New New Order

 

New Order dropped an EP last Friday. Here's the first 'single.' Awesome tune, not at all where my head is at right now, but I have a feeling this will come in handy in a few days or so.

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Watch:

 

My Co-Host on The Horror Vision Chris Saunders and I have decided to try and do a week-by-week podcast exploration of CBS' The Stand series starting on December 17th. I'm a King fan for sure, but I've never been a rabid one, and I've never undertaken the commitment to read The Stand. Usually, in undertaking a project like this, I'd set aside what I'm reading and try and 'bang it out' before the launch of the show, however, there's just no way. The original cut of the novel is 823 pages, but the expanded is lost 1500. Add to that the fact that I started 2020 reading a very long novel about a pandemic (Chuck Wendig's Wanderers, which despite it's eerie parallels to our reality while I read it - or perhaps because of it - still occupies my mind on an almost daily basis and lingers with a strong A+ rating in my book) and, well, for obvious reasons don't want to finish it out doing the same. So I'm doing the audiobook. Which, at ten chapters in, frankly isn't great.

Still, having read the Dark Tower books since shortly after The Drawing of the Three, I've wanted to read The Stand since early High School. In the Dark Tower books, Roland and his compatriots travel across worlds and, at one point, end up in the world of The Stand, a world decimated by a flu-like virus called Captain Tripps. Weird timing for the show to be coming out, but I'm excited to cover it, as it's been a while since I've done something like this, and it's not so often I get to work with Chris these days. So win win.

 

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The Horror Vision:

The New episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast went up yesterday. We talk about the Barbara Crampton-produced Castle Freak remake, which I LOVED, along with Freaky, Max Brooks's Devolution, and a bunch of the Mario Bava that just landed on Shudder recently. And as usual, that's really only the tip of the iceberg. Also, I'm doing anything with the video side of this show yet, but I've started posting the episodes on youtube as of late.

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Playlist:

Behemoth - The Satanist

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire

James Last - Christmas Dancing

Bing Crosby - Merry Christmas

Orville Peck - Pony

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

Opeth - Deliverance

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

New Order - Be a Rebel

Barry Adamson - As Above So Below

David Bowie - Black Star

 

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Card:

Ah, the wonderful Knight of Disks, the Fire in the Element of Earth.

Interpreted here as a pragmatic focus on and progression with ongoing projects. Industrious perseverance. Bread winner and objective provider. 

My Top Ten Albums of 2020

 While the world around us went to Hell, I used a constant influx of awesome music to stay sane. There were A LOT of great records this year, here are my favorite ten.

Manuel Gagneux has proven he's not going anywhere, and on Wake of a Nation - an EP with a more robust run-time than some albums - he's begun to shift his work from clever Alt-History to a poignant contemplation on current global events to chilling, heart-pound results.

I've never cared too much about RTJ's other albums - none of it's bad, but none of it is irreplaceable to me - but THIS! Partially because of when it dropped, partially because of how it dropped, partially because they refuse to participate in all the Hip Hop tropes that make me skeptical of the genre, and especially because it's just that good. Killer Mike and El-P can both rhyme like madmen - a lost art if you do a quick who's who of the 'name brands' of rap at the moment - and on top of it, they can actually do so eloquently on pretty much every urgent topic of the day.

Two years ago, when I fell in love with Ms. Rundle's music, it never would have dawned on me how well it would mesh with Thou's. Imagine my pleasant surprise then when the first track from this album dropped. To Thou is one of those "Beautifully brutal" bands that transcend any genre or classification for me, and something about their stoic sonic textures meshes perfectly with Emma Ruth Rundle's dark, contemplative musings.

The most 'balls out' record I heard this year. Infinitely repeatable and perfectly balanced between hooking you and punching you in the goddamn face.

I can't even believe the range on display here. One might have thought Greg Puciato's first solo record would have come out sounding a bit like Black Queen and DEP in a blender.

