, Eibon Press founder Sean Lewis hit me up online. There will be an interview coming up down the road, but before that, some more reviews, as he sent review copies of a lot of other Eibon books with my Gates of Hell trade. 

First up was House By the Cemetery, three issues that further my favorite Fulci film in ways that directly connect it to the other two movies in the series. Next, that Gates of Hell trade is calling my name, so first, K and I re-watched City of the Living Dead last night.

Easily the poorest of the three films in this cycle, the comic will only be able to improve the story, for which there is only the barest hint of in the film. Don't get me wrong, I still dig it, but even that clipped, nightmare logic that makes The Beyond work so well kind of fails here, as we move from scene to scene with a pretty transparent disregard for anything but the gore and atmosphere. 

Interestingly, while this is the weakest of the three Gates of Hell flicks as far as story is concerned, City contains the best FX in any of these: Bob's drill-through-the-head death scene doesn't suffer from the usual tail-end let down present in most of these movies, where you can see how the actor is replaced by a close-up of the model. Below, compare Bob's death with the infamous 'gut-spewing' scene from this same movie, where you can clearly see the actress replaced by a dummy (again, not badmouthing here, just saying).

I should add, these are some especially gross-out clips (okay, really just the second one), so press play at your own risk:

 

 

Anyway, as I said, Eibon press's Gates of Hell comic can only improve on this one, so I can't wait to dig in later today.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death

Queens of the Stone Age - ... Like Clockwork

Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear

Venue - One Without a Second

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

---

---

---

Card:

Twos are often an indication of balance, I can't help feeling that is a spot-on assessment of the morning so far. 

Two's also indicate cycles, shorter cycles, and I feel a few loops closing in the near future. This is good, as I seem to constantly be opening more of them.

John Carpenter Lost Themes III

 

Out February 5th on Sacred Bones, with a variant that I pre-ordered from Waxwork, which I am now ridiculously excited for after hearing this track!

 

---

---

---

NCBD:

You can set your freakin' watch by how on-time this book is every month.

Lonely Receiver's penultimate issue. I'm really enjoying this one, and things really crystalized last issue, so this is sure to be pretty F*ked up!

I'm unclear whether this "Zero" issue of the Locke and Key/Sandman crossover due out early next year is a full issue, or simply what amounts to an ashcan-sized promo. I'm also unsure why this is coming up as being out this week but has October 2020 across the front cover. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Ainoma - Necropolis

Airiel - Molten Young Lovers

Barrie - Canyons (single)

Barrie - Happy To Be Hear

The Blueflowers - Circus on Fire

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

---

---

---

Card:

Let go of your preconceived notions and prepare to shake things up a bit. Feels like I could really use this. 

New New Order

 

New Order dropped an EP last Friday. Here's the first 'single.' Awesome tune, not at all where my head is at right now, but I have a feeling this will come in handy in a few days or so.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

My Co-Host on The Horror Vision Chris Saunders and I have decided to try and do a week-by-week podcast exploration of CBS' The Stand series starting on December 17th. I'm a King fan for sure, but I've never been a rabid one, and I've never undertaken the commitment to read The Stand. Usually, in undertaking a project like this, I'd set aside what I'm reading and try and 'bang it out' before the launch of the show, however, there's just no way. The original cut of the novel is 823 pages, but the expanded is lost 1500. Add to that the fact that I started 2020 reading a very long novel about a pandemic (Chuck Wendig's Wanderers, which despite it's eerie parallels to our reality while I read it - or perhaps because of it - still occupies my mind on an almost daily basis and lingers with a strong A+ rating in my book) and, well, for obvious reasons don't want to finish it out doing the same. So I'm doing the audiobook. Which, at ten chapters in, frankly isn't great.

Still, having read the Dark Tower books since shortly after The Drawing of the Three, I've wanted to read The Stand since early High School. In the Dark Tower books, Roland and his compatriots travel across worlds and, at one point, end up in the world of The Stand, a world decimated by a flu-like virus called Captain Tripps. Weird timing for the show to be coming out, but I'm excited to cover it, as it's been a while since I've done something like this, and it's not so often I get to work with Chris these days. So win win.

