Now that's what I'm talking about! The title track from Cometh the Storm, High on Fire's ninth studio album, out next Friday, April 19th on MNRK Heavy. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I've been busy as hell with regular work stuff and with watching movies and reading comics. Sounds like a great first-world problem, eh? Let's talk about what I've watched.
First, the Soska Sisters' new film Festival of the Dead is a Tubi exclusive and is now up on the streamer, ready to watch. A sequel to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, this was a blast.
The first ten minutes or so feel a bit like an NBC family morality flick, but Festival of the Dead very quickly asserts itself in the Romero tradition and does not look back. Loved some characters, loved watching others die in horrible ways, this one is fun and gory and just a good time in general. Don't let those first ten minutes fool you.
Next, K and I caught Kiah Roache-Turner's Sting last night at the local cinema. Wow! This one is fantastic, too!
I've mentioned before that I have a bit of a spider phobia, and this one definitely plays on that. The FX are great, and the overall pace and tone here make for a great theatrical viewing. One thing I definitely noticed is there appears to be a huge chunk missing from this film (concerning the Bug Brothers, for those who've seen it), and I can only imagine the studio made the filmmaker trim a section to hit a specific run-time, and that's what came out. The film doesn't suffer for it, but it's pretty obvious. If anything, will make for a great extra feature on the eventual Blu-Ray.
There's a great interview with Sting's Creative Director about the practical FX in the film up on Bloody Disgusting HERE.
Finally, Shudder recently dropped the directorial debut by Alberto Corredor, a film titled Baghead.
Ostensibly a Talk to Me clone, this is still a pretty great first film. It's shot well, the lighting is great, and the location is an old Irish Pub that really steals the show, so it was pretty easy to enjoy this one despite any shortcomings.
Read:
As I type this, I'm finishing up my re-read of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's "Dark Phoenix Saga." I'm reading this in Classic X-Men, the way I bought it at a comic show at a Knight's of Colombus Hall somewhere in southern Illinois way back in... I don't really know when. Late 80s? Early 90s?
One thing I've noticed with these Classic X-Men issues is I actually prefer the cover art for a lot of these reprints to the original issues. Here are two great examples:
Above is John Byrne's original cover for Uncanny X-Men 134, while below is his cover for the reprint.
The original is good, but this second version is haunting in my opinion. There's something so chillingly cold and cosmic about Master Mind's eyes, hollowed out by an injection of Chaos by Phoenix. The fact that his slack-jawed, empty visage is so far up in the foreground and that Phoenix is more or less just an outline filled with the same cosmic imagery really ties this together, as does the cool greenish-blue color palette, which helps add a clinically void feeling to this entire tableau. This could be a poster, as far as I am concerned.
Next, the climactic chapter of the saga, Uncanny X-Men 137:
This has been a classic, iconic comics image since I began collecting in 1986, and while it is great - the massive yellow ad copy taking up the upper fifth of the page doesn't really help matters - it pails in comparison to the one on the reprint, Classic X-Men 43:
This one is a lot less dramatic of a moment than the first, so I can't quite figure out why I like it better. Again, the color palette is definitely more to my overall liking, but also, despite the fact that the original image is much more of an 'action' image, this one feels like a moment stolen from the finale of the issue. I think this is a case of the technology being better and the image simply being overall more crisp.
Playlist:
Turnstile - Glow On
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun
Yawning Balch - Volume One
Trombone Shorty - Too True
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom
Man Man - On Oni Pond
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ten of Cups
• Eight of Swords
• Seven of Cups
Lots of emotion in this Pull. The pinion here, I think, is the Eight of Swords, as reading center-left-right, that is the middle card. This makes sense in that I've been prone to mood swings based on a certain person in my life; Ten of Cups is emotional maturity, Seven is Victory over emotion, but Eight of Swords can be read as Interference, that there's always some of that keeping me from being victorious over my emotions nad balancing them maturely in the face of trying situations.
The first harbinger for High on Fire's upcoming album Cometh the Storm has landed, and as one would expect, it's the sonic equivalent of having Matt Pike kick you in the skull! The album is out April 19th, pre-order HERE.
This is the first High on Fire album in six years and I'm pretty damn excited. I've followed these guys since Man's Ruin (RIP) released The Art of Self Defense in 2000, and I'd grown rather used to looking to a new album every 2-3 years*, so I'm more than ready for a new full-length.