One would be perfectly incorrect. This is... an evolution not many metal frontmen could ever pull off. I remember the days when I could see Mike Patton's influence on Greg Puciato. Now I only see his own personal creative resilience. 

Recontextualizing so many different sounds from Heavy Music's last twenty-five years: I hear Alice in Chains, I hear Fear Factory, I hear Bungle, I hear Slipknot. Only, that's not all I hear. I also hear a template for a band that sounds like none of those things exactly and nothing like anything I've heard before. And I want more.

The first Bungle album in twenty years is a redux of their demo - which I never gave a shit about listening to even at my most rabid Bungle fan stage - and it's being re-worked and performed with Thrash Icons Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian? There was simply no way this one didn't make it onto the list. Also the best concert of the year, although of course, there haven't been any concerts since about three weeks after I saw them, so that may be slightly skewed.

This band reminds me so much of the kind of bands I couldn't get enough of in the late 90s. I loved the first Exhalants record, then they went and deepened their sound into this and I had to do a double-take. These guys are for fucking real and I will follow them to the ends of the Earth. Which, incidentally, might not be that long to follow them for, but still. 

Another band that just can't do anything wrong. The Deftones continue to push the edges of their sound in unexpected directions, and while there's no mistaking this for anything but a Deftones record, ain't nothing wrong with that at all.

And actually, as my friend Jacob pointed out, there is at least one passage that could easily lead one to believe the tracks had unexpectedly rotated over to a Vangelis song.

I guess I needed some beauty in my life this year, and Fleet Foxes Shore definitely qualifies as the most beautiful new album I heard in 2020. 

It was a weird year, and some of these records I didn't even listen to as much as you would think for them to make such an impression on me. But I've begun spending a good deal of time on narrative podcasts and audiobooks, as well as a fixation on a lot of music that predates 2020. Maybe then, the less-listened to entries on this list won their spot by making such a large impression in so few listens? 

Me and that Nergal

 

I've had a feeling this would happen eventually. Previously, even before I discovered Me and That Man, I tried on several occasions to find what it was about Behemoth that people had become so fanatical about. Unlike Frontman and Brainspring Nergal's more recent project, I just could never relate to it. Behemoth always left me cold, and not in a good way. Friday morning, however, a random algorithmic playlist by Apple Music rotated "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" through my ears and suddenly, I got it. 

I've only consumed 2014's highly lauded The Satanist thus far, but the momentum behind that first go-through is enough to have me chomping at the bit for more. Behemoth has a very specific sound, or at least that's how I hear it and why I ended up falling into it so hard. It has a lot to do with the way the bass guitar is played, recorded, and mixed in relation to everything else, but moving out from there, the guitars, drums, vocals, and other accompanying instrumentation feel very much arranged or composed, as opposed to assembled by more conventional means.

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Wow. Not only did I find this small peak into Orville Peck's life fascinating, but Alfred Marroquín's direction is as beautiful and moving as Peck's narration. I've avoided watching or learning too much about Peck's life, as I think his enigmatic persona compliments the deserted Lynchian Highway of his music. Marroquin balanced exactly the right amount of 'behind the curtain' with spectacle here, and this short Doc is all the better for it.

 

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Playlist:

Behemoth - The Satanist

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

David Bowie - Live Nassau Coliseum '76

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Anthrax - Among the Living

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

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Card:

 

Motivation and Drive, which feels spot-on as several projects ramp up here, at the end of what feels like a top-heavy year, as far as productiveness is concerned. There's a feeling of acceleration as we head into the new year, almost an unruliness. Looking at the Prince of Wands, reading the almost out-of-control momentum on the card's face, I'm reminded that recklessness can negate ambition quite easily.

Down When I'm Not

This song literally makes me feel like I'm twenty-five years old again, about to head out with my friends for a night of adventure. 

