Saturday, December 31, 2016
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Carrie Fisher Pants
Today when I found out Carrie Fisher had died, I looked down and saw that I happened to be wearing my Star Wars IV: A New Hope Pants in which Carrie features prominently. Her presence on my pants was always the most soothing of anyone there, except for possibly Vader because Vader. I don't talk much these days about Star Wars. My love for the franchise was and is predicated upon the involvement of George Lucas and I will leave it at that. I am a big Carrie Fisher fan in all of her doings, especially when she gets to wield a firearm of some form or another. Her embrace of her own life, on her own terms with honesty and bravery was a personal inspiration and example to me of how to live my own. I am still working myself out of anaphylactic shock (I am pretty sure) which was terrifying and I had a CPAP mask failure on top of that, so today is not a good one. One last thing about Carrie. Star Wars was the first movie I can remember seeing and the MOST IMPORTANT thing to me about the original trilogy is Carrie Fisher's hair. Like I had never experienced hair envy before but when I was three and six and nine, I knew THAT was the hair I wanted to have in life. Whether in braids, buns, or loose/down, that was the look I longed for. I never was into the Jabba bikini thing because gross. If I had to pick one iconic Leia/Carrie look, it was the scenes on Hoth with the boots with the fur, etc.
Thank You Carrie. I will always love you. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Judas Priest - 'Metal Gods' & 'Victim Of Changes' Live At The Seminole Hard Rock Casino (2009)
As longtime friends of this blog will undoubtedly be aware, my favorite metal band of all-time, if I had to had to pick one, would be Judas Priest. I love Judas Priest totally and with all of my being. Every Judas Priest album is deeply loved by me. I have had the blessing to see them but once, in 2009 in South Florida's Seminole Hard Rock Casino wherein they played all of British Steel and then a bunch of other stuff. I was in awe of seeing Rob Halford like, live, in person. I am still in awe of this having happened. If there is anything I love anywhere near as much as I love Rob Halford it is Flying V Whammy Bar Abuse. Needless to say, by the time the concert was nearing its end I was so blissed out I felt I would vomit from any additional excitement. The performance of 'Victim Of Changes' you see/hear presently is one of those moments of utter metal transport that have ever happened to me in this life. This goes far beyond anything I have a rational vocabulary for. Judas Priest are the best. Forever. Hail. <3 <3 <3 Love Always. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Monday, December 26, 2016
Husker Du - Land Speed Record (1981)
There are days, more than a few, when having Husker Du cassettes kept me alive, kept me from hurting myself, allowed me to empty all that was within myself. Husker Du was there for me. They cared about me, even though they didn't know me at all, and never would. It is not hyperbole to say that metal and hardcore saved my life and continue to save my life on a daily basis. Without it, I would have torn myself apart. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Urzeit - Anmoksha (2016)
Say you are a this-earthly portal of a transdimensional other-earth supervolcano that wants to erupt in this earth in order to annihilate and doom and crush and melt but would like to do it in the form of furious, storming black metal from Oregon, the answer is that you hook up with Urzeit and have them set up a semi-stable wormhole using dark magicks so that they will erupt the kosmische blaste on your behalf. Unreal. Urzeit has immediate ties to also-favored Mizmor!!! although sounding pretty different. If you want some black metal annihilation in your day, this will not disappoint in any way. Hail Urzeit!!! <3 <3 <3
Aaliyah - 'One In A Million' from One In A Million (1996)
My favorite Aaliyah song. Blessed Be. <3 <3 <3
For Those Days When
For Those Days When You Sit In The Dark And Watch The Maps Video By Yeah Yeah Yeahs Over And Over Again And Don't Even Know Why
Aesop Rock - The Impossible Kid [Album Stream Is A Homemade Cover Of The Shining by Rob Shaw] 2016)
As an album, the new Aesop Rock album is a pretty amazing piece of autobiography in middle age, the fear, the regret, the years spent in activities that barely renumerate if at all, living situations sketchy or sketchier, mental health that or worse, the longing for security and stability countered by personal ache and failure, the hope that art can sustain in spite of chaos and darkness and weakness.
As an album stream, this is a homemade minature craft-project cover of The Shining, which is pretty dope. It was made by Rob Shaw. I like just listening to this album a few times before watching the visuals but you could also totally throw on the Shining soundtrack and watch it separately that way!
Ministry 4 Ever.