.............................................
* Granted, Pike Vs. the Automaton came out two years ago, so it's not like I've been going through a total detox.
Watch:
I feel like I've been waiting on a release announcement for Larry Fessenden's Blackout for a year now, so imagine my surprise and excitement this morning when I found that a trailer had dropped!
Despite my recent aversion to trailers (they ruin movies), I did allow myself to watch this one. Probably mostly because I doubt I'll see this in the cinema before any movies, so I'll be able to control only seeing it the onc time. And, as with all of Fessenden's films, my anticipation for this one is already sky-high already! Some of what I'm reading shows this getting a slightly wider-than-usual theatrical release, so I'm crossing my fingers we get it here in Clarksville or, at the very least, in Chicago. I'd totally drive seven hours to see a Larry Fessenden film on the big screen.
Playlist:
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST
High on Fire - Burning Down (single)
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (pre-release singles)
Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves
Various - Return of the Living Dead Soundtrack
Idles - Tangk
Idles - Joy As An Act of Rebellion
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Yawning Balch - Volume One & Two
The Police - Synchronicity
Dean Hurley - Tales From the Library of the Occult Present: Flower
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Swords
• IX: The Hermit
• Two of Pentacles
Five of Swords is a tricky place to start. There's an interpretation that Fives cast a Pall over other cards in the reading, as they can be seen as indicating conflict or struggle. Struggle is not necessarily a bad thing, though. So we're starting at a struggle, and moving into The Hermit, which usually bespeaks re-grouping or gestation. Finally, the Two of Pentacles can suggest both collaboration and opposition. Now, it would be tempting to take that "Pall" of the Five of Swords (especially because it's Swords) and read this entire Pull as negative or conflictory, however, from the Grimoire:
"Two's - Chokmah on the Sepheritoic Tree of Life - actually represents the number one, as they are the first physical manifestation of the elements, still harmonious and untainted by anything material. I'd look at this, then, as a forthcoming struggle of intellect that will require a period of deliberation (gestation) and a new idea/approach, untainted by previous lust of result.
That's a considerably more in-depth interpretation than I've done in a while. Not sure if I'm just looking for a cheerier answer than "conflict!" or if the motivation to go below a surface reading is stronger today. Either way, this applies pretty directly to what I'm currently working on, so I'll take it.
*The only Sephiroth/Trump higher being Kether, which is, in Grant Morrison speak, the intangible "White Hot Room."
I was totally blown away yesterday to come home from a pretty damn good writing session and find that my good friend Jacob had sent me a record. Jacob has sent me several awesome records before, but this... this was something of a dream come true - a brand new copy of his band Bluekarma's 2000 record, The Communication, newly remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, pressed on vinyl for the first time.
This is HUGE - Bluekarma is the band that first brought my old band, The Yellow House, to Dayton, Ohio, for our first show outside of Illinois. I got to be friends with these guys, but none more so than Jacob, who, at one point, we realized I had somehow unknowingly and before I met him, acquired a guitar he had previously owned and modified. It was a total WTF moment where I think we both realized there was something bigger than us at work. Since then, we've remained in touch even at a distance, and when I played as part of a band he was in back circa 2014, it was kind of another dream come true.
Here's a link to the vinyl announcement, and HERE is a link to order one of these babies for yourself.
747 was the song that Jacob used to do this insane guitar solo to. When they played Dayton's Nite Owl as they did the first time we played with them, the bar would give Jacob a bottle of Jagermeister, and he would walk out along the top of the bar and literally pour that beautiful black liquid into people's mouths. It wasn't so different from what we used to do with Hickory Hills Whiskey when Brown and I were in Schlitz Family Robinson. except, of course, Jager is delicious, and HHW is rotgut. Anyway, think of that scene while you jam this tune. It's one of a kind, as are the memories.
The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab
Deftones - Ohms
Baroness - Stone (pre-release singles)
Bluekarma - The Communication
Oracle:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• I: The Magician
• Ten of Cups
• Queen of Wands
Initial, revelatory creative spark squashed by the inability to adequately interpret necessary emotional context.
No idea on this one. As has become my custom, I'm tempted to read this as a Pull for the main character of the book, but even in that context, I'm a bit lost.
