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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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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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.
I've really been digging on David Bowie's 1983 album Let's Dance of late. This is one I never really deep-dived on due to the oversaturation of the hits - all of which I love - throughout most of my life. This one always felt a skosh... pedestrian to me previously.
What a f*&kin' stupid thing to think. As if any David Bowie could be pedestrian. While there are definitely albums and eras of his career that appeal to me more than other ones, any Bowie is good Bowie, and my recent obsession with this album proves that. Here's my favorite non-single, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", of which I definitely am one. A cat person, that is.
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While the teaser for Jordan Peele's eagerly awaited Nope had a total of three images from the film in it and is mostly teased out by clips from his previous two films - which, although I can't wait for the movie, renders it meaningless for me to post here - the teaser for Dario Argento's new Giallo Dark Glasses is all I need to see to know I can't wait for this flick:
Looks like classic Argento to me, a flavor I haven't quite had enough of lately. No definitive release date yet, but "soon" is enough to get my heartbeat above 110.
NCBD:
Another super light NCBD. Here's what's coming home with me this week:
Very curious about this new Fist of Khonshu that's shown up in the pages of Moon Knight, especially after seeing this cover.
So, I gave up on the X Lives of Wolverine, and am moving forward with the Deaths because, so far, this one reads like a direct sequel to Jonathan Hickman's recent X-Swan Song Inferno. Deaths also, quite surprisingly, has thus far had very little to do with the titular, over-used mutant. Now, I'm not convinced this is a worthy sequel to Hickman's time on X-Men, but I'm willing to give it an issue or two more before I decide.
Is the tentative jive I throw down when talking about some of these books taxing? It might be. I'm just so suspicious of Mutant books, even after being so blown away by so many recent ones. The problem, of course, is that, to quote the Action Figure Insider, Daniel Pickett from one of his appearances on Drinking with Comics, "Comics has always been a strip-mining industry," and nowhere is that more true than with Wolverine and the X-Men. What you like one second will turn around and drastically disappoint you a minute later, so a savvy reader has to keep his guard up always while reading big-two series.
Playlist:
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - Carnage
Donny McCaslin - Beyond Now
Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
Godflesh - Post Self
David Bowie - Let's Dance
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I raise a glass to he who inspires the grandest of stories, the oldest of tales, the inspiration for independent thought. Never forget - the snake was the enemy of the Old Testament's god because the snake offered enlightenment.
PJ Harvey is one of my favorite artists. Has been since the 90s. Weirdly enough, I don't listen to her that often. In thinking about this, I realize that I hold her music in a sort of sacred regard that feels as though it might become deluded if I overdo it. Probably not the case, in reality, however, it is what it is. Here's one of my favorite songs from her seminal 1995 album To Bring You My Love.
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I dug out my copy of Weird Walk issue #2 recently and began re-reading it as research for the new podcast off-shoot my Horror Vision co-host Ray Larragoitiy and I are doing. Stick & Stones is a sidebar deep-dive into Folk Horror, which is a sub-genre I've been enchanted with (pun intended) for the last few years, although until recently, I always referred to most of these flicks as "UK Occult Films."
Weird Walk is an indie zine in every sense of the word, but it's a class act and chock full of fascinating ruminations on the haunted underpinnings of the British landscape and society. Highly recommended - you can order it HERE and follow their podcast HERE or wherever you get your podcasts!
Oh yeah, and as of yesterday, there are two episodes of The Horror Vision Presents... Sticks & Stones: A Folk Horror Discussion up. The newest one deals with Stephen King's Children of the Corn - story and movie - and Chad Crawford Kinkle's Jug Face. The first episode sets up the series with a discussion of Kier-La Janisse's Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, then compares and contrasts Avery Crounse's Eyes of Fire and Robert Eggers' The Witch. Also available wherever you get your podcasts.
Playlist:
The Yellow House - Live at Southgate House
Darkness Brings the Cold (The Forest Children) - Human Me
Ween - Live In Chicago
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Brand New - Daisy
Ministry - Filth Pig
Soul Coughing - El Oso
Cypress Hill - Black Sunday
Cypress Hill - Back in Black (pre-release singles)
Let's wash that 80s Metal taste out of our mouth, shall we? Kinda tastes like Marlboro Lights mixed with Boon's Farm and Aquanet. Here's the first single Author/Punisher released from the forthcoming album Krüller, out on Relapse Records next Friday! Pre-Order HERE.