Insomnium - Winter's Gate (2016)
Hugely warm and enjoyable, Insomnium offer up a 40-minute single-track epic about a Viking exploration on beyond Ireland which fuses melodic death metal, symphonic black metal, acoustic passages, old-school concept-prog and more. This is like having someone tell you a long-ago story by the fire while drinking warm beverages and covered in blankets laden with non-human companions. Being old I hear Bathory and Amorphis in these depths, and it pleases me to no end. <3 <3 <3. Curl up with this!!!
Defeated Sanity - Disposal Of The Dead/Dharmata (2016)
Although I am now in a Dark Day's Inn in Lancaster, PA, in the middle of my life, I am in exile from South Florida, which I will always regard over all other places as My Home. I learned to love many things in South Florida, and among those things, downtuned chugging, pinch harmonicks, growling/grunting, double-bass, sick breakdowns, camouflage cargo shorts and/or sweatpants depending are forever among those things. I am DELIGHTED in Defeated Sanity's new album, which is like the first half is BRUTAL and SMUDGY and the second half is SPACY and THIRD-EYE-AWAKENING. As long as there has been acid rock, let along metal proper, this has been dichotomized and intersected over and across to no end, so it is really fun to see them doing like a Deliverance/Damnation kinda thing with it. All of it, though, will cause energies to flow in and through and within/without you so there really is no split per se. I love Defeated Sanity and am glad I finally caught up with them!!! <3 <3 <3
Haxenzijrkell - Des Lasters Der Zauberey (2016)
OK this might be the greatest thing I have ever heard in my life. Witchually-induced trance-blat/thud/moan RIFF RIFF HOWL lays utter waste. Whatever is left is whatever is left of you. This, this, this is the very stuff of life. HAIL!!! <3 <3 <3
Sunday, December 25, 2016
George Michael - 'Praying For Time' from Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
There is no more prophetic song for our era than 'Praying For Time', both because those times never left us, and have indeed cycled back around, but the chill has settled in my bones hearing this again and it is like hearing for the first time. If this is the end, if there is no help coming, if it is only us to help us, let us be brave, let us be kind, let us act even when there are no good ultimate outcomes, because if everything is equal, let us choose kindness, let us choose mercy, even if god won't.
<3 <3 <3
George Michael - The Cycle Of Faith
I love George Michael with all of my heart. Ever since Wham! even though I wasn't really a Wham! fan, what I WAS a fan of was 'Careless Whisper' because it spoke to depths of regret and loss within me even though I didn't yet dance, and when I did dance, was more 'damaged hippie' or 'broken metal' in a collective environment, rather than a situation befitting High Drama. If there is an open question whether we in the 1980's knew what a brilliant song this was, we knew, and we cherished it.
In late 1987, there were three albums that were the MOST IMPORTANT to me that came out in the second half of that year, well, four, I guess, if you include Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse Of Reason, but the other three were The Grateful Dead's In The Dark, Def Leppard's Hysteria and George Michael's Faith. I still listened (do not worry!) to Prince's Sign O The Times EVERY SINGLE DAY and taped that Prince Movie off of cable and watched it almost as frequently! The movie in fact, dominated my late 1987 musically, for real.
My belovedness of George Michael's Faith came off to a rocky start. Being in love with some Wham! singles and 'Careless Whisper' I was actually excited to hear new George Michael music. At that time, I was your average 13 year old who had Duran Duran posters and could acknowledge Simon LeBon as 'cute' without any sort of carnal interest, and for sure would have been Down For Whatever with Prince but I mostly assumed that as universal? Of all the closests I was in, they were super deep, to the point where I was not even aware of them. I was ready, though, for a new George Michael single, and 'I Want Your Sex' should have been that single, but was instead, to me and my sister and cousins and all of my fellow metalheads in the psych hospital that summer, laughably clunky and hilarious, a terrible misfire. I can see how with the repeated success of the WHAM! Rap or whatever, that it may not have seemed like a terrible idea, but it did not go over well with me or my immediate circle. Do not worry! I am not here to speak ill! So, it was a profound shock when I saw the video for 'Faith'.