When I set out to find the track above from Greg Puciato's Child Soldier: Creator of God and ended up finding this collaboration between Puciato and Jesse Draxler. I'm not gonna lie; I'd been putting off deep-diving into this record for the last few months because I wasn't sure where my head would be in relation to this project, which I'd been hearing mixed things about. I knew I would like it, but I wanted to LOVE it. And I guess I waited until the exact right moment because after two full listens, I'm floored. Also, reading about the album, I was reminded of Puciato's Federal Prisoner label, and in looking up their youtube channel, found this little curiosity.

 

I love what this man is doing! The dissolution of The Dillinger Escape Plan a few years ago filled me with nervous, awful energy. They'd been a mainstay in my life, both live and on record, for nearly two decades; when I fell out of most heavy music, they never waned in my heart. I'm happy as hell to see Greg Puciato doing something I consider pretty extraordinary in his post-DEP life. 

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Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...

Fleet Foxes - Shore

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

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka

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Card:

Interesting to get a card that signals completion and success at this exact moment when my Beta Reader is back on track and about to finish the penultimate reading of Murder Virus. My original plan to release the book this year have transitioned into a 'first quarter' scheduling for 2021, and I do believe the finished product will be all the better for it.

Slow News Day in Jersey

 

I'm not a huge Fankie Valley and the Four Seasons fan, but this song... this is one of those songs that I've been hearing my whole life and never realized, until a couple of years ago, just how awesome it is. I like some other tunes from Mr. Valley's catalog, but this? This is my favorite.

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How fitting that, last weekend, when K asked if we could watch Jersey Boys, I trepidatiously agreed. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what we got. This movie's pretty damn great. Props to Clint Eastwood for making it. 

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Playlist:

Tiamat - Clouds

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

James Last - Christmas Dancing

I finished The Black Tapes Podcast yesterday, and while I can't say I liked the ending very much, A) it's open, and B) the journey is MORE than worth it. This is still a podcast I would very strongly recommend. 

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Card:

 

Simple, symmetrical alignment.

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards

 

 

Carpenter Brut and David Eugene Edwards? Holy cow. I can't wait to see if anything more comes of this, because I love this track. Edwards brings that spiritually stoic sound that his haunted career in 16 Horsepower led to once he started Wovenhand (reminder to self - it's been too long since I checked in on that particular project). Will we get more music from this collaboration? While it is unclear as of yet, I think I might just make a playlist that combines Horsepower with Brut and see how that sounds together.

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NCBD:

Slow week this week. 

This is good since, after the veritable deluge of books over the last few weeks, I have a stack I need to get through.

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Playlist:

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

Beck - Odelay

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Anthrax - Among the Living

Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

Carpenter Brut Feat. David Eugene Edwards - Fab Tool

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

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The View from a Sightless Pit

 

How I missed this record's release a few months back, I have no idea. A collaboration between Lee Buford of The Body, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota, and Dylan Walker of Full of Hell? This record is, as you'd expect, unlike anything else I've ever heard. 

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Read:

It's not NCBD yet, but I wanted to post about a couple of books I ended up with last week that I hadn't planned on buying, but my friends at both Atomic Basement and The Comic Bug know me pretty damn well and they often pull extra titles for me if they think I'll dig them. No obligation, of course, but more often than not, they're right on the money. I haven't read these yet, but I'm chomping at the bit to for sure:

This last one was my own discovery, and while I'm not really in the market for any Marvel or Mutant books, this stand-alone (I think) book is kind of a throwback to the old Marvel Comics Presents series in the 80s, except it's in Black and White and Red. And it's glorious.

 

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Playlist:

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST 

Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog

I spent almost all day yesterday plowing through The Black Tapes podcast. MAN! So f*&king good! 

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Card:

This has been a key concept for 2020 and most likely one that will echo out into the new year. I take this pull, on December Eve (yeah, I just made that up), as a reminder that things are not really all that likely to get better just because we flip a calendar and get rid of a jackass. Not pessimism, just realism.