Despite recent claims otherwise, "Mexican Caravan" from 1985's Psychic.... Powerless.... Another Man's Sac is probably my favorite Butthole Surfers track, simply because of the guitar. It's always kind of made me imagine Jimmy Hendrix playing while on ten hits of blotter acid. But then, that's kind of what the Surfers do.

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Watch:

One day last week while I was still sequestered at the hotel in West L.A., I watched Josh Forbes's new movie Destroy All Neighbors and had an absolute BLAST with it! Here's the trailer, which I can now endorse does not give anything away other than a taste of the Hallucinatory 90s Practical FX goodness you can expect from this one!

Produced by Alex Winter, with FX by Gabriel Bartalos (Skinned Deep!), Destroy All Neighbors reminds me more than a little of 1993's Freaked, which Winter co-directed with Tom Stern. This fits in nicely with Butthole Surfer week, as Stern Produced/Directed last year's The Butthole Surfer Movie, and the Surfers were involved with Freaked, starting with lending their frontman to the film's cast to play Cheese Wart. There's a certain tone Freaked employs - a kind of madcap 90s Practical FX and sets grandeur - that is at work in Destroy All Neighbors as well. The opening credits reminded me so much of the 90s, with its swirling, wormhole-like background, that I knew I was in for goodness. 

Neighbors obviously did not have the same budget; no studio is going to give anyone 11 Million to make a movie like this in 2024, but the movie does so much awesome stuff with what they have, that you won't notice unless you're checking while you watch. And you won't be doing that, because you'll be laughing out loud. This is a story we've definitely seen variations of before, but not like this, and not with a Prog Rock obsessive as the lead character (Jonah Ray is awesome!)  

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Re-Release:

Just a quick heads up to any Blut Aus Nord fans out there, Debemur Morti just re-pressed Memoria Vetusta II: A Dialogue with the Stars on vinyl, and it's available both on the label's site HERE (where I ordered it this morning), and from the band's Bandcamp HERE. 

I've been laying off ordering vinyl, but this was a no-brainer. By far my favorite album from a group that has quite a few albums I adore, I have been waiting to grab this one on vinyl for probably over ten years now. 

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Playlist:

Ready for the World - Oh Sheila (single)

Sheila E. - Glamorous Life (single)

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

Double Life - Indifferent Stars

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Blut Aus Nord - Queen of the Dead Dimension

 

Another new track from the upcoming album Disharmonium - Nahab, out August 25th on Debemur Morti; pre-order HERE.

This track reminds me A LOT of the material released on Blut Aus Nord's iconic The Work Which Transforms God. It's not the easiest to listen to at first, because it follows very little of our pre-conceived notions of what a song or music can be. That's exactly why I love this band. Bring on the full album - I want to melt my mind with its non-Euclidean sonic geometry!!! 

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Read:

Issue twenty of the new Fangoria arrived in the mail yesterday; always a good day when a Fango shows up!

Most of the main articles are about films that haven't come out yet; the cover story is on Michael and Danny Philippou's Talk to Me; I bought tickets to see this next Thursday, 7/27/23 and I'm fairly stoked. The fine folks at Beyondfest recently did some screenings with the Directors and they can't stop raving about it, so I'm fairly certain this one will be wonderful. Also featured is Cobweb, which I'm driving into Nashville to see on Saturday. Written by Chris Thomas Devlin and Directed by Samuel Bodin, I have high hopes for this one as well. So those are among the articles I'm saving. My favorite parts of Fangoria, however, are the columns, and in just the three I've read so far, I'm instantly reminded why I love this iteration of the Horror Mainstay Magazine so much.

Long-time contributor Michael Gingold discusses writing a new novelization for the 1980 Video Nasty Nightmare for Severin Films, who also just released a restoration of the film. The resurgence of movie tie-in novelizations is fascinating to me, and although I don't read a lot of them - I burned through Brad Carter's Night of the Demon last year, also from Severin - Nightmare is one I'm curious about. The film is hit or miss with me, despite its aurora of grindhouse sleaze that drips from every nook and cranny, but as with Night of the Demon, I have a feeling I will really enjoy reading the story more than watching the film. Whatever your preferred medium for Nightmares, you can order the restored film HERE or Mr. Gingold's novelization HERE. 

Next up was Barbara Crampton's editorial on theatrical screenings vs. streaming. She makes some points I'd not considered until now, mainly that we are seeing the streamers' film production slowing as people return to the theatre. I don't think we'll ever tip the scales back in the direction they were twenty years ago, however, while bombastic (and to my mind at this point, mildly annoying) Marvel/Super Hero flicks carry the main audience on the big screen, Horror is the quiet RBI batter, in my opinion. 

