Joy Division - Atmosphere

I've officially felt the change to my Autumnal self, and as such, Joy Division has been creeping into my daily listening more and more. In honor of that, I thought it pertinent to start the week with a favorite. 

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Watch:

In preparation for the first part of Stranger Things' final season arriving in November, K and I began rewatching the series from the very beginning. With all the delays and general negative cultural cache that's accumulated around this one, I'd forgotten just how goddamn awesome ST actually is. 

In particular, I'd forgotten that they tie Brennan's experiments in Hawins to Project MK Ultra, a topic that has fascinated me for well over twenty years at this point. It's nice to dip back into this and see it holds up to the way I remember it - pretty much perfect. 

For me, a lot of that negative cultural connotation comes from how long this whole thing has gone on. I remember watching Season Four, which I loved, back in the Spring of 2022 and seeing a lot of publicity that the next season would be out the following year. The premiere of Season Five on November 26 will be 3.5 years since Season Four premiered. That just seems crazy to me. So much momentum built up and dissipated, and for what? I'd wager that Netflix had the Duffer Bros. work up a spin-off in the interim, something that could be advertised when the show finally ends with its finale this coming New Year's. That's fine, but man, I don't know - if this show wasn't so damn good, I would have jumped off a long time ago.

But as I stated above, it is that good, so I'll just swallow that annoyance and get on with stoking my fan embers in the two months I have left before November 26th.

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Playlist:

Joy Division - Closer

David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails - Back in Anger 1995

David Bowie - Scary Monsters

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters

Mastodon & Lamb of God - Floods of Triton (single)

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Pasco 637 - Cuando Acecha la Maldad (single)

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

The Black Queen - Infinite Games

lords. - bleeding out

lords. - single playlist

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Neurosis - Through Silver In Blood (single)

David Bowie - Outside

Radiohead - Kid A

NIN - Pretty Hate Machine

Annihilator - Never, Neverland

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

Deftones - private music

The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood

Intensive Care & The Body - Was I Good Enough?

Netherlands - Vapors

Soundgarden - Bad Motorfinger

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Cups

• Seven of Swords

• Knight of Cups

Loss of engagement or apathy as a way to trick my mind out of the rut it's been in the last month or so. I'm not talking about a debilitating rut; I'm getting a lot of outlining accomplished on the Shadow Play sequel, but I've been preoccupied with the internet and my phone in general and that always leaves me feeling like shit. Digital hangover. So I've convinced myself I don't care about those connections anymore, and it's worked wonders. With the way now cleared, I simply have to follow where my nature takes me. Which is, of course, my own personal aesthetic, expressed best through writing. 

Russian Circles - Conduit

Eastside Bowl in Nashville is now easily my favorite venue near me. I was expecting Young Widows and Russian Circles to play on the tiny stage in the room off to the left when you walk in the door, the place where the Twin Peaks Day/David Lynch tribute was held back in February. And while that would have been nuts, instead I learned that Eastside Bowl is considerably larger than I thought. We were directed to the far end of the bowling alley, where an arrow pointing left denoted "Venue." One long, gently sloping, carpeted corridor later, we were standing before a stage in a room that reminded me a lot of a smaller Bottom Lounge. Needless to say, the show was fantastic; Young Widows KILLED it, and Russian Circles... wow. I'm not sure how I slept on these guys so long. I had a few tracks on a mix CD back in the early to mid-2000s, but that's it. Needless to say, I'm a fan now. Here's a favorite track off their most recent record Gnosis that sounded massive live in that room.

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Watch:

Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride received a trailer a few days ago. 

As is my habit of late, I only watched about twenty seconds of this before I shut this off. Don't want to risk overhype or overexposure, both very real threats to a pure theatrical experience in 2025. I can say, I've liked Maggie since Donnie Darko, and I'm super happy to see her in the Director's chair for this. 