 

---

---

---

The Horror Vision:

The New episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast went up yesterday. We talk about the Barbara Crampton-produced Castle Freak remake, which I LOVED, along with Freaky, Max Brooks's Devolution, and a bunch of the Mario Bava that just landed on Shudder recently. And as usual, that's really only the tip of the iceberg. Also, I'm doing anything with the video side of this show yet, but I've started posting the episodes on youtube as of late.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Behemoth - The Satanist

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire

James Last - Christmas Dancing

Bing Crosby - Merry Christmas

Orville Peck - Pony

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

Opeth - Deliverance

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

New Order - Be a Rebel

Barry Adamson - As Above So Below

David Bowie - Black Star

 

---

---

---

Card:

Ah, the wonderful Knight of Disks, the Fire in the Element of Earth.

Interpreted here as a pragmatic focus on and progression with ongoing projects. Industrious perseverance. Bread winner and objective provider. 

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? 

Me and that Nergal

 

I've had a feeling this would happen eventually. Previously, even before I discovered Me and That Man, I tried on several occasions to find what it was about Behemoth that people had become so fanatical about. Unlike Frontman and Brainspring Nergal's more recent project, I just could never relate to it. Behemoth always left me cold, and not in a good way. Friday morning, however, a random algorithmic playlist by Apple Music rotated "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" through my ears and suddenly, I got it. 

I've only consumed 2014's highly lauded The Satanist thus far, but the momentum behind that first go-through is enough to have me chomping at the bit for more. Behemoth has a very specific sound, or at least that's how I hear it and why I ended up falling into it so hard. It has a lot to do with the way the bass guitar is played, recorded, and mixed in relation to everything else, but moving out from there, the guitars, drums, vocals, and other accompanying instrumentation feel very much arranged or composed, as opposed to assembled by more conventional means.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

Wow. Not only did I find this small peak into Orville Peck's life fascinating, but Alfred Marroquín's direction is as beautiful and moving as Peck's narration. I've avoided watching or learning too much about Peck's life, as I think his enigmatic persona compliments the deserted Lynchian Highway of his music. Marroquin balanced exactly the right amount of 'behind the curtain' with spectacle here, and this short Doc is all the better for it.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Behemoth - The Satanist

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

David Bowie - Live Nassau Coliseum '76

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Anthrax - Among the Living

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

---

---

---

Card:

 

Motivation and Drive, which feels spot-on as several projects ramp up here, at the end of what feels like a top-heavy year, as far as productiveness is concerned. There's a feeling of acceleration as we head into the new year, almost an unruliness. Looking at the Prince of Wands, reading the almost out-of-control momentum on the card's face, I'm reminded that recklessness can negate ambition quite easily.

Down When I'm Not

This song literally makes me feel like I'm twenty-five years old again, about to head out with my friends for a night of adventure. 

When I set out to find the track above from Greg Puciato's Child Soldier: Creator of God and ended up finding this collaboration between Puciato and Jesse Draxler. I'm not gonna lie; I'd been putting off deep-diving into this record for the last few months because I wasn't sure where my head would be in relation to this project, which I'd been hearing mixed things about. I knew I would like it, but I wanted to LOVE it. And I guess I waited until the exact right moment because after two full listens, I'm floored. Also, reading about the album, I was reminded of Puciato's Federal Prisoner label, and in looking up their youtube channel, found this little curiosity.

 

I love what this man is doing! The dissolution of The Dillinger Escape Plan a few years ago filled me with nervous, awful energy. They'd been a mainstay in my life, both live and on record, for nearly two decades; when I fell out of most heavy music, they never waned in my heart. I'm happy as hell to see Greg Puciato doing something I consider pretty extraordinary in his post-DEP life. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Bullshit Vol. 1

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka

---

---

---

Card:

Interesting to get a card that signals completion and success at this exact moment when my Beta Reader is back on track and about to finish the penultimate reading of Murder Virus. My original plan to release the book this year have transitioned into a 'first quarter' scheduling for 2021, and I do believe the finished product will be all the better for it.

Slow News Day in Jersey

 

I'm not a huge Fankie Valley and the Four Seasons fan, but this song... this is one of those songs that I've been hearing my whole life and never realized, until a couple of years ago, just how awesome it is. I like some other tunes from Mr. Valley's catalog, but this? This is my favorite.