Aside from Creative energies, The Magician can point to the presence of Magick. Ten of Cups is a full-on emotional deluge, and can indicate an unwillingness to step from beneath our emotional attachments. Queen of Wands is the Emotional aspect of Emotion, Water of Water, and the reason my initial interpretation of the Ten is a deluge.
Man, I was pretty skeptical when I heard High On Fire were having their first album, The Art of Self Defense remastered for a re-release. On the one hand, it's still probably my favorite of their albums (Blessed Black Wings comes a pretty close second, though). Yet, while I still have the original, Man's Ruin CD version of Self Defense I bought at Crow's Nest Records in Down Town Chicago shortly after it came out in 2000, I'd love to have the record on vinyl, so it was with great trepidation I hit play on Apple Music this morning...
It's awesome. My greatest fear was they would raise Pike's voice and over-compress; not that there's a precedent for the latter with the band's subsequent releases, and I love Pike's voice as it's come to more prominence with each release after this one, but there's something so amazing about the way Self Defense sounded the day I brought it home, sparked up and put it in the stereo all those years ago. I was perplexed by the singer's voice being so low (this was my introduction to the new wave of "Stoner Rock" as everyone was calling it at the time, having previously enjoyed St. Vitus and Count Raven more 'flush with the mix" vocals on WXAV, 88.3 FM, St. Xavier's College Radio), but marveled at the way the guitars sparkled like they do for only one other human being I know - Tony Iommi! The rhythm section was so tight, so pummelling; it was all just such a fresh experience compared to whatever else was out there at the time Metal-wise. So The Art of Self Defense looms large in my life, and as with anything we deem to be of that importance, I felt nervous as hell about anyone changing it.
Again, no reason to be nervous. This shit rules!
"Blood From Zion" feels the most changed from the first side of the album ("Master of Fists" sounds like a different guitar take altogether was used for this release). Interestingly, for most of the tracks, Matt Pike's voice remains at just about the exact same level it was at in the original release; it's just clearer. Nice trick! The descending riff that bridges the first and second verses has to be heard on headphones to be believed. IT'S SO FUCKING HEAVY. I mean, it was always so fucking heavy, but it's like they added subsonic bulldozers to the mix or something. SO GOOD.
You can find this pretty much everywhere online, however, High On Fire's Bandcamp has an exclusive, and while I love that original cover, I do still have that CD (remember Grace note database or whatever that function iTunes had where, if you transferred a CD to digital it could find the album information for you? When I digitized my old Self Defense to put on an iPod back in the late 00s, it came back with The Art of Self Defense, by Sleep!).
Yeah, I think I can make room in my soul for this cover, too. You can also order directly from MNRK Heavy HERE, where the non-exclusive still has the same cover and will cost you a few bucks less on shipping.
Watch:
Two nights ago, K and I watched Kurtis David Harder's newest film, Influencer on Shudder. I dug Harder's previous film Spiral quite a bit, but based on the title of this one, I was expecting a story about a completely unlikeable Influencer who gets her comeuppance.
Nope!
I'm not going to post the trailer, because you shouldn't watch it. Yes, in the opening sequence of the film, you meet a really annoying social media influencer. Stick with it! That's not what the film is; this one reminded me A LOT of the experience I had watching Brad Anderson's Transsiberian back in 2008 or 2009, whenever it first hit video. Both films take continuous ninety-degree turns, so without having seen a trailer or read anything about either, I was left wondering from scene to scene, "Oh, is this what the film is about? Is this the landscape the characters are going to have to live in?" And, so beautifully, those assumptions were always squashed as something new gets introduced to change the film's narrative yet again. Really fun watch; not Horror, but a thriller for sure. Save it for a night when you want twists and turns more than blood and guts.
Playlist:
††† - Invisible Hand (pre-release single)
††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP
††† - Eponymous
The Bronx - The Bronx (III)
Various - Lost Highway OST
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Deftones - White Pony
Converge - Jane Doe
Blue Karma - The Friction, the Pain
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XIV - Temperance or "Art" in Thoth speak
• Four of Swords
• Three of Swords
Fight for your Art! Fours show stability and Threes the process of Growth or Change. The Novel's becoming something more than I'd planned, and while it's more work, I can temper myself against that and fight on toward the finish line.
Tarot aside, if you dig Jonathan Grimm's Bound deck, he has a Kickstarter launching on September 5th for his new deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot. This one's all Metal, Monsters, Magick in one beautiful deck. Here's the link; the campaign isn't active yet, but you can hit the Notify Me button and get in on the ground floor September 5th!
