To Walk the Night

 

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

 

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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. 

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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

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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.  

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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!

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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.

 

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

The Filth and the Fury

 

Last night, I showed K Julien Temple's Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury for the first time. This was my third time seeing it, first in probably ten years. It reminded me just how much I love the Pistols, a love that wasn't always there, but came on strong after readng Tour Manager Noel Monk's tour bio Twelve Days on the Road, which I have now slotted up for a re-read sometime in the new year. Love them or hate them, Never Mind the Bollocks still stands as possibly the most pivotal 12 songs ever recorded.

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Watch:

 

Along with The Filth and the Fury, this weekend we also watched Floria Sigismondi's film The Runaways, the 2010 biopic about the all-female rock band of the same name. I'd seen this one before, back when it first hit video. The Runaways was my first inclination that Kristen Stewart could act, and although the film still looks to me as though large chunks were edited out before release, it's a great story about an awesome band I don't listen to nearly enough. One of K's favorite groups, I've definitely picked them up more since we started dating, but I really need to dig in on my own.

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Playlist:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes

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

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter

Horseback  The Invisible Mountain

Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

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Card:

The cups runneth over. Let's hope so. 

New Melvins!

 

New Melvins? Yes, please!

Pre-order the new album HERE, out February 26 on Ipecac Records!

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Watch:

Friday morning I woke up and rented Bryan Bertino's new film The Dark and The Wicked on Prime. Great flick. I didn't 100% connect with it the way I had hoped, however, I probably had some pretty unrealistic expectations. That said, it's a very well made film, even if I did kind of think all the atmosphere and tension didn't quite "pop" the way it tried to. Definitely worth supporting, though, and Bertino is one of the best modern filmmakers working in Horror, in my opinion. 

I also finally made it around to Benson and Moorhead's episode of this year's season of The Twilight Zone. "8" is great. I still don't dig the overall feel of the series, and as much as I dig Jordan Peele, he just doesn't have the same wry manner needed to fill Rod Serling's shoes, but I did like seeing an Octopus kill off a team of Arctic research scientists. 

Despite my misgivings on the series, I'm glad someone's doing it, because anthology shows like this help employ a lot of filmmakers, and whether I watch them or not, it makes me happy they exist.

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Playlist:

Opeth - Watershed 

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny 

Barry Adamson - As Above So Below 

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To the Sky 

Miserable - Uncontrollable 

Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Fen - The Dead Light

Hoseback - The Invisible Mountain

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse

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Card:

What I've been doing to myself again with writing. I did nail some important backstory in a scene yesterday, but I could have got a lot more done had I not kept flitting around, being distracted by menial tasks that totally could have waited. 

Sudden Death!

 

The first official video from Mr. Bungle's The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny, which coincidentally, I just got done listening to at work before I clicked over to youtube and discovered this. Loving the record so far.

 

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Watch:

 

For some reason, I have Aliens/Prometheus on the brain today, and I realized I've never watched these deleted scenes.

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Playlist:

NIN - The Downward Spiral

Beck - Delay (Deluxe Edition)

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Opeth - Watershed 

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Card:

Be careful, consider options, do not rush.

Sabbath Lads

For my fellow Sabbath Lads. Ozzy has never sounded so serene.

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Watch:

The season opener of John Favre's The Mandalorian was so chocked full of goodness that I thought, for a moment, I might explode. Thankfully, someone is doing something cool with Star Wars.

Also, now that I've restarted my Disney + sub, I'm really looking forward to Wandavision. So much so, I think I'm going to start re-watching the MCU from the beginning, filling in those gaps I've missed along the way. What stoked my excitement?

I feel like I am about to very much re-engage with Marvel. 

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NCBD:

Pretty light week. 

A new series from Aftershock Comics, Miskatonic looks like it will pit J. Edgar Hoover's "Red Scare" against the seedy underground world of Lovecraftian Death Cults. How could I not want to read this?

The old reliable, every-month-is-better-than-the-last.

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Playlist:

Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies

Opeth Deliverance

I found an excellent podcast recently that has become increasingly important to the research aspect of writing Shadow Play Book II and spent some time listening yesterday. Mexico Unexplained is a series of quick but amalgam of informative historical facts and subsequent conjecture, and it's fascinating. Go to their site HERE. 

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Card:

Patient and stable. Also, coming out the other side of that solitude we started today's post off with.