Exhalants Live 2019

 

Fired up some Exhalants over the last few days and man! This band is just so damn awesome. I can't believe this video only has 23 hits. Please - if you dig this, spread the word and repost something of theirs where you know like-minded people may see/hear. Exhalants deserve to be heard. 

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NCBD:

Our second to last NCBD of 2022 is choke full O' comicky goodness. Here's what I'll be picking up today at Rick's Comic City:

I'm still not bowled over by this new Marvel Alien series, but I dig it and am curious to see how this storyline evolves. 

My first month as with SIKTC in my pull. SO excited to continue monthly with this book after finally catching up on all the trades. 

Continuing J.M. DeMatteis's return to the seminal storyline he penned in the 80s. 

This one just keeps putting a smile on my face. Jed MacKay never takes this book where I think it's going, and for that, I'm grateful.

I really have no idea how long this book will run, if there will be different storylines, or if everything will continue to spin out of these first few issues. But that not-knowing is what I'm probably digging most at this point. 

I have to say, I'm not digging the absence of Tyler Boss's art on What's the Furthest Place From Here since it returned last month. Nothing against this month's artist Sweeney Boo, but just like last month's fill-in artist Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, they have a big job replacing Boss's iconic style - a style that defined the series from its beginning. Ortiz did great, but for the first issue back after a hiatus, issue eight just didn't feel right. Let's see how it feels today.

After Amazing Dark Web: X-Men #1's impromptu reunion of Spider-man and his amazing friends, I've come around on Firestar, who really just hasn't had much of a presence in the MCU besides that early 80s cartoon in all the time I've been a fan. Maybe that's changing.

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Watch:

Scare Package was a very pleasant surprise in 2020. Now, the sequel is getting immediate praise. Here's the trailer:

 

Is it just me, or is there a heavy "Scary Movie" vibe here? I am not a fan of those movies, so hopefully, that hot take is completely wide of the mark. Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge hits Shudder tomorrow, so in about 24 hours, we'll know.

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Playlist:

VAAAL - A Wounded Fawn OST

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live At Ronnie Scott's Club)

Silent - Modern Hate

Snake Eats Boy - Ocupado (single)

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Chat Pile - God's Country

Embrace - Eponymous

Special Interest - Endure

The Mysterines - Reeling

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Deth Crux - Bloody Christmas (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Again, today I asked a very specific question and received a pretty specific answer. Let inspiration guide the final process for the project I can't seem to finish and a breakthrough will occur. I'll have to be watching for the breakthrough, however, as at this point, I can't see the forest for the trees.

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? 

Sunday Bandcamp: New Album from Exhalants!

I missed the pre-order on the vinyl for Atonement and now I'm kicking myself. Regardless, the entire album is fantastic, and I can't recommend a band more at this stage in their career. Support Exhalants HERE.

Isolation: Day 117 New Exhalants!

New song from Austin's Exhalants. For my money, these guys are the closest band I know of to that old school Jesus Lizard vibe I love so much. I ordered their self-titled debut last year from bandcamp and love it, now it would seem we have a new record coming soon. Can't wait.

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NCBD:

Didn't 22 just hit the stands last week? Looks like there was one in the queue when the Diamond hiatus happened, so we're getting an extra treat here on the backend. Very nice.

I KNEW IT! I knew that zero issue for Transformers '84 that Simon Furman and Guido Guidi did last year would lead to a series. SO excited. I don't read any other title associated with this beloved childhood franchise, but if Furman writes it, I am there! And look at that cover - does anyone ever get sick of watching Starscream and Megatron try and kill one another? I know I don't.

Love this cover too! This series continues to blow me away with its new direction, so I'm psyched to have 106 come in so close to 105.

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Playlist:

Andrea Moscianese and Francesco Zampaglione - Tulpa OST
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
Exhalants - Band (single)
Exhalants - Eponymous
Brainiac - Bonsai Superstar
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
War on Women - Capture the Flag

Card:

A solid foundation of work yields results.

2018: November 7th

Exhalants are a band I recently discovered via KXLU. Their 2018 Eponymous album shot to my top ten of the year the first time through, the same way Protomartyr's Under Color of Official Right did four years ago. That's really where comparisons end between those two, although they both hail from a still-vibrant indie scene that hasn't been dashed by The Spectacle's appropriation of the label as a 'genre' that includes bands who dress like they traveled here from 1930s Poland. Exhalants remind me a bit of Shellac, the Jesus Lizard, and an entire smattering of bands from the mid-to-late 90s that comprised the Touch and Go/Drag City/Thrill Jockey scene and made honest, insanely creative music unrestricted by genre trappings or rockstar agendas. Go to their Bandcamp HERE and support this awesome independent band (Hurry - there's only 9 of the random colored 180 gram vinyl editions left of the album because I just bought one).


The Drinking with Comics crew had our pre-show meeting last night. This has become something I always look forward to, as we sit around, drink beer and have dinner and swap books so we can all have read the same stuff for the show. Yesterday Chris brought a new book called Blackbird I had heard of but not read, and I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with it. Look at this art:

I don't buy books just for the art either, which is probably why after looking at #1 upon release last month I passed on it. That said, after reading the first issue last night, I am anxiously awaiting 3PM so I can hit the Comic Bug and pick up my own copy of #1 and #2, which comes out today. Also for NCBD, a continuation of Cullen Bunn's 2014 mini-series The Empty Man. Loved this when it was monthly four years ago, and was always kinda hoping in the back of my mind that it would continue.

Playlist from 11/06:

Ghost Cop - EP
Exhalants - Eponymous
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Tom Waits - Bone Machine
Tom Waits - Swordfish Trombones
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST

No card today.