A little High on Fire to start your day. From 2012's De Vermis Mysteriis.
NCBD:
Here's my NCBD haul. Man, since I slimmed down the number of titles I buy, I really don't miss anything I cut, however, some weeks I just miss comics.
First up, I've been waiting for this 13th issue of Ghost Rider for a few months now. Danny Ketch will always be my favorite Ghost Rider, and to have him back as, apparently, part of the Weapon Plus program just makes me salivate with the possibilities.
The final issue of Sins of Sinister's Immoral X-Men. Definitely curious to see what year 1000 looks like.
SO much love in my heart for Saga, and I did not expect the possibility brought up at the end of issue 62, so we'll see where this goes.
Read:
I finally read Jeff Lemire and Doub Mahnke's Swamp Thing: Green Hell. I dug this one about as much as I can dig a DC book (I don't know why my prejudice against DC continues to escalate, but it does).
The thing I liked best about Green Hell was the way it sort of acted as a final chapter for the storylines Lemire and Scott Snyder established in the original, 2012-2013 New 52 Swamp Thing and Animal Man books. I read Snyder's run on Swamp Thing and actually quite liked it, and while I jumped off when Lemire came on and didn't read his Animal Man, I followed those books from afar and understood what they were doing.
I also quote liked what they did with John Constantine in this one, although this tendency to fall back repeatedly on having him barter his soul to the devil for favors got old after the first time, and repeated use with it really just undermines the gravity of Garth Ennis' Dangerous Habits, still one of the greatest stories ever told with the character.
In all, I'll probably revisit this one at some point; the oversized Black Label books are a joy to read when they are worth reading. To me, that's not very often, so it's nice to have one I enjoyed.
Playlist:
SQÜRL - Silver Haze (pre-release singles)
Bexley - Eponymous
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Ghost Bath - Moonlover
High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis
Jon Clearly - Dyna-Mite
Steve Earle - J.T.
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Settling into a work routine will lead to a transformation that brings breakthrough.
Oh my god. Rough day yesterday, then I woke after a recuperative 11 hours and 18 minutes of sleep (haven't slept like that in over a decade, but my body needed it after yesterday, which I will get to shortly) and find Matt Pike's solo album Pike vs the Automaton has dropped! Three songs in, and I love this. I mean, out of the first three tracks, it was tough to decide which one I wanted to post: "Abusive" opens the record, and I loved it the second I heard those opening chords. Track 3, "Trapped in a Midcave" opens with such a throwback to The Art of Self Defense era High on Fire it seemed the natural choice, but in the end, how do you not post the track named "Throat Cobra". Shit, what a great Friday already!
Watch:
First, I LOVE that HBO has titled the second season of their SciFi/Body Horror show Raised By Wolves, Raised By Wolves 2. Episode 4 dropped last night, and as with the previous three and all of season one, I am repeatedly left scratching my head at where any of this is going - in the best possible way. There is NOTHING like this show, and I find there is no way to estimate where any of the plot threads are going, where the beats are landing, or to what lengths it will go to get stranger and more Horrific in a very Ridley Scott's Alien kind of way.
I'm going to go ahead and post the full first episode here - courtesy of HBO's youtube channel.
If you've not seen it, this one is definitely worth your time. And if you dig it but don't have HBO Max, I can assure you, if Raised By Wolves isn't enough to justify the cost of a few months subscription price, then the Turner Movie Classic suburb of the app more than makes it worthwhile.
WTF?:
I saw this on Ghost's youtube channel, called and received a cool little message that included this picture.
I feel like Ghost is going back to their old-school weird, counter-intuitive approach to marketing, and I like it.
Playlist:
Pearl Jam - Vs. *
Justin Timberlake - Justified
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Plagarism EP
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Urge Overkill - Oui
Pike Vs the Automaton
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Burial - Antidawn
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
...........................
* I still get a chill everytime I listen to the opening track on Pearl Jam's second record, "Go." I've never been a huge fan of the band or even this particular album - Ten is spotless start to finish, Vs has its ups and downs for me, although I love more of it than I don't. But the energy in this opening track and the emotional charge to Eddie Vedder's vocals is powerful stuff, mate.