In October of 1987, when I saw George Michael's 'Faith' video for the first time I am 99.9% sure that is the first time when I saw a man on tv and wanted to get in their pants. Like, not borrow his pants, which were awesome, as was the entire rockabilly boots/bleached jeans/leather jacket that says 'Revenge'/aviator shades look, but like actually 'get' why people wanted to because I wanted to as well. I watched that video over and over and over again. What I think people responded to in George Michael primarily was and is loss, regret, lust, but a lust held in abeyance, not able to be fulfilled, whether due to circumstance or personal difficulty. Straight-up immediate desire seems to not work as well as desire blocked or frustrated, which is an IMMENSELY POWERFUL FORCE, especially if you are 13 and watching MTV all by yourself in 1987.
Once that happened, it was all over for me, I became a George Michael/Faith devotee for life. All into especially the next year, which I spent the entirety in a for-profit adolescent psych hospital, George Michael (and Terence Trent D'Arby and Prince and Sinead and SST/DK's/GNR/Metallica/Slayer/Sabbath) kept me alive and mostly sane. I was a convert.
So, although 'Father Figure' is maybe the most messed-up and problematic/corrosive song/video I have loved this much NOT written by SWANS, it is also the most beautiful song on Faith, and is well aware of is own darkness. When I was 13/14, I could not only identify with George Michael saying this to another person (even though I had NO DESIRE to be ANYONE'S 'father figure', given what that meant to me, especially, the idea that it could be something at all positive was very puzzling to me) but I could identify with George Michael saying it to me (not, of course, literally), and feeling warm and loved and wanted in a way that songs on the radio did not normally make me feel but then there was all of that religiosity/criminality in the lyrics, which sent up all sorts of other red flags. This is something truly thorny and difficult for me to parse, even given the passage of 28 years.
'One More Try' is an immediate counterpoint to 'Father Figure' and raises for me the interesting question of who is speaking and why. Clearly, 'One More Try' is from the voice of the student, the adept of love, who is torn between staying and leaving, when it may not be their choice at all. I think there is an interesting reading of Faith as being about Divine Love between God and Humanity, expressed in ecstatic, personal terms. Part of this process is the falling-away from Union with The Divine and the feelings of abandonment therein. Faith is an album about the soul's journey into and out of states of relationship with God.
I have no idea why I can't find the official 'Kissing A Fool' video, but this was the last single issued from Faith, and is perfect in its 'fool-is-made-wise-through-loss' gnosis. The cycle of knowing is complete, and the Fool emerges from their path stronger through having been broken and remade in the crucible of love.
<3 <3 <3
nathaxn
Kreator Live Clip from Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale, May 12 2009
Hey Thanks Mr. W! I was totally at this show and it was insane on every level. Not only did Warbringer open for Belphegor who opened for Exodus who opened for Kreator, but Kreator were utterly vicious and gave no quarter. Pure Thrash Terror. Kreator have been one of my favorite thrash bands since the 1980's and to get to see them live like this was amazing. I don't really go to shows for many reasons, but knowing that this is one I got to makes me beyond happy. Hail Kreator!!! <3 <3 <3
Run The Jewels - RTJ3
Like many people around the world, today is being celebrated as the arrival of RTJ3 everywhere. I was and am a big fan of RTJ2, for which I also have a pretty warm and oversize hoodie purchased for Minneapolis winters. On my first two listens, my only actual complaint with RTJ3 is "Let Trina RAP!!!!! Come ON!" but otherwise this has a more low-key psychedelic, refracting quality than earlier noisy/abrasive trax, more laid back and letting the hallucinogens kick in and letting a melancholy-but-not-depressed vibe creep in that might also have something to do with deepening middle-age in looming neofascist totalitarianism. I especially dig the acid-squelch and psych-jazz gtrs undergirding and crawling up surfaces. Also, and I might be crazy, but I hear some 90's Timbaland/Neptunes in places. Typically, I like to have a few listens to let RTJ settle with me and their commitment to making rap albums is appreciated by old fogeys like me.
Here is the full album stream:
Also here is the website link to free album download!
https://runthejewels.com/
PS
These are my 3 immediate favorites from RTJ3: Two singles and one more:
(Hey is it just me or does 2100 not have a kind of gospel-doom-Evanescence feel to it? heart Evanescence)
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Leaving 2016 Like...
Leaving 2016 Like
And Hoping 2017 is more of the 'come with me if you want to live' sort of Killer Robot From The Future and not so much the other kind.
<3 <3 <3
I have seen this movie so many times.