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After rewatching Scream 2 and seeing part 3 for the first time back in October, I have to say, everything but the original seems like they are most definitely not for me. The franchise feels like Friends with a murder. Because of this, it was with great reluctance I went to see part 5 a few days ago. But lo and behold, Radio Silence turned in a really fun, gory AF flick that I had a blast with. And they manage to make "Meta" interesting again.
Playlist:
Ministry - Filth Pig
Ministry - Twitch
Soul Coughing - El Oso
Cypress Hill - Back in Black (pre-release singles)
Cypress Hill - Black Sunday
Depeche Mode - Christmas Island
Ghost - Meliora
Ghost - Popestar
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Anthrax - Among the Living
Author/Punisher - Krüller (pre-release singles)
Brand New - Daisy
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond the Dark
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This card is so where I'm at right now. So many distractions and I'm finding it impossible to concentrate. I've upped my daily meditation regiment for the next few days after missing the last few, and knuckling down on enforcing mental discipline.
I'm bringing 80s Metal Week to a close with a bit of a cheat. While I will admit to making certain eras of Judas Priest's music the butt of the joke back in the day, I have always held a place in my heart for early Priest, especially this song, which I can very distinctly remember making a huge impact on me as a kid. Love this track, so it doesn't really fit with the other six entries, all of which were kind of 'rediscoveries.' But I kind of ran out of those, and figured, what the hell, let's end with one of the best, most anthemic hard rock/80s metal songs of that era.
As a disclaimer, when I say "80s Metal," I guess I kind of took for granted that people would interpret that phrase the same way I do - obviously, these aren't Metal in the sense that a lot of the iconic Heavy Metal bands of that era were, but the actual descriptor "80s Metal" has, to me, almost become a genre tag, so that I would not use it in reference to, say, Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, etc.
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Cautiously optimistic.
I've never followed TCM as a franchise. The original is a classic, and one of the first films to make me feel uneasy just based on how it was shot. The sequel is bonkers, and I love it. After that, parts 3 and 4 - both of which I've seen in parts or barely remembered ill-advised viewings - are conversation pieces at best. Especially four, which I caught part of on cable back in the late 90s and still am not quite sure what it is I saw...
The reboot worked for about two acts, then the third just focuses on getting Jessica Biels' t-shirt as wet as possible. Even the one almost-amazing gag in the flick - the hitchhiker's suicide at the beginning - falls apart at the very end because of a sloppy edit. This one was close to a good attempt, but ultimately failed. And even though I've heard Adam Marcus and Debra Sullivan discuss at length their script for 2013's direct sequel to the original Texas Chainsaw and it sounds amazing, knowing that John Luessenhop basically came in and disregarded a lot of what they had planned meant I could never even giving the film a chance.
But this new one, well, Fede Alverez is the man, so here's to hoping. I mean, I don't feel like I need another TCM flick, but I'd love a new Alverez one, and even if he is only writing and Producing, I'm hoping it will inspire something close to what he did with 2013's Evil Dead, which I still count as my second favorite film in that particular franchise.
Also, John Larroquette.
NCBD:
Finally, a brief respite from the veritable deluge of titles I've been buying. Here are this week's NCBD titles I'll be picking up:
Nocterra returns. I'm digging this book but not 100% I'm going to continue with it. I'm really trying to talk myself into excising some of the books I'm following before I have to add another short box. The reality of
This new Savage Spider-Man title picks up where Joe Kelly's Non-Stop Spider-Man left off, so I'm excited to get in some Spidey without having to dip back into the insane continuity that is ASM at the moment.
Playlist:
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
Pat Benatar - In the Heat of the Night
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Card:
Creative energy cannot be destroyed. I'm re-routing some things at the moment.
It's getting a bit tough to make it through all seven entries of 80s Metal Week and not repeat myself, but then it occurred to me, there is no way I wasn't going to include this song and, particularly, this video, which is ridiculous. That said, this one has stayed with me since I first saw it on Empty-V back when it came out, so I wanted to do it justice.
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David Lynch Executive Producer on a surreal thriller dealing with doppelgängers?
Sign me up. This also reminds me that I still haven't seen My Son, My Son, What Have You Done, the film Lynch produced for Director Werner Herzog back in 2009.
Cypress Hill - Back in Black (pre-release singles)
Cypress Hill - Eponymous
Metallica - Master of Puppets
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry
Anthrax - Spreading The Disease
Back Sabbath - Master of Reality
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Soul Coughing - El Oso
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Dealing with issues of stability as we move into the phase of booking all of the locations and services that will precipitate our escape from LaLaLand. Also, taxes always induce mild to threatening anxiety in me.