Finally, Stephen Graham Jones has a fantastic new entry in his Slasher Nation column that traces the origins of the Final Girl all the way up from the Damsel in Distress of the silent era. Easily my favorite piece in the magazine I've read this morning.

 

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Mammon XV - Woe's and Winter's Breath EP

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear Is a Cruel Master

Brainiac - Predator Nominate

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

Gism - Detestation

Blut Aus Nord - Queen of the Dead Dimension (pre-release single)

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Sepultura - Schizophrenia

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Pachouli Blue

Pale Dian - Feral Birth

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Card:

• V: The Hierophant 

• XI: The Hermit

• Five of Cups - Disappointment

Exciting news will turn out to be erroneous, or at the very least not what it seems at first glance.

 

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New Music from Blut Aus Nord!!!

 

Holy F*&k! New Blut Aus Nord and it's a doozy! Was it even a year ago that Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses came out and blew my mind? How can every record these guys do be so unbelievably different? Listening to this, I feel like Laird Barron's Isaiah Coleridge, finding a secret and otherworldly recording while digging around online for one of his spooky AF cases. Disharmonium - Nahab drops on August 21 via Debemur Morti; you can pre-order it HERE for the EU and HERE for the US.

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Watch:

This past Sunday, with my friend Alex visiting from LaLaLand, K, he and I held a mini Friedkin Fest - we watched William Friedkin's 1977 unsung masterpiece Sorcerer and his equally fantastic and insanely transgressive 1980 giallo Cruising. 

 

I've seen this one several times in the ~ three years since I purchased Sorcerer on Blu-Ray and watched it for the first time. Every time I see this one, it gets better. Case in point - I'd had some ups and downs with the first half of the film on previous viewings, mainly because most of those viewings occurred at night. This time I sat riveted from start to finish and came away thinking the first half is, narratively speaking, as good as the second half. That was a nice feeling, both halves finally making a whole.

 

Cruising is one I just watched for the first time a few weeks ago, and from the moment that viewing ended, I've been chomping at the bit for a rewatch. The twisting and turning narrative, as unreliable as if Bret Easton Ellis penned the screenplay, just blows me away, and despite the fact that this time I took copious notes, I still don't have a solid answer as to who did what. A mystery that, after it's 'solved,' begets another, darker mystery. In other words, the best kind!

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NCBD:

Here are my picks, and I'm excited for all three of them:

Nightmare Country: Glass House has been up and down as a month-by-month reading experience, but I retain faith it will all come together as an eventual whole. 

First post-Armegeddon Game Turtles issue, a very good thing. I didn't read that event, however, from what I glimpsed in the pages of the regular series, I'm curious to see what the new landscape will be. This book often cools a bit for me, then immediately springs back to the top of my pile. We're about due for that. LOVE this cover, but it's a variant, so hopefully I'll manage to snag one.

Despite loathing last week's X-Men: First Strike or whatever the hell it was called (great cover though), my fervor for X-Men: Red, Immortal X-Men, and the monthly X-Men team book remain as high as ever. 

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Playlist:

Godflesh - Purge

Savages - Silence Yourself

Slowspin - Talisman

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Deftones - Gore

Deftones - White Pony

The Flamingos - Playlist: Best of the Flamingos

Chamber of Screams, Clement Panchout & Mxxn - Murder House (Puppet Combo OST)

Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was

Blut Aus Nord - The Endless Multitude (pre-release single)

 

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Card:

Pulling from Aleister Crowley and Lady Freida Harris' Thoth Deck today:

• Battles over money/earthly concerns - the struggle is within

• XVII The Star - opening up to new influences/ideas/concerns

• 10 fo Cups - The emotional cup runneth over

All this is just to say, "stop spending so much damn money and start saving again!"

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New Music From Blut Aus Nord!!!

 

Many thanks to Heaven is an Incubator for posting about the new Blut Aus Nord album Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses, out on May 20th 2022 from the always awesome Debemur Morti Productions. This sounds like a return to the 777 era of the band, so one track is really just a big freakin' tease. 

Pre-order the album HERE.

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NCBD:

A light week this week for NCBD. Good. I spent quite a bit last week.

Saga! So happy to have this book back in my life, and awesome to see Lying Cat on the cover this month.

The fourth issue of X Deaths of Wolverine was the best one so far and has had me anxious to read this finale. 

