The Besnard Lakes - Feuds with Guns Official Music Video

 

More new Besnard that I'm trying really hard not to listen to in anticipation of sitting down with a joint and the entire new album - The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings, out January 19th (digital) and 29th (physical) - and just melting into the fucking music. Pre-order the record HERE.

 

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Read:

I have read a lot lately. First, at the recommendation of my good friend and Christian Fisting co-founder Joe.Baxter, I fell into Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder novels pretty hard, devouring Books one and two in about a day each. This started as research for a character I'm writing in Shadow Play Book Two, but quickly became the kind of obsessive read that forces me to relegate all Block to weekend reading only, lest I stay up all night on a work night rabidly flipping pages.

Next, I finally picked up Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians. After reading Jones's Night of the Mannequin a few months ago, I've been eager to get to this one. Halfway through in two days, it is not disappointing at all, so there will be more SGJ in my future.

Also, thanks to Jonathan Grimm, who tipped me off that Kindle was having a Marvel Masterworks sale on the entire original Chris Claremont run of Uncanny X-Men. I picked up the first five volumes, which fills in most of the gaps of what pre-dated the issues I have in physical form, including the classic Giant Size X-Men, which introduced Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Sunspot (fuck him, he stayed for one mission and left), and Thunderbird to the team.

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Playlist:

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Bell Witch - Four Phantoms

Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Eponymous

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country

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Card:

Not about me at all, I think, but a confirmation K will be getting her promotion.

New ✝︎✝︎✝︎'s and Best Horror of 2020

 

New Crosses! No word that I see of a release date yet, but what a way to round out the year!

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Favorite Horror Films of 2020

Over on The Horror Vision, we did our "Favorite Horror of 2020" episode this weekend, and as I type this the episode should be hitting all major streaming platforms. Here's an embed of the youtube, although this and the IGTV version are considerably truncated for time compared to what you can stream from Spotify and the like. Either way, here are our picks:

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Watch:

 

This was one I had not even heard of until I watched it on Christmas Eve. HOLY cow. This one would make a fantastic double feature with Jeremy Saulnier's Hold the Dark (time for a rewatch!), there's such a stoic reverence for violence. Easily slid into my top ten of the year, as evidenced by the episode of The Horror Vision above. This is director Shawn Linden's third feature, and you can bet I'll be seeking out his first two films - The Good Lie, and Nobody - in short order. 

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Playlist:

Howard Shore - Crash OST

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

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

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Doves - The Universal Want

Nat "King" Cole - The Christmas Song

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

✝︎✝︎✝︎ - The Beginning of The End (pre-release single) 

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

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Card:

 

Being that the standard reading of this card is the beginning of a new project, and I'm in the midst of wrapping one and finishing another, I'm not quite sure how to take this. There's also the "Big influences" reading, and although I'm not sure how to interpret that on a surface level, I suppose I should be on the lookout for inspiration.

Merry Christmas

 

The Shape of Spontaneous Combustion

Possibly my favorite track from an outstanding album, Dance With the Dead's 2016 The Shape.

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Watch:

Last night, K and I watched Brian Duffield's Spontaneous. Wow. Just wow. Duffield - a writer on a bunch of stuff I love, like Underwater, The Babysitter, The Babysitter: Killer Queen (which, admittedly I haven't watched yet, but it's on the list and when the gang's back together, you can't go wrong, right???) - makes his directorial debut here and he KILLS IT. I mean, seriously kills. The Terminator shooting Linda Hamilton's roommate kills, if you know what I mean. Here's the trailer, but my suggestion is, just go pay $2.99 to rent it on Amazon. Best three bucks you're gonna spend all year.

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Playlist:

Opeth - Deliverance

Worm - Gloomlord

Human Impact - Eponymous

Deftones - Ohms

Les Discrets - Septembre et ses derniéres pensées

Dance With the Dead - The Shape

Code Orange - Beneath

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

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Card:

 Balance will be tough to maintain over the next few days, but it will be a struggle well worth mastering.

You Ain't the Problem

 

I really can't say enough about Michael Kiwanuka's KIWANUKA album, except that it's made me a fan of his for life. The entire album is immaculate. This person song, though? This is the gateway drug that will lead to the rest. I'm so happy real Soul music appears to be back on the rise and striving.

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NCBD:

I had my dates wrong last time. Today, it's here, the end of one of the staples of my comics reading for the past few years, Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Gideon Falls:

My re-read on the entire series as a run-up to this stalled out before I even hit the first issue, so it'll be a bit before I actually read this one. That said, just to have it in my possession will feel like a pay-off. And that cover - good god. So ominous!