Card:
One of the things I love about the High Priestess, and this Raven Tarot High Priestess my friend Missi made me, is the inclusion of Joachim and Boaz, the two pillars from King Solomon's temple. They represent Love and Understanding, Knowledge from unifying the two. When I look at this card, I see the Kabballahistic tree of life between the two pillars, and the High Priestess sitting in front of the image, occluding several of the sephiroth. Not just any sephiroth, either. She is blocking the lower spheres of perception, making it difficult to discern the path from where we are, to those higher planes of consciousness at the summit of the tree. This card, then, often reminds me that although the path to my intended goal is unclear, unifying disparate information, or simply acting out of love and understanding, will reveal the path I need to take. This is especially pertinent at the moment. The 'rough day' I referenced above - now two days behind me as I type this final part of this post - involved a failed biopsy on my right lung. Long and the short of it is, I have had a condition known as sarcoidosis for several years now. Actually, probably more like a decade +, it just took the doctors a bit to figure out what it was. Sarcodosis is a chronic inflammation disease, and not necessarily as troublesome as the word disease implies. However, it's something you keep tabs on. So every 6 months or so, I go in for CT scans so my Pulminologist can track the amount of difference between my pulmonary inflammation - has it increased or decreased. At one point, they tried treating it with the steroid prednisone, however, that produced a side effect that gave me terrifyingly blurred vision, thus, my doctors promptly removed me from the treatment.
During the pandemic, I did not see my Pulminologist. Also, I'm a typical male in the respect that I hate going to the doctor and following up on this type of shit. Whatever. I have already excepted that this is probably what will eventually kill me. Fine - let's just push that off as far as possible, right?
Anyway, this past October I went in for my first CT scan since May 2019, and in reviewing the images, my doctor saw a 1cmm shape that, "may be nothing, but let's be sure."
Yes doc. Let's be sure.
So a biopsy is ordered. Or it was supposed to be. November came and went and I never heard from the doc's office. We moved into December and I figured now it's the holidays, so I'll wait until January. Come the first week or so of 2022, I start calling to talk to someone.
I cannot get through. At some points, there's not even an answering service on the line, it just rings and rings. I start to fear the doctor has died or retired or something. Then I get a phone tree, and am able to leave message.
I never hear back.
Okay, what the absolute fuck, right? Finally, about three weeks ago, I finally get someone. They transfer me to an amazing woman in booking that is mortified at my experience when I describe it to her. She sets out to book the biopsy as soon as possible, does, and I go in this past Thursday. Only, the little fucker they need to access - via a 26cm needle inserted through my back into my lung - is behind a fucking rib. We spend a great deal of time practicing various combinations of my holding my breath, exhaling, etc, all to try and get the doctor performing the procedure a shot at accessing the spot in question. During this, my right lung begins to collapse.
Needless to say, that's where we stop.
I spend the better part of that day in the hospital on oxygen, having X-Rays every two hours to make sure my lung is reinflating on its own.
It is.
During this time, I have nothing to occupy my time, so I spend six or seven hours basically meditating; practicing very specific, purposeful deep breathing. I figure it's good for me all around, and should hopefully help my lung regain its proper shape. I am trepidatiously discharged that evening. I'm in pain and still somewhat short of breath, but I'm markedly better. I watch episode of Raised By Wolves 2, then turn over and go to bed at about 7:00 PM. I sleep 11 hours and 18 minutes and wake up feeling great. The pain in my back, side and chest that came from the inserting part of the procedure is reduced by about 60%. My breathing feels better still. I go in at 9:00 AM for another X-Ray and talk to the doc afterward. The lung is still partially collapsed, but I have a follow-up with my Pulmonologist on Monday and we will decide how to proceed.
Which brings me back to the High Priestess.
This has, as I feared it might, paused our move. Not for long, but the path to our goal has become obscured. I have to figure out how to get a sample of this damn thing, and I'm pretty sure it's going to require being put under and attached to a machine that can breathe for me. Not a fan of this idea, however, if it will provide the results, it has to be done. I already know the other option is, since this might be nothing, to wait and see if it gets bigger, which would be alarming but would also, in theory, make it easier for them to get a sample. Not sure I want to wait, though, especially because once we move, I'm fairly certain I will be switching to a PPO insurance plan, which traditionally includes more out of pocket expenses.