Flamin Groovies - 'Slow Death' Live French TV 1972
ITS A SLOW DEATH AKA STAYING ALIVE
(Proper Teenage Head-era Flamin Groovies is obviously more my jam than their later stuff and this song rules so very very hard in this incarnation)
Harvey Milk - Courtesy And Good Will Toward Men (1996)
I probably have a lot of favorite Christmas Albums, but it is entirely possible that my most favorite Christmas Eve album of all time is Harvey Milk's Courtesy And Good Will Toward Men, which captures something completely unique to the pitch-darkness, the cold and barren world of expulsion, mass emigration, slaughter of innocents, imperial overreach and the eruption of hope that will only come to pass much later on. Christmas Eve is about the space made where hope can find purchase to grow unnoticed and unremarked-upon until it is capable of altering everything, seemingly all at once. If I have anything to say to anyone who reads this here, it would be to allow yourself that, not hope, but the space for hope, a place where it can flourish undisturbed for as long as it needs to, even if you yourself are unaware of it.
In general, I try to live without hope. I try and live among that which is, and that knowledge of the past which guides us. I am entirely against efforts to implement utopia, but I nonetheless believe in the utopian impulse, the belief that things do not have to be as they are, that we can change them, no matter how difficult it seems. Hope is something that lives for a time until it is inevitably destroyed, often brutally and with a great and ravenous malice. The terror and wonder of hope is that it is inextinguishable. No matter how bad things are, no matter what efforts are made to eradicate it, hope always returns.
Along with hope, what we have is the power to say no, the power of refusal. We can affirm that which matters to us, what is meaningful to us no matter what is said or affirmed by others. We can also always say no, we can reject a proposal, an agenda, an ideology, a protocol, an atrocity. We can say no to it, no matter what our refusal may cost us, we can say no. If you are scared to say no, and sometimes it surely makes sense to be afraid of what might happen as a result, ask yourself if you are willing to live with the sort of person you would be if you agreed to something you know to be wrong, and what that agreement would ultimately make of you.
All of us have failed ourselves and others at some time, have taken the path of least resistance, bowed down to power, committed atrocity, betrayed ourselves and our neighbors, our families, ourselves. This does not mean that we should give up. It means that perhaps we will have another chance to say no, to affect meaningful change, to make someone's lives better, to resist.
One thing that tyrannical regimes often do is attempt to convince us that we are all corrupt, that we are all motivated by venal, short-sighted selfish purpose. What is important to know is that this is not done really as a weapon against us, but as a means of confirming to the tyrannical regime that their assessment of human nature is accurate, that their theory of governance is sound. Prove Them Wrong. It will hasten their undoing.
I got to see Harvey Milk live in 2009 at Churchill's in Miami. It was one of the best nights ever.
Songs That Have Made Me Cry In The CVS This December #2
Continuing in our somewhat dubious series of songs that have made me weep profusely inside of the CVS, this since always, even before 2016, Year Of The Reaper. Let's Dance is also and always my favorite David Bowie album along with Station To Station.
Still Standing In The Wind, Not Waving Goodbye.
<3
nathaxn
PS: including the 1999 remastered Album Version too, just in case that is your preference!
Maria McKee - 'Scarlover' & 'Absolutely Barking Stars' Live 1996
In addition to being many many many other things, 2016 is the 20th anniversary of one of my all-time favorite albums, Maria McKee's Life Is Sweet, a feral and wholly personal ingestion of Ronson-era Bowie until something never ever seen before or since on this earth. This album is an undying work of beauty and glory. These performances are also a wonderful document from that era.
Bonus Track!!!: 'I'm Awake' (live)
Just Amazing.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Craft - Fuck The Universe (2005)
A Classick Album for those days when you just want to crawl back under the covers forever and never come back out again but still you must do something or another against all sense and exercise of desire and it is probably better if you do in the long run but in order to do that you need to listen to Craft's Fuck The Universe because then everything will be in empathy and in sympathy with you and you with it so you can go to Walgreen's or whatever.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Death Grips - 'Giving Bad People Good Ideas' from Bottomless Pit (2016)
The true story of me, a Pisces/Aries Cusp, in Organizational Life.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Dishammer - Vintage Addiction (2009)
Continuing this evening's unintended but awesome theme of Spanish thrashcrust, here is Dishammer, who love Hellhammer and Discharge as much as expected, but ALSO love 'Werewolves On Wheels', the best movie ever, and follow the left-hand path like no one's business but their own. This totally rules. Hail Dishammer Hail!!! <3 <3 <3
Bitch Witch - Too Old Too Punk (EP, 2014)
Today is one of those days when 80's-style doompunk/crust throwing horns to Darkthrone is what you need to make it through at least while this EP is playing! Hail!!! <3 <3 <3
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Interment - Scent Of The Buried (2016)
For when you need that Old School Swedish Sunlit Death and nothing else will do, this is that very thing, as glorious as ever!!!