---

---

---

Watch:

How fitting that, last weekend, when K asked if we could watch Jersey Boys, I trepidatiously agreed. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what we got. This movie's pretty damn great. Props to Clint Eastwood for making it. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Tiamat - Clouds

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

James Last - Christmas Dancing

I finished The Black Tapes Podcast yesterday, and while I can't say I liked the ending very much, A) it's open, and B) the journey is MORE than worth it. This is still a podcast I would very strongly recommend. 

---

---

---

Card:

 

Simple, symmetrical alignment.

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards

 

 

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards? Holy cow. I can't wait to see if anything more comes of this, because I love this track. Edwards brings that spiritually stoic sound that his haunted career in 16 Horsepower led to once he started Wovenhand (reminder to self - it's been too long since I checked in on that particular project). Will we get more music from this collaboration? While it is unclear as of yet, I think I might just make a playlist that combines Horsepower with Brut and see how that sounds together.

---

---

---

NCBD:

Slow week this week. 

This is good since, after the veritable deluge of books over the last few weeks, I have a stack I need to get through.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

Beck - Odelay

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Anthrax - Among the Living

Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

Carpenter Brut Feat. David Eugene Edwards - Fab Tool

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

---

---

---

Card:

The View from a Sightless Pit

 

How I missed this record's release a few months back, I have no idea. A collaboration between Lee Buford of The Body, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota, and Dylan Walker of Full of Hell? This record is, as you'd expect, unlike anything else I've ever heard. 

---

---

---

Read:

It's not NCBD yet, but I wanted to post about a couple of books I ended up with last week that I hadn't planned on buying, but my friends at both Atomic Basement and The Comic Bug know me pretty damn well and they often pull extra titles for me if they think I'll dig them. No obligation, of course, but more often than not, they're right on the money. I haven't read these yet, but I'm chomping at the bit to for sure:

This last one was my own discovery, and while I'm not really in the market for any Marvel or Mutant books, this stand-alone (I think) book is kind of a throwback to the old Marvel Comics Presents series in the 80s, except it's in Black and White and Red. And it's glorious.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST 

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

I spent almost all day yesterday plowing through The Black Tapes podcast. MAN! So f*&king good! 

---

---

---

Card:

This has been a key concept for 2020 and most likely one that will echo out into the new year. I take this pull, on December Eve (yeah, I just made that up), as a reminder that things are not really all that likely to get better just because we flip a calendar and get rid of a jackass. Not pessimism, just realism.

Motherless Brooklyn's Sovietwave

A month or two back, one of my guys at work turned me onto Molchat Doma, a Belarusian post-punk band from Minsk, formed in 2017, whose newest album Monument, was released this year on Sacred Bones Records. Probably because of introducing them into my youtube algorithm, yesterday afternoon I stumbled across a thumbnail for a post titled "1 Hour of Melancholic SovietWave" (HERE). Sovietwave? I immediately clicked on this, and the track I've posted above was the lead-in track, which in turn sent me looking for more by this band, Воскресная площадка, which so far I have been unable to find a translation for. In listening, so far, I'm fascinated, so I intend to explore this a bit more over the coming days (and nights; this music is perfect for after the sun sets).

---

---

---

Watch:

Friday night I finally got around to watching Edward Norton's Adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's novel Motherless Brooklyn. Wow. Fantastic film. 

It's been at least ten years since I read Mr. Lethem's novel, and being that I finished my re-read of William Sloane's To Walk the Night yesterday, I moved directly into round two with Brooklyn. In cases like this, where I've read the book but not in a while, I'm never sure if I should watch the film first or re-read the book first, so once again, I'm just going to play it by ear. Either way, both are fantastic. 

Of special note, the music for Mr. Norton's adaptation was done by Composer Daniel Pemberton, with contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Thom York, to name a few (although, as always, I feel like Mr. Yorke's voice is somewhat of an unwelcome sonic element in film scoring and composition, as it is so distinct and unmusical, it usually takes me out of the story immediately). 

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come

Ella Fiztgerald - The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol. II

True Widow - I.N.O.

---

---

---

Card:

Dogma. Is this good, or bad? 

