Another track from the upcoming eight album by The Ocean. Love this video, and love the song. The Ocean is still one of the bands that carry the metal through the 00s for me, and one that still feels as though they are reaching to continually change the landscape of the genre.
The new album, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic I Cenozoic is out on September 25. Pre-order HERE.
NCBD
Not a lot of books this week, but one, in particular, I've been waiting for his Dead Day #3.
I know I've talked a lot about this one lately, but it's worth the hype. I am also aware that for someone who has, consistently for the last nearly two decades, endlessly recited a speech that contains, "Zombies are a dead scene, man," and, "First three Romeros and a couple others are all that matters," I've been logging a lot of excitement for quite a few new zombie books/movies/comics. Well, I guess there's more on heaven and earth than dreamt of in my philosophy, at least when it comes to zombies.
Playlist
Slipknot - Subliminal Verses
Kendrick Lamar - Damn.
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic
Code Orange - Underneath
Electric Wizard - Let Us Prey
Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City
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Healing and compassion, two things I'm currently working on.
I've been in an Electric Wizard mood lately. Here's one of my favorites from 2011's Black Mass, probably my favorite of the group's.
Mindful Habitation:
The last few days have been a bit of a blank slate. Submerged in the same, endless routine of days didn't bother me at all. Until it did. I've experienced a sudden and overpowering loneliness that came on from out of nowhere. I need a pattern interrupt, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I would kill to go sit at the crappy BWW's in Hollywood by my friend's apartment and sit with him, have a burger and a few beers. Just typing that makes me feel like I want to cry. This is crazy. I'm not sure where this overwrought deluge of emotion has come from, but it's almost crippling. The workweek feels like one endless day, and the pattern at home has disintegrated my sleep patterns so that I'm always tired when I'm there during the week. I find joy in consumerism and food, a slippery slope. I'm not gaining weight, but the extra I have is setting up shop right in my stomach.
Okay, now that that's hopefully been expunged, I can maybe get on with my day. Everything I said above is true, but it's also exaggerated from my perspective because everyone needs to feel a little goth/emo now and again. I'll continue to do what I do, however, I think K and I will maybe take a small weekend trip soon, and perhaps meet up with some friends this weekend, just to alter our landscape.
Playlist:
Slipknot - Subliminal Verses
Electric Wizard - Black Mass
Code Orange - Underneath
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Cause and Effect, eh? An interesting pull based on everything I wrote above. The emotional and psychological effects of this long-term isolation will most likely resound through our society for years, perhaps even after a vaccine.
Speaking of vaccines, I might as well put down my prediction here before it's too late, both as a warning and an 'I told you so,' because the frustration of the current socio-political landscape has made me into the kind of cunt that will say exactly that. Prediction: A 'vaccine' will appear shortly before the election, Trump will take credit, and it will then turn out to not work. Such is our world that even if he introduces a fake vaccine, his die-hard supporters will smile and champion its (and his) merits regardless of whether it's real or not. This MIGHT put him in enough favor to win.
I can see it clear as day: the CDC, FDA, AMA, can all shout at the top of their lungs that it's not thoroughly tested, or straight up doesn't work, and he will cry fake news and people will rally around him as a savior. Let's hope I'm wrong, let's hope there is some Justice served in November. But really, it wouldn't surprise me at this point if there wasn't.
Wow. This just blew me right the F&*K away. This year's Underneath is already on the shortlist to be on my top ten albums of 2020, this perfect cover of Alice in Chains' immortal 'Down in a Hole' may just put the newly released Under the Skin live album on that list, as well.
This is one of those songs I can't hear without a slew of emotions, thoughts, and sensations from high school coming flooding back. That kind of emotion juxtaposition usually doesn't translate to covers. That is definitely not the case with this one.
Read:
Two stories from finishing Nathan Ballingrud's debut short story collection, North American Lake Monsters, I jumped into Stephen Graham Jones' Night of the Mannequins. I read the thing in a few hours and absolutely loved it. Funny, freaky, weird, hilarious, spooky, confounding. All of the above. This is a slasher novel that is not anywhere close to being what you would ever expect from a slasher story. Highest possible recommendation, especially since you can probably knock it out in a day. Perfect summer reading.
Night of the Mannequins is $3.99 on Kindle right now, and worth every goddamn penny!
Next, as I savor these last few stories in Lake Monsters, I'm probably going to start a long-overdue re-read of Clive Barker's iconic The Hellbound Heart.
Playlist:
Doves - The Universal Want
Earth - Primitive and Deadly
X - Los Angeles
Steely Dan - Aja
Mudhoney - March to Fuzz
Electric Wizard - Black Masses
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
CARD:
Getting back up on my writing legs after a fairly successful weekend that proved my new outline method will make writing these next two Shadow Play books considerably easier than the first.