Vemod - Venter Pa Stormene (2012
Absolutely Kosmische, Beautiful And Gossamer Black Metal Full Of Majesty And Wonder. To Feel Awe, To Tear At The Ribbon Of Dawn Until Undone
Fergie - 'Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)' from The Dutchess (2006)
If there are any constants in this universe, one of them most certainly be the fact that for an entire decade now, Fergie's 'Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)' has made me weep openly in every Walgreens and CVS I have ever heard it in, which is the only place I ever listen to this song. Generally I am already sick or otherwise compromised because I am in a Walgreens or CVS at some inopportune time with tears streaming down my face. It is true that I was probably going through a major breakup the first time this happened in 2006 and immediately afterward I would sing this song to my cat Ana, telling her that big cats don't cry which is of course, nonsense.
I have only watched this video like 3 times ever and although I understand Bush II era fashion in the inside-out way that only PTSD can bring, this presents edge-of-visual-acceptability-level affronts at every turn, although I do like the DIO sticker on that acoustic guitar. The lost-in-00's junkyard/meth cataclysm surrounding this song is made all the more ominous by continual references about getting home before darkness falls. Sprawling into an endless lateral abyss is pretty much what Bush II America felt like, of which this is clearly a profound exemplar.
it is ok for big cats to cry! <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Call Of The Void - AYFKM (2016)
This EP is about driving in a van to crappy punk shows and having stupid arguments and getting way too aggro and having to listen to the same stuff over and over and over again even if it is inside your own head and the only thing you can do to get out the aggro is to play supremely upset punk musick for punk persons. The void beckons, as always. Sometimes we have to make do with the van.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Collection 1 Published by Cryptogram Press!!!
Dear Gentle Blog Readership! It is with great honor and love that I am here to announce that most wonderful friend and covenmate Claire Diane (of MURDERDRONE and Girl Werewolf/Ocron fame!) has put out a little zine of my artwork (the stuff here on the blog)in a super-cute limited edition! As Napalm Death would say in their Harmony Corruption liner notes, I am beyond chuffed. Hail To Thee Claire Diane!!! All Of The Love!!! <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Here is the link if you want to check out the book and the attendant cool promo video!!!
https://gumroad.com/l/Collection1-NathaxnWalker#
Ocron - Low Grade Noise Canister EP (2016)
Diane Deth's Ocron continues to have an awesome December 2016 in spite of or due to? the collapse of AmeriKKKa into Neofascist Internationale/RUSSA/Terror Du Jour. Low Grade Noise Canister riffs on some of the motorik aspects of recent Ocron into a minimal techno/harsh noise development which is quite pleasing indeed. Canister 1 in particular I could listen to pretty much forever!!! <3 Ocron so much!!! :)
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Ocron - Skull EP (2016)
My friend Diane Deth, also of Girl Werewolf, has a solo ambient/noise project named Ocron who bring the Occult Werewolf Motorik Metal Jamz!!! I can't stop listening to this as it is a juggernaut of noise, drums, growlz and never stops until it does!
Black Funeral - Ankou And The Death Fire (2016)
If you are in need of some practical-fx call-of-the-owl in the grim-wintry-forest school of Old School Celtic Mythos-Inspired Satanic USBM, Black Funeral's Ankou And The Death Fire has more than got your needs covered. This stuff WORKS. Hail!
Spider-Gremlin Freakout To 'Angel Of Death' By Slayer from Gremlins 2 (1990)
(with bonus Dick Miller!!!)
Also: the best? song from The Real Thing by Faith No More, 'Surprise You're Dead', is the best song because Mike Patton said he wrote the lyrics from the perspective of a vampire and it sounds like being killed for an eternity by a vampire is actually super lame. This song also appears somewhere in Gremlins 2 although for the life of me I can't remember where?