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Read:

When I declared the remainder of my non-comic book reading for 2025, I knew there'd be a few minor exceptions. One of those came up the other day, when in preparation for an upcoming episode of The Horror Vision: Elements of Horror on The Company of Wolves, I picked up the beautiful 75th anniversary edition of Angela Carter's collection, The Bloody Chamber, which contains the story Carter and Director Neil Jordan adapted for the 1984 film.

First, Alex Konahin's cover art is magnificent. Second, I feel like I've just uncovered a missing link between old-school folk horror literature, such as Arthur Machen, and 80s authors like Robert Dunbar. I'm limiting myself to the pertinent story for the time being, but I can't wait to rip into more in a few months. 

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Playlist:

Deftones - private music

The Soft Moon - Criminal 

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum

The Damage Manual - Special Edition

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Pelican - Flickering Resonance

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Pentacles

• Ace of Swords

• Page of Wands

Stability seems to waver around me of late, and yeah, that feels about right. I'm constantly fighting back dark shit in my head about the future - my future, the world's future, et al. It definitely feels like a recent breakthrough of Will has me in a slightly better place than I was in a week ago, and the Page of Wands seems to suggest this isn't a fluke but a new beginning awash in inspiration. We'll see... 

September 25, 1980

John Bonham died 45 years ago today.

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Young Widows - Call Bullshit

My friend Chris is in town and we're heading to Nashville's Eastside Bowl tonight to see Young Widows and Russian Circles. Here's a track from the Widows' new album, Power Sucker, which is currently on my best of list for the year. 

You can check out more tour dates and merch for Young Widows on their Bandcamp HERE.

Also, Russian Circles' Bandcamp can be found HERE.

I'm relatively new to Russian Circles, but Young Widows I've been digging on since back when their debut Settle Down City landed in my mailbox. 

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NCBD:

I'm off today so I'll be heading into Rick's earlier than usual to pick up my books. Here's what's coming home with me for NCBD, September 24, 2025:

One issue remains after this month's Void Rivals before we are catapulted into the eagerly anticipated Quintesson War. Crossovers and Events are generally not my thing, but being that the entire Energon Universe is kind of one big crossover, I'm hoping Kirkman and company show the big two how to do these correctly. I've expressed my love of the Quintessons here before, so to have them up front for six issues is going to (hopefully) be a dream come true.

Now one of my most anticipated books each month, Zander Cannon's Sleep continues to keep me hanging on every issue. 

I was just talking about this on a recent episode of The Horror Vision, so I'm overjoyed to see the second chapter of James Stokoe's Orphan and the Five Beasts finally hitting the stands. The art in Stokoe's pages must take an insane amount of time, so I'll be reading this one slowly, with a keen eye on all the details that make Stokoe's work so rewarding. 

I'm behind on Condon and Alan Love's News From the Fall Out, but the first issue left quite the impression, so I'm looking forward to catching up this week and getting current. 

Regarding this cover: As a life-long fan of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with virtually no good adaptations of the source material or even just jaunts with the Headless Horseman, you have my attention, Mr. Spears. Please - the floor is yours. 

As I mentioned in Monday's "Card" section of this page, I'm still putting off my Lazarus reread that is meant to be a welcome refresher before jumping into this final Lazarus series. This series just hits too close to home these days. 

I started buying this Death of the Silver Surfer series for the covers, but the story is turning out to be pretty good, even if we all know there are no real stakes here. Still, even though I don't have much interest in most of what Marvel is doing at the moment, I always keep my eye out for mini-series, as there have been quite a few over the last five years or so that I really liked. The Death of Doctor Strange was incredibly good, and while this isn't that, it's keeping me hanging on from issue to issue. 

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Watch:

Last Saturday night I sat down and watched Brandon Christensen's latest flick, Night of the Reaper. Here's a trailer that won't spoil anything:

This one is a bit of style over substance, but not intentionally so, and it's pretty fun. That said, the "twist" did not feel earned at all, and I'm still a little bit confused as to whether the logistics actually work. Still, this would make a fun Friday night beer bottle flick for sure. 

