Monday, July 19, 2021

The Dead of Night

 

Had this one in my head all day yesterday, finally had a chance to put it on the turntable later in the evening, as K and I sat outside and enjoyed the cooling night air. Dead of Night seemed appropriate, as by that time, I was up way past my usual Sunday night bedtime.




Watch:

 

I absolutely loved the first, two-part storyline in the new AHS spin-off anthology, American Horror Stories. It was great to return to Murder House, great to see some familiar frights, and the casting for this one was fantastic. As Lizard in Joe Begos's VFW, Sierra McCormick impressed the hell out of me, and that was definitely held up by her performance in Andrew Patterson's Vast of Night, which I watched about a year ago (maybe; time has lost all meaning). As Scarlett in AHS, McCormick turns in another great performance, and I'm betting in a year or two, she's going to be a pretty formidable star.




Playlist:

The albums I've been listening to the most are Cyndi Lauper's seminal She's So Unusual, Let it Bleed, and Paranoid. I've been hitting these super hard, and they're really shaping my recent days. It's pretty cool; I've become quite fond of rolling directly from Yeah Yeah, the final song on She's So Unusual, directly in to War Pigs. I don't know what it is about the juxtaposition of sonic textures there, but it really puts a smile on my face.

David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual
An Autumn for Crippled Children - The Long Goodbye
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
King Woman - Doubt EP
Charles Mingus - Blues & Roots
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R 
The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
Chuck Berry - Berry on Top
Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power
Orville Peck - Pony
 



Card:


This was definitely the watchword earlier today, however, I've moved past it and emerged into a state of mind that robbed my anxieties of their ammunition. As a result, I'm feeling pretty good.

Monday, July 12, 2021

New Deafheaven track - The Gnashing

Not gonna lie, at first listen to this latest track off Deafheaven's forthcoming album Infinite Granite, I was left pretty underwhelmed. It's nothing to do with the clean vocals - I loved Great Mass of Color from the first time I heard it, but this one felt a bit boring. That was in the car last night on the way to a backyard (second) viewing of Cody Calahan's new flick Vicious Fun - which incidentally is even better the second time through. Today, however, I strapped in the headphones and fired The Gnashing up for a second time, and I have to say, I dig the hell out of this track. I think it will play even better in the context of the entire album, but for now, I'm in.

I LOVE that George has embraced clean vocals. I mean, I'm hoping there will still be fierce, growling moments on the album, but in the meantime, it takes some serious stones for these guys to put themselves out there with these two singles, and I applaud their fearlessness, creativity, and choice of producers in Justin Meldal-Johnsen.




Watch:

To borrow a term from Dr. Rebekah McKendry, Here's a Bold Horror Statement: I think Fear Street: 1978 is in my all-time favorite Summer Camp Slashers, right behind Robert Hiltzik's original Sleepaway Camp and Tony Maylam's inimitable The Burning! Goddamn, are these flicks BRUTAL!

 

1978 starts slow, but man, it takes the body count to places that I don't know if any 80s slasher did. No one is safe, the ax hacks and knife stabbings are prolonged and fully visible on-camera (somehow without feeling icky mean), and the thing in the cave... I mean, that's totally new territory for a slasher, as far as I know. 

Next week will bring the final chapter, and I can't wait. After that, I'm very curious to see what else Director Leigh Janiak has in store for us.




Playlist:

Etta James - The Second Time Around
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST
Frank Black and the Catholics - Dog in the Sand
Deafheaven - The Gnashing
Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
Sunken - Livslede
Numenorean - Adore




Card:

 

Definitely in need of the illumination this suggests is around the corner.

New Ministry!

I haven't been this excited for a new Ministry album in quite some time. I'm loving this song; the "fuck the police" samples seem a bit overdone, but the old-school flavor of the music grabbed me immediately (Thanks Mr. Brown!)




READ:

Parts 1 & 2 of my first Reddit Nosleep serialized story is now up. You can read it HERE. It's kind of about a Haunted Garage. Kinda.




NCBD:

Big Day for comics. Again.

"Get April!"


JUST reading the core title, but so far, for my first modern Star Wars series, I'm digging this one. I mean, the last issue we had 4-Lom and Zuckus. I've been waiting for an expansion on those cats since I was like four years old.


Can't wait to read this AND see the film, which I believe should be available to rent on Prime.


The Silver Coin
recently got "renewed" for more issues beyond this initial four-part run, and I am totally stoked for more.


Been a minute, and this awesome BW&B series totally fell off my radar.


More Spidey, 'Nuff said!



Playlist:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Ministry - Animositisomina
Ministry - Good Trouble (pre-release single)
The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
 



Card:


Big picture. Now that the Nosleep is going, I'll take this as a nod in the right direction as yesterday I dove back into Shadow Play, Book Two.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Sunken Dead at the Center

I have become quite enamored of late with Denmark's Black Metal auteurs Sunken and their 2020 album Livslede.  The entire album is quite a deep ride; there are so many textures here, beginning with what you might call a more traditional, second-wave Black Metal approach and then slowly mutating into a swirling mass of orchestrated, melodic chaos. This is beautiful brutality, which is serendipitous since my Beautiful Brutality (and Horror Vision) podcast cohost her_black_wings is the one who turned me onto Sunken in the first place.

Here's the group's Bandcamp. Check them out.




Watch:

I finally sat down and watched Billy Senese's The Dead Center. Wow. I really dug this one quite a bit. Shane Carruth leads a cast that all turn in fantastic performances, and the editing creates a kind of spiraling sense of unease that climaxes with a supremely nihilistic ending. 


