Better Lovers - Drowning in a Burning World

 

Absolutely LOVING the debut album by Better Lovers, Highly Irresponsible! You can snag the record from the band HERE, or listen on all streaming platforms. This shit will wake you up!

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31 Days of Halloween:

K and I got to see Hereditary on the big screen again last night. My third overall viewing of Ari Aster's breakout debut, and it still totally fucking ROCKS!

The fact that Toni Collete's performance was overlooked by the 'Industry' just solidifies what a pack of cunts they are.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

23) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

24) Planet Terror

25) Baron Blood

26) The Blob ('88)/ The Thing/Tremors/Abigail

27) Halloween Kills

28) Over the Garden Wall

29) Hereditary

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NCBD:

Not much on my pull today. In fact, only one book. Is this the best we can do the week of Halloween, publishers? Really?

Okay, then, allow me to talk a bit about some books I picked up while in Chicago over the weekend. As usual, I stopped in at Amazing Fantasy Comics, and so far, my favorite thing I picked up was the first four issues of Horror Anthology Epitaphs From the Abyss.

This is Oni Press's revival of EC Comics, and I wanted to pay special attention to the editorial "mission statement" in the first book:

"From the earliest stages of this project, we've agreed amongst ourselves that it would be a fool's errand to try and produce a knock-off simulacrum of the original EC titles... Instead, we've challenged ourselves to imagine a world where the Comics Code never unceremoniously amputated EC's publishing line at the end of 1955 and, through that lens, what kinds of series and stories EC Comics would be producing for a new generation of readers eager to disturb and discover in the year of 2024."

Talk about the right way to approach an undertaking of this magnitude!!!

Look at these covers, courtesy of Lee Bermejo (issues 2-4) and Andrea Sorrentino (issue 1). Absolutely fantastic, and inside? Well, let's say where the revived Creepshow comic (and show) mostly leaves a lot to be desired, Epitaphs from the Abyss is a great read that takes familiar characteristics of the age we live in and turns them against us (even more than we already do ourselves!). 

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Playlist:

Sumerlands - Dreamkiller 

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers

Various - The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Dinosaur Jr. - Sweep It Into Space

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

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Card:

Today, we're going to take a look at XX: The Aeon.

From my own personal Grimoire: "The Pivotal Sequence - what comes next is upon you!"

Another note I have that catches my eye right away is "Holography- multiple outcomes contained within a whole."

For Crowley, this card was all about Nuit, arched above Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child. Nuit is the doorway to the new Aeon. So much of Crowley's work revolved around the Age of Horus. Did it come upon us? Probably. Did it affect us? Definitely, although these kind of subtle energies never manifest as anything as gaudy as a flying saucer landing on the white house lawn or some politician tearing away their flesh to reveal a scaly visage beneath (not yet, anyway). These energies creep in through the back door of the human collective unconscious and change the world by changing us over time. I'm reminded immediately of Donald Tyson's bone-chilling essay, "Enochian Apocalypse" (read it HERE). I'm also reminded that in his Book of Thoth, Crowley has this to say, "... the child Horus is born... he is also solar in character, and is therefore shown coming forth in a golden light." To which I drew an arrow and wrote in the margins oh so long ago, "UFO???"

Now, that's not to say I believe in UFOs (or whatever they're called now), but the idea for the card is something arrives that will change your perception of what is real or possible. The very definition of a new Aeon, eh?

Walk on Gilded Splinters

 

From Dr. John's very Halloween-appropriate album Gris Gris, now an annual Autumn listen for me thanks to Mr. Brown. Love this tune, and coincidentally, the posthumous release Things Happen That Way contains a pretty banging version as well. I love both, however, the original on headphones really puts you there.

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31 Days of Halloween:

You know, based on my question about Michael Walsh's Frankenstein issue three last week, I found that I have no real memory of The Bride of Frankenstein. I watched so many of Universal monster movies as a kid that I'd always assumed I'd seen most of them. However, cracking James Whale's 1935 Frankenstein sequel out two nights ago, I realized I may never have actually seen it all the way through from the beginning. 

In particular, the "Little People" sequence kind of dropped my jaw. There's a definite comedic vein that runs through part of this film, and I don't love it. The recurring Minnie character, Dr. Pretorious' aforementioned little people experiments - hardly the same science as our man Henry's, perhaps closer to early IVF - and the Burgomaster shepherding the doddering villagers at the inception of the Bride all rub me the wrong way. That said, the climatic laboratory scenes just may outclass the original film's 'birthing' sequence, and the opening with Lord Byron, Mary and Percy Shelley hanging out immediately made me want to rewatch Ken Russell's 1986 Gothic, an old-school favorite I've kind of forgotten about over the last two decades.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

23) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

24) Planet Terror

25) Baron Blood

26) The Blob ('88)/ The Thing/Tremors/Abigail

27) Halloween Kills

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Watch:

Tom Savini on the old NBC Letterman show in the run-up to Day of the Dead's release.