Also out this week:

I skipped the first issue of Sea of Sorrows but doubled back when Indie Comics Jones gave it high marks, and as usual, Mr. Jones was not wrong. The first issue set up some creepy AF Underwater Horror, and if this awesome cover art is any indication, we're about to get into it. Can't wait. Underwater Horror is a great subgenre that seems poised for a resurgence. This would make me insanely happy.

And this... well, a sequel/continuation of The Picture of Dorian Gray? I don't really know much about this book, but Vault has become my go-to company for new books, so I'm excited. And this cover art? Boy Howdy, that's just freakin' gorgeous in a very creepy way.

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Playlist:

Deftones - Ohms

My Morning Jacket - Z

Spoon - Gimmie Fiction

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

Dante Tomaselli - Out of Body Experience

 

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Card:

 

Act fast - action is Futility's nemesis! Pretty relevant as I sit down and try to shift gears for the third time this year. I have today off and will be attempting to get back into a full re-read/final pass edit on Murder Virus. I have all my Beta Reader's notes, so between that and a fresh take after not looking at the manuscript since August, I'm hoping this last go-through further sharpens what I'm already feeling is my best novel to date (granted, it will only be my second published novel, but I have a few in various states of undress that are complete and will eventually see the light of day, just like this one, which I originally finished in 2008.)

The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

 

Just from the opening strains of the keyboard, I want to listen to this song SO BAD. I mean - new Besnard Lakes! However, I already try to adhere to very limited ingestion of advance tracks from my favorite bands' records before I can hear the track in the context of the entire album, but with this new Lakes record that's dropping on The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings - which according to the write-up on the band's Bandcamp is designed as one continuous cycle of songs - it's really hard. Because I want this one to wash over me as an entire expression. 

From the Bandcamp: 

"The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings honors the very essence of punk rock: the notion that a band needs only be relevant to itself. At last, the Besnard Lakes have crafted a continuous long-form suite: nine tracks that could be listened together as one, like Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies or even Dark Side of the Moon, overflowing with melody and harmony, drone and dazzle, the group's own unique weather."

The digital is out out January 19th, and pre-order for the GORGEOUS physical album is at the Lake's Bandcamp HERE.

Also, I'm very pleased to see the return to form on the album's title. I know the band had previously expressed concern people would get sick of the format, but I for one, love it. However, it also makes me wonder if this is the final album from the Lakes. Let's hope not.

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Watch:

I watched Bea Grant's 12 Hour Shift last night. WOW! Fantastic dark comedy. Go HERE for a short, spoiler-free Letterboxd review and the trailer. This is currently a $6.99 rental on Prime and absolutely worth your hard-earned money.

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Playlist:

Fleet Foxes - Shore

My Morning Jacket - Z

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Crippled Black Phoenix - Ellengaest

Storm Corrosion - Eponymous

Featherweight

 

In the quiet moments of my day - which admittedly are fleeting - I am still entirely under the spell of Fleet Foxes' newest record Shore. While I've heard this band before - specifically, in 2009 my cousin Charles came out for a visit and introduced them to me with the previous year's Eponymous debut - I've never really listened to them in anything but a passive capacity. Why then, do I feel as though Robin Pecknold's voice hits me like that of an old friend? Someone I've really spent some time listening to, reflecting on, and being moved by? While my memory has absolutely proven to be complete shite the older I've got (who knew all those fears about constant and gratuitous pot use would actually yield these results?), and it's possible I spent more time in the late 00s listening to this band than I remember, it seems more likely that first trip Charles and I took around San Pedro's Portuguese Bend on a ridiculously peaceful and serene July day where he first played the band for me really cemented itself in my emotional epicentre. Although I'd moved from Chicago to LALALand three years prior at that point, when you consider how the momentum of daily life makes it pass in a blur, I remember I still felt like a relatively new transplant at that point, and the first visit from one of my favorite people on Earth no doubt combined with the music to make a photographic impression that is retriggered by the sound of Pecknold's voice here, over a decade down the road. 

Pretty cool.

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Watch:

I finally got around to watching Antonio Campos's cinematic adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock's novel The Devil All the Time. I really liked it. Instead of attempting to stuff Pollock's novel into a conventional three-act movie, Campos and his brother Paul, who wrote the screenplay, really allowed the film to go on a more literary journey. 

The Devil All the Time sprawls over the course of two generations, weaving together multiple people's stories and how they all coalesce around the death and depravity of the twisted impulses of humanity as reflected through the misleading light of religion when not tempered with intelligence and common decency.

Yeah. The more things change...

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Playlist:

Code Orange - Underneath

Willie Nelson and Leon Russell - One for the Road

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

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

The Doves - The Universal Want

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Fleet Floxes - Shore

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Card:

 

In a fairly superficial way, I find it interesting that the card I draw for this post is the 8 of Wands Swiftness when I post Fleet Foxes as the music and the first words of the second song on that album are "For Richard Swift."