But I want to charge forward, cut a path through to the results I want as fast as I want them, because I want out of this fucking state. I want to be closer to my friends and family in Chicago, and I want to get away from the place where liberals act exactly like conservatives, and ubran expansion continues unchecked into realms that will absolutely damage the infrastructure of the city and, consequently, its inhabitants' lives. Elected officials in most states suck, but California - and LaLaLand in particular - is off the fucking charts. I need calm, less traffic, and some semblance of sanity.
Some friends recently saw High on Fire at a small venue in Chicago and hearing them talk about how awesome it was really made me miss seeing this band live. Over the years, I've seen Matt Pike and crew several times, one of which was at the Viper Room in Hollywood - a venue that felt waaay to small to contain a sound as big as theirs. Thinking on this, I decided to dig back into their music, only this time, I started with their most recent records and began working my way backward. 2018's Electric Messiah is an album I have not spent nearly enough time with, and running through it the other day, I realized that while I definitely think it's the weakest of the band's six albums, it still contains some absolutely devasting tracks. This is one of them.
Watch:
Another Stranger Things teaser for Season four!
I really can't wait for this next season of Stranger Things. K and I need to start that rewatch of 1-3 soon.
Starting the day like I ended last night, with some vintage High On Fire. My copy of the band's first album, The Art of Self Defense, is the old Man's Ruin version, and a few years ago I discovered that when I put the disc into my computer and open iTunes, it reads it as Sleep - The Art of Self Defense. I've wondered since if when Matt Pike split ways with Cisneros and Hakius, his original plan was to record a new Sleep album with new members, and it ended up just becoming High On Fire. Either way, The Art of Self Defense is a fantastic album that features a little bit more Doom/Sabbath influence on HoF's songwriting than later albums, and that always makes it fun to go back to.
**
I keep forgetting to plug the latest episode of The Horror Vision here. For this episode, Chris, Anthony, Ray, and I discuss Genre Icon Rutger Hauer's passing, our favorite movies/moments from his career, and we give you our reaction to 1992's Split Second, a kind of schizophrenic action/horror/sci fi flick that Hauer chews through the scenery on. Other topics of discussion include but are not limited to, What We Do In The Shadows the show, Slaughterhouse Rulez, Holy Mountain, and my painstaking attempt to watch my way through the Friday the 13th movies in chronological order!
There's news on the web about the about-to-be-in-production third GIJOE movie. Said news, forwarded to me by Mr. Brown, is that the character known as Chuckles will be featured. Now, that might seem funny to some, but as several of THIS article's commenters point out, Chuckles figured prominently in the Mike Costa's GIJOE series Cobra from about ten years ago. This is by far the best Joe Story I have ever read. No disrespect meant to those classic Larry Hama issues at Marvel, but this is another level altogether. The entire storyline is collected in an omnibus titled The Last Laugh and is absolutely worth checking out. If this third flick is based on Costa's run, we are in for a treat indeed.
And now I'm excited for another Joe movie!
Interesting also that my two main 80s toy obsessions made it into these pages with current news this week, even if I mis-reported the release date of Simon Furman and Guido Guidi's Transformers 84 issue 0 - which I learned is stand alone at this point - by a week or two.
**
I caught Michael O'Shea's indie Vampire flick The Transfiguration yesterday. Loved it. Highly recommended, especially if you like a more psychological approach to your horror. Reminded me a lot of Larry Fessenden's movies, and knowing nothing about this film going in, I was overjoyed to see Fessenden make a cameo about half way through!
The Transfiguration is streaming right now on Shudder!
All big ideas and macrocosmic influences. Paradigms are shifting. The idea of turning The Horror Vision into a Publishing Imprint is still intimidating, as dealing with massive ideas like The Universe, The Star, or something as volatile as Lust is, but intimidation is a not insurmountable. Lust is also known as Strength in the original Tarot, and while Crowley changed the name, it retains many of the qualities/attributions originally associated with it. Also, Sephirothically, we're looking at a path that traces the Tree of Life's spheres from Wisdom, to Strength, to Foundation and eventually The Kingdom, by way of Beauty. I can't help but read this confluence of Major Arcana influences as further confirmation that my venture will transform my world.
With all my elation at Windhand's Eternal Return dropping last Friday, I forgot High on Fire's new album Electric Messiah also hit the 'shelves.' After giving it a couple spins I dig it - Matt Pike and crew didn't reinvent their wheel here, but there's some digging around inside the confines of their patented sound that there's some growth here. As usual, it's pummeling and a bit exhaustive. Not a bad thing.
