Weird rabbit hole yesterday wherein I saw The Jeff Healey Band's The Lost Roadhouse Soundtrack had recently been released. This immediately sent me to YouTube, where I found and watched Healey's 1988 Network television debut on the old NBC Lettermen show and although I saw it when it aired and have seen it a handful of times since, I was once again completely blown away. It's hard not to be. This, in turn, led to my discovery of a forthcoming Jeff Healey documentary, See the Light.
Watch:
Looks like this one is in pre-production, but still hopeful for a 2025 release. Nice crop of interview subjects (Steve Cropper!), and a really love realizing that there seems to be a healthy 'Cult of Jeff' out there. I've talked about this here before, but being a consummate Lettermen fan from a young age, I was exposed to Healey throughout the 80s on the show and he always blew me away. I didn't turn out the biggest fan of The Blues as a genre, however, key songs and artists from that era made an impact on me, Healey perhaps more than most.
Playlist:
Preoccupations - Ill At Ease
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Pinky Tuscadero's Whiteknuckle Assfuck - Halfway to Honky Heaven
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
George Michael - Faith
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Various - The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo
Various - Cowboy Bebop OST
Anthrax - Among the Living
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
The Jeff Healey Band - Road House (The Lost Soundtrack)
Led Zeppelin - I
Sha Na Na - The Night Is Still Young
Orville Peck - Pony
Led Zeppelin - IV
INXS - Kick
The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once
Drab Majesty - Careless
Card:
Such a beautiful card. At times, this is my favorite in the deck. There is a cosmic or eternal renewal association with this card, and that's what I'm connecting to at the moment. I'm not sure how that fits into my current day-to-day, but as usual, when stymied, I keep my eyes peeled.
When I added Preoccupations back into my regular rotation a week or two ago, I had zero idea they had a new album coming out. I woke up this morning and saw Apple's push notification that Ill At Ease had been released, promptly made coffee and have been sitting outside listening to it in the post-storm morning since. Exceptional album! A surprise like this is so rare these days, and I am cherishing it!
You can purchase Ill At Ease from Born Losers Records HERE.
Watch:
I was super excited to see Sean Byrne's new flick, Dangerous Animals, is getting a wide theatrical push. I still say Devil's Candy would have been an absolute banger if it had played theatres, but, unfortunately, it came out before this new post-pandemic, Independent Horror friendly world we live in.,
While I'm not really one for mean-spirited torture films, I've come to know Byrne's work enough to know this will be something more than it seems when it opens on June 6th.
Playlist:
Gibby Haynes - Third Man Records Blue Series
The Black Belles - What Can I Do? (single)
The Raveonettes - PE'AH II
Pinky Tuscadero's Whiteknuckle Assfuck - Halfway to Honky Heaven
P.M. Dawn's 1991 album Of the Body, Of the Soul and the Cross: The Utopian Experience is now available on streamers!
I talked a lot about this one back in January of 2021 - basically, this is a song and now an album that, while I wasn't overtly into at the time of its release (I would have been fifteen), has become a huge nostalgia trigger for me. Very cool to finally listen to the entire record.
NCBD:
A solid week of books. Let's get into it:
Plague House's first issue sold me on two things: 1) I am all-in on Michael W. Conrad and Dave Chisholm's Haunted House book, and 2) Oni Press has already captured 2025 as their year, in my opinion.
James Tynion IV and Steve Foxe's Jersey Devil bio has had some pretty crazy moments in it so far, so although I'm kind of looking for books to cut at the moment, I'm definitely going to hang with this one until it ends with issue four. Piotr Kowalski's art, in particular, has really added an ominous sense of momentum to this story.
The cover alone sells the F_CK out of this book.
I completely forgot about this Black Metal-infused, supernatural Folk Horror revenge book by Brian Azzarello, Vanesa Del Rey and Hilary Jenkins. I dug the first two issues, so my forgetfulness is caused by this one's bi-monthly release schedule more than disinterest.
Watch:
The full trailer for Together dropped a few days ago, and while I'll leave it right here for posterity's sake, not watching this one.
Written and Directed by Michael Shanks and starring Dave Franco, Alison Brie, and one of my favorite actors, Damon Herriman, Together carries with it an unstated implication that this will be this year's big Body Horror movie. I find such an unquantifiable thrill in having this sub-genre on its way to becoming a household word. Blows me away.
Together is slated to hit theatres August 1st, and I will be there opening day!
Playlist:
Drab Majesty - Careless
Various - Learn to Relax: A Tribute to Jehu
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed EP
Godflesh - Decline and Fall EP
Antibalas - Where The Gods Are In Peace
P.M. Dawn - Of the Heart, Of the Soul and the Cross: The Utopian Experience
Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins EP
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
Steve Moore - Christmas, Bloody Christmas OST
Zombi - Shape Shift
Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Zombi - Direct Inject
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Four of Swords
• Queen of Pentacles
• King of Cups
Stability in the Will as applied to Earthly matters is entangled with Emotion and thus, leads to conflict. Nearly a perfect summation of my last few days of work.