Never Tear Apart Good Porno

Talk about an album that defines a year in my life. INXS's Kick was everywhere in 1987. I was eleven. I remember some stroke popular kid in my 4th grade class telling me in gym class how his father brought him home, 'the album all the college kids are listening to,' and brandishing the cassette. I assumed it was something stupid because this kid was my antithesis. However, I was wrong, it wasn't stupid at all. To this day, Kick and U2's The Joshua Tree still sound to me the way I physically felt at that time in my life, which is a really cool and kind of spooky thing, like my cells rearrange to some pre-recorded configuration when those sounds are re-introduced to my brain. No where is that more true than on this particular song.

---

---

---

Watch:

Keola Racela's Porno dropped on Shudder this past week. This is one I'd been waiting on for a while; I almost went to a screening at some point, pre-COVID (I think - that seems so long ago now, it's like some hazy, undiscovered country). Anyway, I'll be reviewing this one later today on a new episode of The Horror Vision, which will go up Monday, however, let me just say - I really liked this flick, and it had one of the hardest to watch scenes EVER.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat

Jenny Lewis - The Voyager

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation

Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Bölzer - Hero

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic I Cenozoic

Sir Neville Mariner & Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Amadeus (Complete Soundtrack Recordings)

Opeth - Deliverance

Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1

Me and That Man -  New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

INXS - Kick 

Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power (1973 Bowie Mix)

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs

I also spent an entire morning at work yesterday diving into The Black Tapes podcast. Can't recommend this one enough. I hooked. 

 

Set up in a wonderful homage to Serial's first season, The Black Tapes deals with Paranormal Research and all the familiar hijinx - ghosts, demons, portals to hell. But the story is told through an NPR/This American Life kind of lens and because of that, it resonates in a very different way.

---

---

---

Card:

Threes and Swords - looks bad on the surface, but really, this is the cutting away of baggage in order to clarify and establish a firm foundation (fours). I've had two intensely productive days of writing and am clearing away a lot of the mental detritus that has had me clogged up these last couple months - fall out from world events, obviously - and am ready to end the year on the same mega-productive note that carried me through the first six months of it.

Run for the Shore

 

My cousin Charles is a huge Fleet Foxes fan, and although I've liked everything I have previously heard by the band, A) my most recent previous listen was quite some time ago, and B) they long ago fell off my radar. Until Charles messaged me about how much he loved the newest record, Shore. I gave this one a spin last week, liked it, and then did not return to it until yesterday, when Shore absolutely blew me away.
First, the way this record is recorded is gorgeous. There's some real craft here, especially with the vocals and the mixing. Robin Pecknold's voice is handled in a way that makes it feel enormous and intimate at the same time, no easy feat. The instrumentation and arranging is full but organic in a way that gives the depths of most songs a very layered, aquatic feel, so that the music washes over and submerges you. Given the title and cover art, this is most definitely intentional, and very much appreciated. I've always loved aquatic themes and 'flavors' in music, and that goes especially well with the songwriting on this record.

---

---

---

Watch

Holy smokes. Run, which should have been in theaters this past Mother's Day weekend, is on HULU now. I knew nothing about this one other than Sarah Paulson is in it - always a good thing - until my friend Jonathan Grimm texted me about how much he liked it. An hour and a half and some change later, I couldn't agree more. Don't watch any trailers, don't read anything, just WATCH IT! Wow. Co-writer/Director Aneesh Chaganty is definitely someone who I will be watching like a hawk for whatever he does next.

---

---

---

NCBD:

Isn't it nice when, every November, NCBD falls the day before a holiday made for eating too much and laying around reading? Yeah, it is. 

So far, I adore this series, so let's continue on. I'm loving all the Autumn-tinted Horror in comics this year, three of them with new installments today!

The Plot is back and I am HAPPY! More dark, Ancestral Horror is exactly what this holiday season needed.

The Best of Raphael book from a few months ago remains one of my favorite comics since I was a kid - something about this oversized format. So of course, I'll be buying them all...

This last one is The Unkindness of Ravens #3. I'm digging this Sabrina-esque story, and realizing today that there's only one more issue, I'm unsure how this is going to wrap in a satisfactory manner. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chamber Be Full

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Genesis - From Genesis to Revelation

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...

Venue - Desiréena 

Venue - One Without a Second

Death Crux - Mutant Flesh

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Zombi - Shape Shift

---

---

---

Card:

Endings and transformation. 