I think I smiled for nearly twenty-four hours straight after watching this one. To see Savini go through some of the iconic props in a movie I love, and Letterman react in the way only Letterman can. Wow. 

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Playlist:

Various - My Halloween Spotify Playlist

Rodney Crowell - Eponymous

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Nico Vega - Lead To Light

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Skinny Puppy - Remission

Double Life - Indifferent Stars EP

Dr. John - Things Happen That Way

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

Dr. John - Gris Gris

Entropy - Liminal

Spotlights - Love & Decay

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto - Devil Music Vol. 1

Drug Church - Prude

Better Lovers - Highly Irresponsible

Entropy - Dharmak​ā​ya

YUNGBLUD - Eponymous (single)

The Streets - The Irony of It All (single)

YUNGBLUD - Eponymous

Soundgarden - Down on the Upside

Bandsplain Podcast - Soundgarden Parts 1 & 2  (HERE and HERE)

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Skinny Puppy - Circustance

From my favorite Skinny Puppy album, 1991's Last Rights. This record blew my mind when I used a gift token from Coconuts to purchase it back circa 1992/93, not knowing what to expect, just that the weird/cool Industrial Senior in my art class named Matt once told me, cryptically, "The keyboards in Skinny Puppy will make you feel... like... you're... GOD!"

He wasn't wrong.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Unpopular opinion: I actually prefer Carrie 2: The Rage to Brian De Palma's original Carrie. Now, I'm not saying Carrie 2 is a better film, but for me, there are a few major irks with De Palma's film.

Carrie is well made, but the 70s were often an ugly decade, and all the costume design and set decoration seems (to me) to revel in that ugliness. This is an excellent story; such a raw treatise on bullying and the personal, world-bending pain that comes of it. That’s something I love and respect. That and most of the performances. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie are a fucking powerhouse, and Nancy Allen is an unforgettable bitch. Alas, a lot of the suspense just doesn’t work for me. The entire protracted sequence before the bucket spills feels absurd on a cartoon level, with Sue and the Gym Teacher looking here, looking back, looking at each other, looking away… it ends up taking away from the blood and fire of the climax. Not completely, but enough that I get annoyed. Finally, I’ve said this for three decades, but travolta is not a good actor and really brings down every scene he’s in.

Katt Shea fills Carrie 2 to the brim with a sense of embitterment and isolation that, while affecting, fails to measure up to those feelings in De Palma's. That said, I think there is something about the time between the two films (1976 and 1999) and the severely different aesthetics of the eras that helps Carrie 2 feel like a natural extension of the original. Does it need to exist? Absolutely not. The entire movie is really just one long wait for some widespread comeuppance, but when Shea's film delivers this, it is GLORIOUS! I love that pretty much no one is spared. Does the film suffer from that pre-millennial cheese that so many films from this era do? Yes, but it also references both Scream and New York Ripper in the same line of dialogue! I feel some Twin Peaks in here, some NOES 2, a lot of disparate influences that work together to make Carrie 2 way more watchable than a lot of films from this time. 

Will I revisit this again? Maybe. Will I revisit the original? Absolutely. I check back in every few years on this and Dressed to Kill to see if my problems are me. So far, that has not been the case.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

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NCBD:

This week's pull starts off with one I've been excited about since seeing the cover solicitation.

Holy. Shite. I've been waiting for something like this since the inception of The Energon Universe. Cobra-La in space, mixing it up with, I'm assuming, either the Quintessons or the denizens of the Great Ring? And this is probably only the beginning. It's funny how I couldn't give a toss about these 'goofy' Joe cartoon characters in pretty much any other context but what Kirkman and his team are doing. Admittedly, Pythona has the best scene in that G.I.Joe cartoon movie from the '80s, but overall I always sided with Hama's comic and eschewed the increasingly day-glo aesthetic of the cartoon. But Kirkman has recontextualized all of this, and I am excited to see what happens.

Michael Walsh's Frankenstein has not disappointed me yet. I'm sure I've said this before, but Mr. Walsh is one of my favorite artists working today. Also, does this cover allude to The Bride joining the story? 

Catching up with Leo? Nice. Loving that this book has been taking its time to release. I'm hoping that doesn't fall away once things really get going. 

John Constantine is dead and his trek across the U.S. has been as bizarre as one might expect for a (ghost? Reanimated?) Britsh Punk Rock-reared Magician. 