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Young Widows - Settle Down City

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Drug Church - Prude

Led Zeppelin - Live EP

Roy Ayers - Ubiquity

Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road for the Hit

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

Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse

Joy Division - Still

Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

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Card:

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

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• Queen of Cups

• Queen of Pentacles

• Nine of Swords

An abundance of feminine energy is never a bad thing; Coupled with the Nine of Swords, I take this as a "pay attention to what the women in your life are saying" connotation. 

Opeth Covers Alice In Chains

Being that I'm a fairly big fan of both these bands, I'm not sure how I never came across Opeth's cover of Alice in Chains' "Would?" Now that I have, I have mixed feelings. It's an excellent cover, don't get me wrong. That said, it reminded me just how awesome the AIC original is, and kind of just left me wanting to listen to that on repeat, over and over again.

But I don't listen to Would? or anything else on Dirt on repeat. This is a special album that is very personal to me, and with something like this, I'd be afraid of robbing even just a little bit of its power. 

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Watch:

Last Thursday, K and I took in a screening of Justin Tipping's new film HIM. Produced by Jordan Peele, this one is getting a lot of negative critical reaction. For myself, someone who holds pretty much nothing but disdain for both American football and modern hip-hop aesthetic - two factors that weigh heavily in this one - I absolutely loved it.

I still think this is one of the best trailers I've seen in recent years. It really whets the appetite without giving any actual plot away (though, I would argue, they should have held back some of the imagery divulged herein).

There's a lot about this film that makes me think it's essentially a skin of The Substance, but HIM is dressed in so much surreal, stylized imagery specific to Tipping's vision that it definitely stands on its own. 

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Playlist:

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond OST

Dean Hurley - Flower: Tales From the Occult Library

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Deftones - private music

Deftones - Ohms

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

INXS - Kick

The Bangles - All Over the Place

Billy Joel - The Stranger

Steely Dan - Aja

Deicide - Eponymous

Deicide -  Legion

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Kane Parsons - Backrooms OST

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Tinderbox

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

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Card:

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

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• King of Pentacles

• Five of Swords

• X: Wheel of Fortune

Abundance, conflict and the inevitability of change. Not liking the sound of that at the moment. I suddenly know A LOT of people who have lost their jobs after working for their respective companies for years. I feel like Alien: Earth has really exacerbated my fears of Corporate life in this world, and now massive layoffs make it hard to dismiss those fears as nonsense. Pushing off that Lazarus re-read for a while longer, too. Don't need any more paranoia than I already have. 

Annihilator - Sixes and Sevens

Some old school Canadian Thrash from Annihilator to punch us in the face and remind us it's Friday! From the 1990 album Never, Neverland. This one takes me back to the days of dubbing random tracks off 88.3 WXAV, St. Xavier University's radio show. So many great musical discoveries.

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Watch:

Wow - I did not expect to find a trailer for Deathgasm II today! 

Really interesting setup for a sequel. I like the Ghostbusters II, "Nothing worked out for us after we saved the world," angle. And the idea of having an undead, flesh-eating zombie in your metal band is, well, how did no one ever think of that before? 

Not sure if this one is going to be in theatres or not, but one can hope. 

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NCBD Addendum:

Walking into Rick's Comic City yesterday, I had zero idea that David and Maria Lapham had a new series from Image hitting the shelves this week. 

A crime comic with a small-town scope, the first issue of Good As Dead sets a pretty mean stage. We meet the Valade Family, who run the local criminal enterprises and own the bridge that puts the small border town of Port Lindon on the map. In the other corner, we meet Sheriff Calhoun, who wants nothing more than to put down the Valades. We get the intimation that the Calhouns and Valades are two of the town's founding families, with something of a Haffield/McCoy history between them. After a couple of catastrophic events play out, Sheriff Calhoun doubles down on getting justice, especially when a pretty severe turn of events leaves him with little more than a week to live...

So yeah, this is going to be great! 