Nabihah Iqbal - Is This Where It Ends?

 

Nabihah Iqbal released a new single last month, and as anyone who has become as enamored with her debut (post Throwing Shade), 2017's brilliant Weighing of the Heart, would expect, it's pretty damn great. Airy, emotive, and a touch mysterious, with that raw bedroom quality Ms. Iqbal brings to her music, "Is This Where it Ends" was actually released a month before the bandcamp release Blue Magic Gentle Magic, which is all that is left of a second album she had been recording when her studio was burgled. ALL tracks were lost, with only barebones 'work in progress' tracks kept on the cloud, that can not be manipulated. Read about it and support Nabihah Iqbal on her bandcamp by double-tapping the widget.

Let's help this amazing artist find her muse in the face of this extremely crappy setback.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

I finally took my good friend Missi's advice and checked out Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein's Freaks on Netflix. Pretty damn god. Freaks isn't something you haven't seen before, but the way it doles out information, and how it starts cold and leaves you hanging, makes the film feel different, as though it's using tropes and a rather tired formula to do something with a bit more heart. Great performances all around, ESPECIALLY from Bruce Dern.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat

Jucifer - نظم

Crippled Black Phoenix - Ellengæst 

Pallbearer - Forgotten Days

Death Crux - Mutant Flesh

---

---

---

Card:

A recurring cycle for me these past few months - I touch optimization with sevens, then become weighed down by what the accomplishments - no matter how small - add to the process. Eights are imperfection personified, and distractions - welcome or not - are part of that.

Crippled Black Phoenix - Lost

 

From the new Crippled Black Phoenix record, Ellengæst, which dropped October 9th on Seasons of Mist. You can order the record HERE. Full disclosure: I haven't even heard this record yet. I have a bit of an interested/not interested relationship with this band, and I completely forgot this was coming out.

---

---

---

Watch:

I had the absolute joy of watching Josh Boone's New Mutants on Friday, and I have to say, I LOVED it. I talk about it on the latest episode of The Horror Vision, which will be on all streaming platforms, youtube,  IGTV, and the little widget in the top righthand corner of this blog by the time you read this. In a nutshell - see it.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

White Lung - Eponymous

Young Widows - Old Wounds

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

Windhand - Eternal Return

Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance

System of a Down - Eponymous

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night

Etta James - Third Album

---

---

---

Card:

Completion. Full power. I realized on Saturday that, despite my mental lapses and sagging work ethic, I am very nearly complete with nearly half of the second book in the Shadow Play trilogy. The image from this card is a perfect representation of how I feel when I reflect upon that.

To Walk the Night

 

Glint, the first release from Deafheaven's Ten Years Gone live album , out December 4th on Sargent House. Order HERE.

 

---

---

---

READ:

For Halloween I did an impromptu re-read of Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park, which has become a book I read every couple of Octobers and never tire of. From there, I'd planned to begin Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse, a book my good friend and fellow co-host from Drinking w/ Comics and The Horror Vision gifted me a copy of a few months back. However, something steered me into another impromptu re-read, this time of William Sloane's To Walk the Night. I first read this one back in 2016, and found I already was chomping at the bit to get back into it. 75 pages or so in, it's every bit as great as I remember. Also, the narrator speaks a lot like Hunter S. Thompson - which I attribute era and region - and that familiarity adds a entirely new level of pleasure to the prose.

To Walk the Night was originally published in 1937, and as such, there are many editions of the book that have been published in the intervening years. The most recent I know of, and the edition I have, is in a volume titled The Rim of Morning, published by NYRB Classics in 2015.

The volume also contains the novel The Edge of Running Water, another fantastically dark, cosmic tale of restrained but utterly creepy Horror. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Naked Eyes - Promises, Promises (Single)

Tamaryn - The Waves

The Stone Roses - Eponymous

Stevie Nicks - Stand Back (Single)

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

Bölzer - Hero

Steve Morse - Bliss OST

---

---

---

Card:

The 5 of Wands always leaves me scratching my head a bit - there are things about this card that suggest a level of discomfort or discontent with authority to me, and I wonder if that has to do with my recent re-engagement with world news (imagine that, throw out the clown and the news no longer feels like a sideshow). However, there's also something militant about this card, and it makes me wonder if perhaps that might not bode well for the coming restrictions civic leaders are no doubt going to have to impose as the population of entitled cunts that apparently make up a sizable portion of this country's population continue to act like spoiled children.