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Playlist:

Purple Hill Witch - Eponymous

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

The Soft Moon - Criminal

The Kills - Midnight Boom

Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

John Frusciante - Brown Bunny OST

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Card:

Today's card for study is XIX - The Sun:

The Triumph of the Spirit! This card is obviously a glorious one, filled with revelation or perhaps the idea of seeking revelation. From my grimoire: "Taking the Pill will open your eyes."

Crowley says it in his Book of Thoth: "This is one of the simplest cards; it represents ... the Lord of the New Aeon in his manifestation to the race of men as the sun."

The dancing children (?) represent humanity accepting the revelation of the new aeon, Crowley's Age of Horus. The philosophical reality of that can be argued, the important thing on the non-Crowley level of just reading the cards is this indicates the person in question will change. 

Purple Hill Witch

 

Really digging Purple Hill Witch, an awesome Stoner/Doom band from Oslo, Norway, who recently signed to Totem Cat Records, home of so many other fantastic bands! As I get to know the back catalogue, I'm following these guys on IG and salivating at the prospect of the new record!

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31 Days of Halloween:

Rob Zombie's 31 is a polarizing film, to say the least. Even in my own personal conversation about Horror, you know, the one flowing in my head pretty much ALL THE TIME, I have mixed opinions. It starts strong with Doomhead, wears on my nerves with its "King Dong" bag of dick and fuck jokes as we meet the cast, and then really comes up strong again when we get going on the plot. Yet, all that time spent annoying me with character "development" doesn't make me dislike the protagonists at all. What they go through saves them for me.

By the end, I am always intoxicated by 31, and it's often difficult to find something to watch afterward (unless I'm doing House of 1000 Corpses or Devil's Rejects). 

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

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Read:

The pre-order went up for the next Laird Barron release on Bad Hand Books. HERE's the link and the solicitation below this amazing cover art by Samuel Araya. 

"Barron returns to Bad Hand Books with an all-new novella in his famed Antiquity setting. (Pretty) Red Nails features familiar hero Isaiah Coleridge—but he’s not at all as we remember him. This is Coleridge with a dark-fantasy twist. A tall, rangy mercenary armed with a deadly iron spear, Coleridge travels the benighted land astride a nameless piebald stallion while the grinning moon watches from above like a patient carrion bird. Alongside Lionel Robard and a battle-scarred war dog, Minerva, Coleridge faces off against a mad wizard and the horrifying Pale Ones on a quest to find the fabled city of Ur. For love. For lust. For pretty red nails."

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Playlist:

Drug Church - PRUDE

Chat Pile - Cool World

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Misfits - Static Age

Ministry - The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste

Purple Hill Witch - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• King of Pentacles

• Ace of Swords

• I: The Magician

The King (Prince) of Disks can be a bit of a cunt for matters of Earthly stability. He's a shake-up, a corporate higher-up who stops in to ensure things are running smoothly and routinely finds issues. That said, that kind of pragmatic assessment can lead to enlightenment and enhanced prowess. 

Drug Church - Demolition Man

 

BIG thanks to Mr. Brown, who clued me into the fact that comic writer Patrick Kindlon's band Drug Church has a new record out! Kindlon is kind of the pinnacle of the evolution of Punk Rock to me at the moment: he writes wonderfully subversive and thought-provoking comics, and he sings in an awesome band that has a social awareness that reminds me a bit of Fugazi, although turned somewhat inward. Really great stuff.

You can order the record HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Not much to say about my viewing over the weekend. Rewatching the original Terrifier, I'm merely reminded how great the second and third entries are with an actual plot, although Leone's FX work is still great (although subdued by lack of budget), and it's interesting to see the Victoria character's origin again, given what she's become. That was Friday night; Saturday was Ti West's The Houe of the Devil with Joe Bob from The Last Drive-In episode aired during the first season of the show, back in 2019. House is normally a film I prefer to watch uninterrupted, but this is my second viewing in the last few months (I watched it when Maxxxine hit theatres, too), and I'd never seen Joe Bob 'do' the film, so it was time. Very cool factoids throughout.

Last night, I re-watched Lucky McKee's The Woods. This was his 2006 follow-up to May. May is one of my all-time favorite films. The Woods is... not a bad film by any means. However, something about it feels very hollow to me. I don't remember how I felt about this one when I first saw it upon the initial DVD release, but it definitely didn't move the needle with me this time. 

I feel like I am running out of time this month. There's been a couple not-so-great viewings, and there's a ton of stuff I want to get to. Might have to organize the remainder of my viewings. 

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

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Listen:

My friend Justin interviewed Chris Connelly on the latest episode of his YouTube show, Trailer Punk Podcast. Check it out!

Listening to this, I'm reminded I've still never tracked down a copy of Connelly's 2010 novel Ed Royal, and now I realize he has others! No excuses... 