This has that Lapham, modern Southwest Noir flavor BIG TIME, and was a joy to read. There can sometimes be a bit of a disconnect with the Laphams' story compression techniques, but their stuff always wins me over in the end, so here's to at least two more issues (hopefully more, that's all that has been solicited thus far).

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Jim Williams - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched OST

The Divine Comedy - Promenade

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

The Soft Moon - Eponymous

Night Sins - Portrait in Silver

Joy Division - Substance

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division - Closer

Joy Division - Still

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

Ilsa - Preyer

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

Deftones - private music

Annihilator - Never, Neverland

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Card:

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

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• Four of Swords

• Five of Cups

• Queen of Swords

Rest and recuperate after a major disappointment. Doing so may force honesty where before there was none. 

Not vague at all. I don't really want to go into it, but I'm reading the 'rest' as holding off on sending a pretty sensitive email until tomorrow morning, when I was going to send it tonight. Never really a good idea to send a sensitive email in the middle of the night with a couple beers in you. 

Netherlands - Deathling

 

I randomly stumbled across the Netherlands on Apple Music a few days ago, and they immediately became a driving force in my musical day-to-day. This album ROCKS! Check out Netherlands' Bandcamp HERE and their physical media HERE.

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NCBD:

Hot damn! It's NCBD! Let's see what I'm bringing home from Rick's Comic City tonight:

Batman: First Knight proved to be one of my favorite titles of the last few years, so I was excited to see we're getting a sequel. I love the oversized format and the 1930s, no-tech approach to Batman. What we get is a wonderfully lush period piece, dripping in Noir. 

You know, Major Bludd has long been a favorite of mine. As a kid, I loved the original figure, but it wore out and never really got a proper update while I was still collecting, so it got pushed to the back burner by other favorites. And while there were some memorable moments with the character in Hama's comics, those too were early on, and ol' Sebastian Bludd didn't really exert a presence again until his failed attempt to impersonate Destro and take over his Scottish empire. Recently, I acquired the latest Classified version of Blud's figure, and I must say, the nice juxtaposition of receiving that figure and seeing this cover has me excited. He's been an integral part of the building of Cobra in this series, and I'm pretty happy with how much 'screen time' he's received. That might all implode this issue, as I'm wondering if he's going to make it out of this skirmish with The Baroness and Cover Girl alive. 

Still really digging this book. Obviously, at least partially inspired by Rob Zombie's 31 - of which I seem to become more a fan of every October upon viewing - Exquisite Corpses differs in one big way. For a book about a bunch of competing homicidal maniacs dropped into a small town for a game of mass murder, this book is FUN! That's right, I said it. FUN! There's a palpable sense of dread at times, but it's often undercut with some pretty amusing peeks behind the curtain of the game and its players.  

Anthology Horror at its finest, Oni's rejuvenation of EC Comics continues to thrill me each and every month. 

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Watch:

Honestly, all I needed to see of Yannis Veslemes and Dimitris Emmanouilidis's She Loved Blossoms More was the still image on the trailer's thumb, and I was sold. 

No reason to risk ruining any surprises this one may have in store - I have a feeling there are many.

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Playlist:

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

The Jesus Lizard - Rack

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Netherlands - Vapors

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere

Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race

Deftones - private music

Comic Tropes - Robert Kirkman Interview 

Testament - Shadow People (pre-release single)

USSA - The Spoils

Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Will Haven - Carpe Diem

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Card:

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

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• Eight of Pentacles

• King of Wands

• III: The Empress

Concentration. Yeah, it's at a premium these last few days. From the Grimoire: The purest manifestation of Fire in the deck, thus strong. Unchecked can be imbalanced. That's the concentration key. Imbalance. Now, let's try and tie those two cards to III: The Empress. Also from the Grimoire: " She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man" - A.E. Waite.

How do I reconcile this? My problem at the moment? Too much social media. Luckily for me, it's like fast food - I don't use it much, so even a little can be too much. But I'm fairly certain that's what's killing my concentration. Remember all those epiphanies to start meditating again? Yeah, never happened. Would probably help.