I don't have it in my mind or my heart this year to do much in the way of Seasonal Celebration, but I can always throw down for some Slayer/FNM/Gremlins jamz. <3 nathaxn
Monday, December 12, 2016
Hypothermia - Skogens Hjarta (2010)
In honor of the frozen full moon. In honor of trying not to die. In honor of bleeding out slow enough it counts as flawless victory. <3 <3 <3
Hole - 'Violet' from Live Through This (1994)
'Violet' is my favorite Hole song. It has been for almost 23 years. It is the one I play over and over again while wracked with sobbing which escapes sound, when I am just making noises. I assume 'Violet' is everyone's favorite Hole song, but that might just be because I am a Pisces/Aries Cusp with a Moon In Pisces, a Rising Gemini and Venus In Aquarius (among many other starcrossed attributes). I really should learn when to go. It has been almost 23 years of not-saying no, of not saying goodbye. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Sunday, December 11, 2016
40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky (2016)
For those melancholic winter days when the weight of holding on to what is leaving is nearly equal to the weight of what would be lost if let go. Something that is felt on a somatic level. <3 <3 <3
Subrosa - 'Troubled Cells' from For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages (2016)
Subrosa's 'Troubled Cells' as a song and a video is an indictment of life lived within the prison of kyriarchy and the weight of the needless costs born by those who should never have to. It leaves me a shattered mess listen to and to watch. Subrosa is one of my favorite bands and they prove why over and over again. THE ANTHEM!!! <3 <3 <3 Hail Hecate. Hail Satan. CW: patriarchy, suicide, etc. http://www.troubledcells.com/home-1.html
I am including this whole album here which is one of the most beautiful and moving I have heard this whole year, as well as one of the most unforgiving and heavy in its attributes and implications. Based upon Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopian science-fiction novel, We, For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages asks for and gives in return no quarter. I can say, that for deeply personal reasons, 'Despair Is A Siren' is the most meaningful song I heard in 2016. It means everything to me. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Friday, December 9, 2016
Blut Aus Nord/P.H.O.B.O.S. - Triunity (Split, 2014)
I spent like hours today listening to Blut Aus Nord in a trance state. So much so that the only way to get out of the Blut Aus Nord Trance Loop was to play this, a Blut Aus Nord/P.H.O.B.O.S. split, which rules pretty hard. Blut Aus Nord are here mostly black psych, with a drummer, leaving the industrial bangers to P.H.O.B.O.S., which works out well as a division of labor. If you are looking to come down from anything, this will help, especially if you are already way out there. <3 nathaxn
Ash Borer - The Irrepassable Gate (2016)
Melted ice mixed with tomb dust dripping through cracks in structures made by root-extrusion.
Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls (2015)
For A Downer XMZZ about collapse across persons, relationships, cities, and finding God there, in all of that, which only opens up more difficulty and greater questions.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Emerson, Lake & Powell - 'Touch And Go' from Emerson, Lake & Powell (1986)
I love King Crimson. I love ELP. I love 70's prog rock with all of my heart. The roots of this lay however, in exposure to 1980's exponents of prog rock gone commercial-pomp. I first fell in love with singular trio of Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Cozy Powell with their 1986 behemoth named after themselves by seeing the video for 'Touch And Go' on MTV. At the time, I was also into 1986-era Heart, 1986-era Moody Blues, Syd Barrett and Jimi Hendrix. My favorite band in the whole world up to that point was Duran Duran, so I was also obsessed not only with the Duran^2 art rock splinter group Arcadia but eagerly awaiting the new Duran Duran album Notorious. I was, therefore, the perfect audience for Emerson, Lake & Powell. 'Touch And Go' has awful lyrics and an even worse video but I love all of it. Hail To Thee Greg Lake. You Rule. <3 <3 <3 nathaxn
Graves At Sea - The Curse That Is (2016)
If 2016 owes anything from us, it is surely a bad attitude. Graves At Sea give us all we could hope for and more. The sound of billionaires dissolving and absorbing Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security met with unceasing waves of self-medicated satanic death cults, who scream 'no hope, smoke dope' while tearing wheelies around their ramshackle compounds, vehicles tipping over from the weight of nihilism powering them, that and the largest, strongest muscle-jet-truck-engines made to absorb the glut of petroleum overproduction where the state, finally run out of food and specie, pays us all in gasoline and ditchweed.