I missed the pre-order on the vinyl for Atonement and now I'm kicking myself. Regardless, the entire album is fantastic, and I can't recommend a band more at this stage in their career. Support Exhalants HERE.
My good friend Grez reminded me that the new Doves album dropped yesterday, a fact I had completely forgotten. When I crawled out of bed this morning and sat down to write this post, I threw on my headphones and dug in. So far, fantastic album, but of course those who know Doves would expect no less. Here's one of my favorite tracks, so far, although it was difficult to choose.
READ:
I finally got around to working through the stack of comics I picked up from both The Comic Bug and Atomic Basement two weeks ago. On that pile was the second issue of Ryan Parrott and Evgeniy Bornyakov's Dead Day, published by Aftershock Comics.
In prepping to read issue two, I went back and re-read issue one, realizing I'd completely forgotten how awesome this book is! Basic set up is every year for the last four years, dead people - not all dead people, no one knows who or why exactly - return from the grave and visit the loved ones they left behind. Well, as the story is showing us, some also visit those who wronged them.
There felt like a considerable gap between issues 1 and 2, so here's to hoping that won't be the case with issue 3, which is currently scheduled for this coming week, 9/16.
Playlist:
Contours - 20th Century Masters
Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper
Melvins - Houdini
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
Fen - Dustwalker
Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling (single)
Jaye Jayle - Prisyn
Exhalants - Atonement
Code Orange - Down in a Hole (single)
Code Orange - Underneath
X - Los Angeles
Card:
I wanted to do a full spread this morning, as it has been quite some time since I'd done one of these.
Starting with 0 The Fool, this spread lays out a slightly tumultuous path that includes overthrowing current paradigms and fighting through self-doubt toward a new idea that will help define the subject.
Episode two of Halt and Catch Fire's fourth and final season ends with James' Laid playing over the characters as they move through the culmination of the episode's interactions, relationship and business shake-ups that no doubt begin to move all these people I've grown to love into position for the series' end in eight more episodes. It reminded me how long it had been since I last listened to James, and how much this song - a song I despised when it made its initial splash in the mid-90s zeitgeist - has come to mean to me since I fell in love with it in a pub in Dublin, circa 2001.
Watch:
I'm not really a Dune fan. I've never read the novels, and the 80's film adaptation is the only film directed by David Lynch I abhor - and feel fine doing so, considering Lynch petitioned to have his name removed from it. That said, I am definitely a Denis Villeneuve fan. And this looks gorgeous, so I'm in:
I'd love for Mr. Villeneuve to pattern his career after someone like Christopher Nolan - alternating big-budget, franchise, or high-end IP projects with original films, and I have a feeling that's exactly what he will do. In the meantime, I loved Blade Runner 2049, and I think I'll love this, too.
Playlist:
I don't do many shuffles, but I ended up having a pretty good one this morning on Apple Music and then translated it into a playlist on Spotify. Here it is:
From there the day's music looked like this:
Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. 1
Lawnmower Deth - Billy
Iress - Prey
The Bronx - The Bronx (I)
Card:
"Quiet contemplation yields unexpected results."
I'll be looking for that today, in the (hopefully) quiet moments when contemplation often sneaks up on me.
I pulled out Firewater's classic 1998 album The Ponzi Scheme and, as usual, now find myself unable to put it away. I've posted other songs from this album here before but haven't paid tribute to others. In that interest, here's"So Long Superman," just another of my favorite songs on an album where every song is a favorite.
Read:
I finished John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead a few days ago. Wow. Very good. Understated, powerful, and creepy as hell. Lindqvist's prose is a touch dry, but it works well as he filters between the three main groups of characters - three families - and how they react to the return of dead loved ones. Their reactions then become superimposed across a larger arena as the whole of Sweden reacts to the return of what the media dub the "Reliving," a term very much inspired by a government trying to handle a baffling and unprecedented experience. This is an undead book where the undead are, for the most part, completely unviolent, leaving the characters to deal with the psychological, emotional, and sociological ramifications of what would happen if the recently deceased returned to us.
From there I moved back into Nathan Ballingrud's debut short story collection, North American Lake Monsters. I'd been reading a story here or there over the last two weeks, just to have something to dig into that inspires me to write, and now that I'm full bore, I'm once again in Ballingrud's beautiful prose. This man is easily one of the best writers working today, no need for the genre quantifier. I simply cannot wait for this to hit Hulu next month as the new anthology show Monsterland; I'm hoping they do all nine stories. In particular, The Crevasse is one of the best shorts I've ever read, and to see it properly translated would be majestic, in the least.
Playlist:
Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Card:
"Harmonious union of male and female energies" is a nice reminder on something I've been working on as I muster up the gumption to jump back into Shadow Play, which I continue to avoid for some reason.