This is why we can't have nice things, America.

Blackened Metal Hero

My follow Horror Vision host Tori recently turned me on to Bölzer. This album is fantastic! A Black/Extreme Metal band, I was floored to discover Bölzer is a two-piece! This record is fantastic, and mixing/mastering/recording engineers Victor Santura, Michael Zech, and the enigmatic D.G. really knew how to steer the band into a sonic space that more than makes up for any 'missing' instrumentation. I'd say the sound of this album, which really knows how to use an ample but still tasteful amount of reverb, is one of the fullest metal band sounds I've heard in a while. There's a definite 'space' to this recording, and it's big and dark and bold.  

---

---

---

Podcast

 

A new episode of The Horror Vision went up last week. I've recently moved beyond just the audio component of the show, and started making extremely rudimentary 'videos' for each episode. The plan is to eventually make a more involved video, or - gasp - do something similar to DwC, but with that show slowly creeping back toward reappearance, where I'll find the time remains to be seen. Until then, enjoy us talking about the genre we love, and if you dig it, leave a comment and let's talk Horror!

---

---

---

Watch:

Tuesday after work I rented Jeremy Gardner's new film After Midnight. Produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead - Benson has a small supporting role in the film - Gardner wrote and co-directed this one, as well as starring in it. As it stands now, After Midnight will almost definitely finish 2020 as my favorite film of the year.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Lake Street Dive - Making Do (Single)

Bölzer - Hero

Zombi - Shape Shift

Zola Jesus - Stridulum

---

---

---

Card:

Back on track, big time.

Nobody Wants to Party with Us, says Mrs. Piss

 

I did not find out about Chelsea Wolfe and Jess Gowrie's new band Mrs Piss until a week or two ago, and since, their debut Self-Surgery has become a record I simply cannot turn off. Available on the always great Sargent House, you can order the record HERE.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

Having just seen the original Castle Freak for the first time within the last year or two (Thanks, Joe Bob!), I'd read about Barbara Crampton's work producing a remake and became immediately interested. It's not often one of the original cast members in a seminal film take on such a labor of love, and the fact that the cast member in question is possibly the greatest Scream Queen of all time only adds to my interest. Why remake this film? I can only assume Ms. Crampton has good reason to throw her hat into the project, and judging by the trailer, we should have a new iteration of Stuart Gordon's somewhat odd modern take on the H.P. Lovecraft classic in just a few short weeks.

---

---

---

NCBD

First, the return of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's dark fantasy epic has become even more exciting now that they've announced Seven to Eternity will be ending in just three short issues. I love this book, and I've missed it incredibly.

We Live is an Aftershock book getting a lot of press. On a whim I grabbed the first issue last month, dug it quite a bit, and now I'm hooked. Love this cover on issue two. 

A 'zombie book' that is very much not about zombies, Dead Day continues to make me smile.

Die! Die! Die! may be a book I've continued to read out of inertia, but that doesn't mean I'm not still enjoying it. "GI Joe but totally nuts" is really the only way to describe this one.

I mistakenly never added Jason Howard's Big Girls to either one of my pulls at Atomic Basement or The Comic Bug, and as such, it has been a pain in the arse to find since I picked up the first issue. If I hadn't stumbled across a copy of #3 last week, I would have probably given up and waited for trade, but since I'm only missing #2 now, I'm making the attempt to go monthly again, just to support Howard, whose art I adore.

And finally, this is a new one I'm considering picking up. A sequel to Vault Comics' Fearscape, which I did not read but keep hearing good things about, I thought I might grab the first issue of A Dark Interlude and the Fearscape trade. 

This is definitely the biggest NCBD is a while. I still have storage concerns, but they've kind of taken a back seat to 'the passion' again.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

The Clash - London Calling

The Bronx - Eponymous (I)

Fleet Foxes - Shore

The Foxies - Anti Socialite (single)

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

---

---

---

Card:

Really, not necessarily a new journey or undertaking, as a direct indictment of how fucking lazy I have been of late. I just can't seem to get my discipline with writing back online at the moment; it's been a struggle now for the last few months, and I really need to do something about it