A new stand-alone Horror anthology? Like, in the vein of The Silver Coin perhaps? Whatever the flavor, how the hell do I pass up a cover like that?

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Plastic:

I can't believe they made this:

And I can't believe I got one without paying through the nose. So damn cool.

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Playlist:

Drug Church - Hygiene EP

Entropy - Liminal

Author & Punisher - Krüller

SOM - The Shape of Everything

Johnny Marr - Call the Comet 

Metallica - Ride the Lightning 

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

I'm taking this as a considerably more literal interpretation than I normally would, throw up some horns and jam some Slayer today.

New Blut Aus Nord Released Three Weeks Early!

Holy cow - I didn't even know this was coming! Read about the whys and wherefores of the early release HERE. Meanwhile, I'll be clicking over to Debemur Morti's North American Shop to pick this one up (even though I missed out on the awesome pink and purple splatter variant! Drat!)

At a very early first listen, Hallucinogen appears to be the first Blut Aus Nord album in a while that really grabbed me right off the bat. That makes me super happy.

Also, I'm noticing Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry is back in stock on Vinyl. That's been a long time coming! Can't wait for this package to arrive - two of my favorite album covers ever in one box!

Terra Tenebrosa - Ghost at the End of the Rope

I'm on the Debemur Morti mailing list and I found a link to this in my inbox today. The Blut Aus Nord circa The Work Which Transforms God influence is obvious but not overplayed. I need to hear more, but thus far I dig this.

You can pre-order the new album The Reverses here.

Blut Aus Nord Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

I completely forgot this came out!

Although I've been unable to track down a copy of the first chapter of Blut Aus Nord's Memoria Vetusta, the second one is neck and neck with the band's masterpiece The Work Which Transforms God as not only my favorite BAN album but my favorite black metal record of all time. Where TWWTG is a journey away from convention and an amazing example of what metal can be, Memoria Vetusta II, subtitled Dialogue with the Stars, is the height of perfection when it comes to the classic, regal black metal the likes of which was often hinted at and attempted by too many stalwart death metal bands of the 90s to mention. This third and apparently final chapter of the Memoria Vetusta cycle is a continuation in spirit and a stunning example of Vindsval's continued mastery of tone and technique, not too mention his wonderfully poignant disregard for what anyone else in the scene is doing/saying/making.

If you dig it buy it, and if you know where I can find a copy of the gatefold vinyl (sold out in their label Debemur-morti's online merch shop and virtually nonexistent anywhere else) please leave a comment and let me know!

New Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber III

Okay, it's obviously going to be a very metal sort of day. Cool, fits with my Midwest, October mindset. So about a week or two back Debemur Morti - possibly the best Black Metal label out there - sends out an email I read and haven't had a chance to get back to since. It was an update on new releases. One of those is the new Blut Aus Nord, What Once Was... Liber III. How does this band continue to put out this amount of great stuff? In '12 we not only had the final part of the 777 trilogy but also the second of the Liber... What Once Was series. And now there's the third Liber and it sounds - as all Nord does - just down right amazing. Follow the link back to the Debemur Morti bandcamp and get the entire digital album or pre-order the vinyl or CD - out Friday the 25th here.

image courtesy of http://www.nwnprod.com/

Vindsval's The Eye

Let's trace the origin of a post like this, not just because someone out there might find it interesting, but because I'll find it interesting, as I've been a pretty rabid Blut Aus Nord fan for about two years now but have never heard of Vindsval's The Eye before.

Okay, so first, as I do at least once a day, I went to the wonderful heavenisanincubator blogspot and read up one a bunch of music I'd never heard before. Good times on The Incubator - always. Anyway, I found a post about Kylesa's Vulture's Landing and was specifically interested by The Incubator's description of Kylesa's sound as containing a "shoegaze" element. I followed the embedded link to Kylesa's label Season of Mist (if I'd be really paying attention it would have dawned on me that I was onto something, as I just re-read Neil Gaiman's Sandman vol. 4 Seasons of Mist and once again it has remained a slowly disintegrating echo in my head since). I looked around Season of Mist's sight for a few minutes, noting various bands on the label and then with the shoegaze + metal thing did what it always does and triggered me to go google search Blut Aus Nord - specifically looking for their label, Debemur Morti Productions' site. No matter where I go to read about Blut Aus Nord and their principal founder/creator Vindsval I always find something new, especially on DMP's site. And low and behold there it was - news that a sequel to the above-embedded album - written and performed entirely by Vindsval from what I've been able to find - 1997's Supremacy by The Eye.