This one is included with Prime at the moment, so if you're in the mood for something that is both familiar and unique, give it a whirl. 




Playlist:

Agnes Obel - Aventine
16 Horsepower - Hoarse
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
Sunken - Livslede
Diatribe - Odite Sermonis EP
Young Widows - Old Wounds

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Givin' You the Ghost, Spider-man

It had been a minute since I'd pulled out Polica's 2012 debut Give You the Ghost. I don't really know all that much about this group/performer, and I'd forgotten how much I like this album. Above is the stand-out track, but really, the entire record plays like a cohesive whole. In the interim since I've checked in with Polica - yeah, it's been a minute - they've released quite a few records. I'm just starting to go through them now.  




NCBD:

Another big pull list this week. Jesus Marvel, take my money:


As I suspected, we're closing in on the end of Nick Spencer's run on AMS, and looks like a lot of great stuff is happening. While I've been reading this, I've also been re-reading my old school, 80s Spidey comics, and I can kind of see how the current, post Brand New Day continuity is winding its way back to the one I grew up with. I don't love all of it - I especially don't like the retconning of Ned Leeds and AMS #289 which is HOLY in my opinion - but I can live with all of it just out of curiosity as to how this will land and, subsequently, how the new iteration of the title that kicks of at the end of the summer will play out.


I bought the first issue more out of resale ideology, but I'm curious enough that I might pick this up.


Another one that I'm not certain I'll actually be buying, but I'm curious enough to consider it, simply because I still love Flash Thompson in a Symbiote suite, and if I can't have him in Venom, I might just follow him here. Honestly though,  at a glance, all these other Symobiotic characters feel superfluous at best.


Loving this book and this issue probably wins for the best cover this week.


The finale to what has been an eloquent and downright beautiful exploration of how human beings relate to their own mortality.

Yet another that I'm not entirely sure I'm interested in buying. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Netflix series - I'd be looking forward to it more if there was Hordak or a Slime Pit involved - but the prospect of a comic based on what has historically been a completely under-represented and almost ignored property from my childhood looks pretty good on 'paper' at the moment.


The first issue didn't blow me away, but I'm interested enough to try number two. 


Still digging this weird SciFi/Horror/Action mash-up.




Playlist:

Polica - Give You the Ghost 
Polica - Shulamith
Bells Into Machines - Eponymous
Perturbator - Nocture City EP
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon




Card:

 

Remembering to think of the bigger picture.

Holy Wars

 

This cover RIPS! Hot damn, it's nice to hear such a spot-on cover of a song I love by a band I despise, especially since I don't have to have Dave Mustaine sing it, replaced instead by the inimitable Troy Sanders.




Watch:

A friend at work recommended this new HULU flick directed by John Lee.


HULU is a platform I generally don't use all that much; incorrectly or not, I associate them with being a bit more 'family friendly' than aligns with my tastes, despite the fact that they have long been a sponsor of Beyondfest and pull out a lot of stops for Horror come every autumn with their HULUween. Still, with the new seasons of American Horror Story and its brand new spin-off American Horror Stories both moving to the 'FX on HULU' status, as well as their ongoing relationship with Blumhouse - mostly to middling results from what I've seen - they're definitely trying to keep abreast of the genre. And now, holy cow: False Positive is A24! 

(Have I mentioned that I'm starting to fear Horror is becoming too mainstream? No? Well, that's a discussion for another time, then).

So yeah, False Positive stars Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, and Pierce Brosnan, and it is creepy A.F. I will say, this isn't the A24 I'm accustomed to, exactly. There's a reductionist quality insofar as it feels more like a Blumhouse "Into the Dark" - which I think of as the calibre for the new "TV movie" format for the streaming age - than it does the A24 we see get theatrical treatment. Still, this is high-quality stuff, and it's definitely up there with the better flicks I've seen so far this year.




Playlist:

The Kills - Midnight Boom
Chairlift - Something
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Tape Waves - Bright
Anthrax - Spreading The Disease
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles) 
King Woman - Doubt EP
Sunken - Livslede
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Perturbator - I Am the Night
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
Silent - Modern Hate
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
 



Card:


 Bull in a china shop, that's how I always read this card at first. I'm regrouping my strategy on this Nosleep serial I'll be posting soon (but not today). Don't want to come out of the gates strong and crawl to the finish line. 

Friday, July 2, 2021

The New King Woman is Vicious Fun!

 

Holy cow! A new King Woman track dropped two days ago and it's a doozy! Bloody Disgustingt mentioned an Elizabeth Bathory vibe, and while I definitely see that, even more I see the influence of Joe Begos's Bliss. Either way, Celestial Blues is out July 30th on Relapse Records, and you can pre-order it HERE.




Watch:


After watching Cody Calahan's Vicious Fun last night, I'm thinking this may end up as my favorite movie of the year. If not numero uno, it's up there. What is for sure, at least thus far, is Ari Millen - who some will know as Mark/Ira/Rudy/a bunch of other clones on Orphan Black - seems cinched as my favorite performance of the year

 

This one's a BLAST, and I can't recommend it enough.




Playlist:

The Kills - Midnight Boom
The Kills - No Wow
Entropy - Liminal
The Casket Lottery -  Survival is for Cowards
King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles)
King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
King Woman - Doubt EP
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Led Zeppelin - I
Led Zeppelin - IV
King Woman - I Wanna Be Adored (single)
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Chairlift - Something
Polica - Give You the Ghost
Turquoise Moon - Sunset City
 



Card:

 

Crash Course? Brain Surgery? Either way, I will try to keep my wits about me today.