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Playlist:

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Oranssi Pazuzu - Live at Roadburn

Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä 

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Perturbator - Nocturne City EP

The Body and Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven

Various - Halloween Spotify Playlist

Orville Peck - Pony

Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula

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Cold Cave - Octavia

 

The final song on this year's Passion Depression, released back in March. I'm really just getting around to this one now. For whatever reason, none of Cold Cave's albums live up to the promise set by the first one I really heard, 2011's Cherish the Light Years, but this album's pretty great, and this final track is my favorite on it. You can head over to CC's Bandcamp HERE and take your pick. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

      

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Watch:

Okay. Bloody Disgusting posted the trailer for Beyond the Chamber of Terror a few days ago, and it looks like it will either be a gloriously goofy good time or unwatchable.

I guess the proof, as always, will be in the pudding.

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Playlist:

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Skinny Puppy - VIVI Sect VI

Human Impact - Gone Dark

The Cure - A Fragile Thing (single)

Cold Cave - Passion Depression

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

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Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather Always Makes Me SMILE, Too

 

Ritual Howl's album Turkish Leather was released ten years ago on September 30th! Holy smokes. If you're not familiar, check out their discography on Bandcamp. Easily one of my favorite discoveries from the last ten years, for sure.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Last night K and I hit the Regal for Parker Finn's Smile 2. I'm not going to post a trailer because last week, before Terrifier 3, I noticed there was a HUGE spoiler image sandwiched in the quick succession of scenes they splice together, and that pissed me off.

That's not Finn's fault. I rewatched the first Smile Wednesday night, and I have to say, third viewing - first at home - Smile not only held up, but I now think it's one of the scariest flicks in recent memory. Sosie Bacon's physical acting - her posture, inflections and facial tics totally sell her anxiety as she spirals, a descent made all the worse by the fact that the movie begins with her patient demonstrating the exact blueprint for what she's about to go through. 

Chills!

So how does the sequel hold up? Well, our theatrical experience ranks as the worst I've had in years, but that's definitely not the film's fault. Blame instead the groups of high school students who walked in and out of the theatre on almost constant rotations. I used to be the guy who would stand up and tell people to shut the fuck up when they were talking during a movie, but nearly coming to blows during James Bond: Skyfall (2012?) delivered the epiphany that I had become part of the disturbance. The theatre is my church, and I've learned to grin and bear it. It's not nearly as hard now that I rarely smoke before a theatrical screening. I have a much easier time letting periphery noise go when I'm not hyper-focused. Also, these kids weren't talking so much as just walking in and out of the theatre, so what do you say, anyway?

Back to the actual movie. Smile 2 is fantastic; it's not as good as the original, but that's just my opinion. My Horror Vision co-host Missi felt this one matched the first film. One thing's for sure - Parker Finn is a Director I will follow from here out. He used the considerably bigger budget for this sequel to really expand his idea in a way that transcends the genre completely and sets up the next movie with a scale that makes me extremely excited.

In a nutshell, it might not make my top ten of the year - a hard thing to do in 2024 from the sheer volume of awesome films released so far this year - but it's fantastic, moves the series forward in a brilliant and exciting way, and should definitely be seen in a theatre. Just try to get a screening where the brats are sure to still be in school. 

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

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Read:

I finished my third re-read of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station yesterday. Totally blown away again!

Now, onto Laird Barron's Not A Speck of Light, which I received from Bad Hand Books a week or so ago and have been chomping at the bit to read. I'm four stories in and it's just so wonderful to have new stories by one of your favorite authors. Barron's prose wraps around my brain like a massive alien wyrm slowly strangling the light from the sky. 

 

The plan is to read a couple of short stories in this new collection and then start Ivy Tholen's latest, Mother Dear, which I am also dying to tear into!

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Playlist:

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Sandrider - Godhead

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Beastmilk - Climax

Skinny Puppy - Remission

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

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Card:

Today's Card is IV: The Emperor.

"The Rules that Govern All Life."

That's how my entry in the Grimoire begins. Also, it should be mentioned that this is obviously a very Martial card; Crowly writes about this tying into the card as the representation of the physical embodiment of authority. He also drops this little gem:

"... Aires means Ram. At his (the Emperor's) feet, couchant, is the Lamb and Flag, to confirm this attribution on the lower pane; for the ram, by nature, is a wild and courageous animal, lonely in lonely places, whereas when tamed and made to lie down in green pasture, nothing is left but the docile, cowardly, gregarious and succulent beast. This is the theory of government."

No wonder my friends and I tend to regard this card suspiciously! One of the interpretations I lean toward with The Emperor is "It will be decided for you," which sounds a bit chilling now, when juxtaposed with the above passage from The Book of Thoth. Anyway you cut it, the fourth Atu is not a great card to see in many respects, unless of course, you need a third party to get something done for you.