31 Days of Horror continued yesterday with another first timer for me (we opted to save The Convent for tonight):
10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
Species is one of K's favorites. I'd never really had any interest in seeing it until I recently read that the monster was based on an H.R. Giger design - obvious, but I guess I just thought it was a case of Hollywood cribbing the design on the Alien monster. Either way, I enjoyed Species in spite of it being very 90s- everything from the camera work to the overwrought score reeked of X-Files influence. Forest Whittaker overdoes his role as this search-and-destroy team's empath, although I suspect that was the product of direction more than his personal choice. Also, the use of ground fog where there shouldn't be any is very much a trope of the 90s.
Playlist from 10/08:
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic
Corniglia - Eponymous
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine
God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide
I ended up baulking on finishing the second part of the novel last night due to sheer exhaustion. After work was reserved for a big ol' nap! Today's card for the day reflects my adjusted expectations:
Also, there's the balance of contrasts inherent in this card, which ties into the book's attempt to balance YA adventure-horror with a touch of a literary pedigree.
Fuck. Yes. They're not reinventing the wheel, and I don't care. Pre-order HERE from Napalm Records for an October 5th release.
Finished Dark Moon Books' excellent collection, Exploring Dark Short Fiction #2: A Primer to Kaaron Warren. Weeeelll worth your time. Jumped right into the first of two novels I'm reading for writing homework - Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Excellent so far, not that I didn't expect exactly that. I'm going to read that and, ahem, James Patterson's Along Came A Spider, a book I'm not looking forward to as much, though I'm sure it will be a more than adequate page-turner. The idea here is for the three books Keller and I have planned to pen together, I'm looking at creating a fusion of the thriller, less-is-more page-turner style and more more literary leanings. I tend to avoid page-turners, so I'm reading what Keller has suggested are two examples of the style that are worth reading.
Playlist from yesterday:
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Tennis System - Pain EP
The Body - I Have
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Mstislav Rostropovich - The 1967 Carnegie Hall Marathon (excerpts):
Concerto for Violin & Cello in A Minor
Suite for Cello & Chamber Orchestra
Christine - Sam Was Here OST
Christine - Brand New Furies
Goblin - Buio Omega
This is late compared to how I've been posting here. Long day.
This week I'm filling in for KJVM on the Joup Friday Album. This installment's a bit of a departure for me. Read it HERE and welcome the weekend in with a theatrically evil 80s Metal icon, for better or for worse.
Playlist from yesterday seems 100,000,000 light years away, and I didn't take very good notes, so here goes from memory:
High On Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Sleep - Volume 1
High On Fire - Luminiferous
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Sleep - Dopesmoker (Vinyl, which alters the experience by having to flip the side four times and remove and replace one record with another once)
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Was March 1st national Matt Pike day? Seems like it might have been.
Card of the day for today, which might be viewed a moot point at 6:16 PM, however you can learn a lot about Divination from reverse-engineering a draw:
From the Grimoire: Will indicate failing to achieve a goal. Paired with the 8 or 9 of Swords (which I did, drew two more cards and one was Interference) may indicate treachery. Or "Won't get the job." Hopefully that's not pointing toward the apartment we just applied for.
Jesus Christ - what is this, Christmas? First a new Brand New, now new High on Fire? And while we can only chomp our nails and wait with bated breath for the announcement of the new album to follow Brand New's first track in six years you can pre-order the new High On Fire - titled Luminiferous - now! Or, you can wait and go to a local record shop and grab it June 23rd.
Also, I've seen HOF several times and I can't stress this enough: if you get the chance see them live. These are three men that, on stage, create a sound so enormous it's like an army of Orcs storming a castle.
Here's Matt Pike's explanation of the lyrics to this track:
"It's about aliens abducting people and manipulating our past, present and future. It's about the top of the pyramid, so to speak," Pike says. "And it's also about alien hybrids, and how we've been immersed amongst this culture of E.T.s for thousands of years, and how no one has woken up to it until recently."
If you dig this you NEED to own it on vinyl. The re-issue via Southern Lord (buy it herethough it looks as though they are currently out of stock) stands as one of the greatest vinyl purchases I've ever made.
These two live discs with material spanning High on Fire's incredible career releases on Tuesday, however Pitchfork has the second disc streaming HERE right now!!! It's really, really good - a great representation of High on Fire from someone who has seen them a number of times in venues of varying sizes.