A poison-slick so deadly it is eating through to the center of the earth, but so slowly it will never get there.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Vektor - Terminal Redux (2016)
As a long-time fan of Vektor I can safely say that this not only exceeds whatever standards I previously held for them, but is one of the very very best metal albums I have heard this year and this century. This is where Vektor go for broke, their space-thrash prog epic they have always had percolating inside of them. Extends this form far beyond the present and into future-realms where thrash has always dwelled in power, sending back signals through temporal distortion. I am old. Along with Sabbath/Zeppelin, Thrash was what turned me on to metal. I held onto thrash even as other peers moved into more deathly realms (and rightfully so), before delving into grindcore and doubling back to the death I had left behind. Please believe me when I say that for me, This Is It. Hail Vektor!!! <3 <3 <3 Love To Thee!!! nathaxn
HIRS - You Can't Kill Us (2016)
My friend Claire introduced me to HIRS a little while ago and I am so glad she did. This is what I needed in my life more than any other single thing today. An entire EP devoted to Trans People not dying at the hands or the words or the policies of hatred. An entire EP devoted to Trans People not dying by their own hands even if just to spite Nazi Frogs and all other murderous, bigoted scum. We're gonna live forever. <3 <3 <3 Blessed Be, HIRS!!! <3 <3 <3 Hail Satan!!! nathaxn
Exmortes - Hear The Saw ...Coming Near (1990)
Exmortes are like, amazing. Trance-induced, trance-inducing repetitive black metal from late 1980's Netherlands, brought to you by one person, Verpus. Of the two EP's I heard, Hear The Saw has less loud vocals and more flange, and Fuckin Nightmare (1989) has louder vokills and more buzz-saw gtr aktions.
I include also Fuckin' Nightmare because yeah. Exmortes totally rules.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Ulvesang - Ulvesang (2015)
Truly one of the most beautiful albums I have heard this year. If you need some hushed Canadian snowfall acoustical jams in your lives, and I so do, Ulvesang has got that going on for real. (rec. via Kim Kelly, who is awesome!)
Friday, December 2, 2016
Inverloch - Distance | Collapsed
All those cities built just for a yearly rate of expansion report, open to desert winds. The ruin of infrastructure not yet built, built to be ruin, a show of force, a sleight of hand, the hand which is cut and bleeding for the corporation to suck and lap from, widening the wound, fraying the surrounding flesh as it progresses.
Eight Bells - 'Hating' from Landless (2016)
The whole of Eight Bells' Landless seems worthy and full of interest and discovery, but I can't stop listening to the very first song, 'Hating'. Given how much time I now spend thinking about hate and its various precursors and metabolites, this song, which promises the return of apathy in the wake of hatred, helps what is wrong so much, but is the mere lack of feeling of pain a positive development or is it because all of the nerve endings are gone or because of adaptation to horror? This song makes me cry.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Ustalost - The Spoor Of Vipers (2016)
Dank misty castled black metal. Crumbling spirage projected. The dreams that come after falling asleep to vhs bluescreen. Tracking given its own life, detracked, but not detracted.
Antaeus - Condemnation (2016)
If you want to be down with the sickness in ways that actually kind of push you into the mud and the filth and the rot like an iron-mail-coated fist, but it is something that feels good rather than bad, or bad in a good way? Antaeus is there for you. Antaeus is there for your hurts and to transmute those hurts into a pleasure in living, no matter how hard or hopeless or endless the struggle is. Hail Antaeus! Hail French Black Metal! I haven't listened to Antaeus in years and this new album is pummeling in ways that I fully recommend!!! <3 nxww
Aus Rotten - The System Works ... For Them (1996)
"Take Your Fucking Race War And Shove It Up Your Ass!" - Aus Rotten 'When You Support These Fucking Bastards'
Pittsburgh PA! Aus Rotten's Anarcho-Punk sounds so good today. Twenty years on and this sounds like it was recorded today, a fact both thrilling and depressing. Fight. Fight. Fight. Never Quit. Never Give Up.
Behemoth - 'Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer' from The Satanist (2014)
Like if Bon Jovi was really really committed and fueled by Satan to rock them all and by them all it was meant a far-right illiberal democracy in Poland, this video would still be better than any Bon Jovi video ever. Is this my favorite Behemoth song off of what is undoubtedly one of the greatest metal albums ever made? Yeah, probably. This is the stuff I break out the acid-washed trench-dusters for, just to play air guitar, drawing sigils in the air against tyranny until the horns kick in and everything goes blacker than black. I honestly can't believe this song actually exists, this many years on. Hail Satan. Thine Is The Kingdom And The Power. Amen. Hear The Universe Dream. <3 nathaxn
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)