A new collaboration between HEALTH and Chelsea Wolfe dropped overnight, and it's probably my favorite thing Health has released in a while (although I've been slacking on them). I didn't see word that there was a full collaborative release on the way, but both of these artists like to do them, so smart money says that's a yes.
Watch:
New Fear Street coming at us at the end of the month. I've been meaning to rewatch the ones from a few years ago, so now's a perfect chance.
Fear Street: Prom Queen drops on May 23rd on Netflix.
I know there's a contingent of Horror fans who disliked the original Fear Street, primarily, I think, because they're based on teenagers' books. I get it; the whole "Goosebumps/Fear Street" thing happened after I was a kid. When I was an adolescent, my many trips to the Worth Library yielded books that would now be listed in Grady Hendrix and Will Errikson's Paperbacks From Hell. I've never read any of the R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike books, so I can only take the movies as separate entities. In doing so, I don't know, I really enjoyed them. Also, I thought the "1978" installment was pretty damn brutal for a Netflix movie. Both Pike's work and Stine's recent Horror Anthology, The Stuff of Nightmares, reflect two creators who are well aware the folks who read their stuff as kids have grown up and require something more adult.
Playlist:
Ghost - Impera
Ghost - Skeletä
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
The Bronx - The Bronx (II)
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
John Carpenter - Lost Themes II
Ghost - Infestissumam
Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Swords
• Queen of Pentacles
• Page of Wands
Fear can be grounded, tethered, and can be used as an "Earthly" tool.
The song is a bit polished for my taste, but this video put a great big smile on my face. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Effects by Greg Nicotero, this is a damn good time.
You can visit Mammoth's site HERE for merch and tour details.
Watch:
I am a HUGE fan of the Flesh and Blood season of the Horror anthology series Slasher. I tried the follow-up season and couldn't make it very far, and although I recently realized the original seasons are still on Netflix, I've yet to find the time to go back and finish the first Season - which I liked when it first hit streaming - and give two and three a chance.
Despite this herky-jerky relationship with Slasher, Flesh and Blood made enough of an impression that when I saw Bloody Disgusting post about this new upcoming anthology series by the same creators, I was intrigued. After watching the trailer, I am in!
Hell Motel starts up on Shudder June, 17th. If I remember correctly, Slasher's new episodes drop weekly, not altogether, so if that carries over to this, that's something to look forward to for sure!
I've made it a mission to fully engage with Blut Aus Nord's Disharmonuium series again. These guys are so out there sometimes - and I mean that in the best way possible - that I still don't feel like I have a grasp on some of their work. And Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses/Disharmonium: Nahab feature chief among those albums that confound the living hell out of me.
Back in 2018, while reviewing The Dillinger Escape Plan's final album, Disassociation, I mentioned that their music often feels like encountering an extra-dimensional being that I can only grasp in vague cross-sections. That doubles for Blut Aus Nord when they are at their most experimental. The confluence of Industrial and Black Metal on these albums is astoundingly obtuse - this is the kind of music Lovecraft's protagonists occasionally describe hearing in the presence of the Outer Gods. They set a precedent for that with 2011's The Work Which Transforms God - the album that originally drew me to them. The Disharmonium series, however, really pushes that sound into new places. Dark sonic plaguescapes of an almost ungraspable nature. This sounds dramatic, but it's not. Listening to these albums, it's hard to hold onto the music for very long at all; the drums form an omnipresent backdrop upon which the guitars and keyboards (?) bloom and evolve like blood droplets in hot water. Miasma is a word that springs to mind. I'm gearing up for a session where I smoke up and sit in the middle of my floor between my speakers, just concentrate to the best of my ability on the music and where it takes me.
But I haven't found that time yet.
Play:
New Metroidvania Moadra looks BAD ASS! Some of these graphics align nicely with what I discussed above regarding Blut Aus Nord, so I couldn't pass up following up with this.
This one is hitting multiple game platforms later this year, but, of course, as of now, I'm still only interested in the Switch, so I'm glad to see Nintendo included in the rollout here. You can read more about the game and the other consoles over on Bloody Disgusting HERE.
Watch:
A week or two ago, my good friend and Horror Vision Cohost Tori posted a trailer in our podcast group chat. The trailer was for a movie I had not heard of at the time, HIM. I started watching the trailer and had to wonder why she had posted a football-centric film that looked akin to Any Given Sunday.
Then, at about the 41-second mark, the trailer changes. What follows revealed what is now one of my most eagerly anticipated films of the year.
I hate football, but I love films that defy categorization and expectation. HIM appears to be a film that will do both. I've seen this trailer three times now, and where that would normally drive me fucking crazy, each time I just marvel at it, thinking, "What the absolute fuck is this about?"
I don't want an answer. I just want to see it.
Produced by Jordan Peele, this is Written by Zack Akers & Skip Bronkie and Directed by Justin Tipping - three people I am wholly unfamiliar with, making this even more of a mystery.
Playlist:
The Cops - Free Electricity
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Melvins/Jello Biafra - Sieg Howdy
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Bluekarma - The Communication
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
McKinley James - Live!
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Cups
• Four of Wands
• Eight of Cups
The joy of completion can lead to inactivity. Keep active.
Good advice for someone who just finished one book and is pretty hot on the next. Keep it going; don't rest on your laurels.
